The Homefront

I)     The Home Front

A)   Centralized planning – 1941 was a banner production year for the auto industry, which was reluctant to abandon civilian production to make war material, and did so only under duress (and the promise of guaranteed profits of cost-plus contracts).

B)   “Dollar-a-year-men” – executives from the US firms who came to Washington to help the military plan the economy; this "sacrifice" on the part of business men (their salaries were actually paid by the companies that they left) did much to rehabilitate the reputation of business in the minds of the general populace after the Great Depression

1)    War Production Board – set prices and determined production, since the entire economy was planned from Washington.

2)    Suspension of anti-trust laws – encouraged the formation of larger firms, which officials in the military believed would better meet their production criteria—and which made procurement by the government easier, since they had to deal with fewer firms.

3)    Construction of new factories – at the governments expense, or with low cost government loans (often, after the war, these factories that the government owned were sold to private industry for pennies on the dollar). To ensure continued support for the government expenditures, some of these new factories were built in the South, which to this point had little industrialization.

4)    Cost-plus contracts--in order to compensate companies who changed over their production to war material, and to encourage continued cooperation, contracts were let with a government guaranteed profit; that is, the companies were compensated at their cost, plus a guaranteed profit.

C)   War Labor Board – arbitrated labor-management disputes; set wage rates for all workers.  In return, labor officials promised to abide by a “no-strike” pledge, which individual workers supported, except when it involved their own grievances at work.


1) The No-Strike Pledge--in the first blush of patriotism, unions promised not to strike for the duration of  the war. While this sounds doable in theory, workers quickly found that by giving up the right to strike, they also lost their best tool for keeping wages up with inflation, and the quickest way to effect changes in working conditions.

D)   Office of Price Administration – set price ceilings for almost all consumer goods, in an effort to control inflation--with little success.

E)    Selective Service – FDR administration followed the practice of Woodrow Wilson, and instituted a wide-ranging conscription program.


1) The "Double V" campaign--African American leaders encouraged participation in this Selective Service campaign with the "Double V" campaign--victory over fascism, and then victory for the civil rights of  African Americans at home.

a) Jackie Robinson--was nearly court-martialed for his resistance to riding in the back of the bus at the Southern military base he was initially assigned to when he entered the Army.

F)    War Manpower Commission – determined which workers work was vital to the war effort (which would prevent them from being drafted); also determined when a worker could change jobs.

G)   Concentration of the Economy

1)    Procurement system – fostered further concentration of the US economy; by the end of the war the top 100 companies held 70% of all civilian and military contracts, compared with 30% five years before.

2)    Industrial boom--with government contracts being placed for material and factories, and much of the male civilian population being drafted or (after December 1941) choosing to join the military, economic conditions improved greatly.

(a)   By 1943 unemployment disappeared

(b)  Second Great Migration – whites and blacks left the South for the Midwest and the West Coast, where most of the jobs created by this economic boom were found.

3)    Real income growth – 27% between 1939 to 1945

(a)   Redistribution of wealth – income of those at the bottom of the wage scale grew at a faster rate than the heavily taxed incomes at the top of the scale.

(b) Taxation--in order to pay for the war, War Bonds were famously issued. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that taxation was greatly extended as well; Americans who earned as little as $500 per year paid income tax at a 23 percent rate, while those who earned more than $1 million per year paid a 94 percent rate. The average income tax rate peaked in 1944 at 20.9 percent.

H) Americanization push – although there were ugly, racist aspects of this new push toward Americanization, it was not anti-European immigrant; in fact, most propaganda celebrated the ethnic diversity of America.

 1) Sojourner Truth Homes--Detroit became a tinderbox of potential conflict  because of the number of new workers moving into the city and inadequate housing. The Sojourner Truth projects were one point of contention, with blacks claiming (rightfully) a desperate  need for adequate  housing,  and whites  assuming that the housing built in  "white" neighborhoods would continue to be used for whites. When black began moving into the project, it set off a riot. This conflict simmered into the summer, when another riot was set off on Belle Isle.

2) Zoot Suit Riots--took place in  Los Angles, involving Mexican-American youths dressed in "zoot suits" and soldiers and sailors on temporary leave. A zoot suit, with

its long draped jacket, wide labels, and pleated and pegged trousers, waved its middle finger at the wartime conventions of conservation and all for the war effort. In part, this was the young Californio reaction to being treated as second class citizens by the white establishment. Pachuco culture, particularly with the zoot suit, satirized white culture--something whites  got upset about, and supported the sailors when the went into Mexican American neighborhoods for 10 straight nights to "de-zoot" these pachucos.

I)   Rosie the Riveter – women began to move into industrial jobs in unprecedented numbers during the war years; although most were force to give up those positions at the end of the war, they fought hard to remain in those positions, and a significant number of women remained in the industrial workforce after the war.

1)    Male resistance – women who moved into these jobs faced tremendous amounts of resistance from the males who remained on these jobs (give examples of harassment)

2)    Working mothers – faced problems relating to the lack of childcare, and the related problem of the alleged juvenile delinquency that their neglect caused.

3)    Role of women in society – remained largely unchanged; many saw women in these kinds of positions as a temporary war expediency, and expected women to willingly return to the kitchen and nursery at the war's  end.

Conclusion – the pressured of the war caused many of the programs to be implemented that the FDR administration had attempted to implement during the two phases of the New Deal; in fact what happens is the implementation of the military-industrial-government complex that a later president (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander during the war) warned against in his farewell address in 1959.