Shopping Mall Fallout

The Second World War affected life on the American home front in a multitude of ways. One such way World War II changed life on the home front was the creation of nuclear weapons and the fear they caused. In August 1945, the United States deployed two nuclear bombs on Japan, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki. In 1949, the Soviet Union would test its first successful nuclear bomb. The U.S. and the Soviet Union were tentative allies in World War II, not really trusting one another; the U.S. was manufacturing nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project but did not tell the Soviet Union what it was up to, so the Soviet Union used spies to infiltrate the Project and to alert Soviet scientists as to what the U.S. was doing. With the knowledge of nuclear weapons held by both superpowers, both began to build up their arsenals, and an arms race emerged in the post-war years, becoming a major aspect of the Cold War, which began almost as soon as World War II ended, with the dawn of the nuclear age. A result of the creation of the nuclear weapons, as well as the growing suburban way of life and disposable income for families, came something that Americans would take for granted, and is now slowly going by the wayside—the American shopping mall. Yes, the American shopping mall was a post-war creation, and one that would change American society and the post-war home front.

After the successful launch of the Soviet nuclear bomb, Americans sought ways to protect themselves and their families, and turned to bomb shelters; some of these bomb shelters were underground, similar to steel-and-concrete reinforced foxholes, while others were inconspicuous public places such as schools and hospitals. As America was growing increasingly prosperous with its new status as a major industrialized complex and a global superpower, families experienced an increase in disposable income. This meant that more people would be shopping for pleasure rather than necessity.

The first shopping mall in America was designed by Victor Gruen, who had immigrated to the United States from Austria in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution. He was an architect and would design many small shops and boutiques in the U.S.; he would also design the first shopping mall and it would opened in Edina, Minnesota in 1956, and the mall, the Southdale Mall, would be commissioned by the Dayton family, the owners of Target. Gruen's shopping malls were designed to be self-contained downtown centers where any Americans could spend their leisure time, but with the devastation that nuclear weapons were capable of during World War II, and the Cold War being in full-swing at the time he was designing the first mall and several others to come, Gruen also wanted shopping malls to act as nuclear fallout shelters. Obtaining advice from numerous civil defense contractors, the Southdale Mall, and the others Gruen would design, would have features similar to shopping malls we see today—food courts, ample water fountains and restroom access, locking gates on store entrances, stores facing one another, numerous entrances and exits and even "hidden" hallways and access points, a central arboretum with real plants, at least two anchor stores, and other features. However, the most important feature in nearly all shopping malls in the U.S. as a result of World War II, which is still a major feature today, is where the mall is located—ten miles away from the city centers; if a hydrogen bomb were to be dropped on the major cities in any given state, those outside its eight-mile blast radius would survive. Malls tend to be outside the city centers so if a nuclear strike does occur, the people inside the malls at the time would survive the strike. 

The idea of shopping malls operating as nuclear fallout shelters never really became popular, but it is interesting to think about the effects of World War II on our lives even today.

Sources

David Nye, "Shopping malls were created with nuclear war in mind", Business Insider Oct. 30, 2015, http://www.businessinsider.com/shopping-malls-were-created-with-nuclear-war-in-mind-2015-10, accessed November 6, 2017.

Marni Epstein-Mervis, "How the Cold War Shaped the Design of American Malls", Curbed June 11, 2014, https://www.curbed.com/2014/6/11/10090762/how-the-cold-war-shaped-the-design-of-american-malls, accessed November 6, 2017. 

America in World War II, Part Three

Hello readers. We're going to jump right in to this post. 

As we examined in the previous post, it seemed like everyone, young and old alike, in America was mobilized for the Allied war effort creating what FDR called an "arsenal of democracy". Aside from the mobilization of the American homefront, America also mobilized its armed forces and civil defense volunteers. This post will take a look at how the American military mobilized to fight abroad and how civil defense volunteers mobilized to keep the homefront safe in case war reached the American mainland.

Recruitment

A little over a year prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, in September 1940, FDR and Congress for concerned with the growing threat of war. Due to this concern the nation's first peacetime military draft was approved. By December 1941, America's military had grown to nearly 2.2 million soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. 

America's armed forces consisted largely of "citizen soldiers", men and women who had been drawn from civilian life. Many were volunteers rather than draftees, and they came from every state in the nation and from all socioeconomic levels. Although many of these citizen soldiers voluntarily joined the armed forces, about 10 million more would enter the ranks via the draft, with most being drafted into the US Army. 

In 1940, the Selective Training and Service Act was passed, requiring all men ages 18 to 64 to register for the draft. Eventually, 36 million men had registered for the draft.

From the Selective Services pool, individuals were selected for examination by a draft board that would determine if a man was fit to enter military service.

After being chosen by the draft board, potential servicemen reported to induction centers where they went through physical and psychiatric examinations. Upon passing these exams the man was fingerprinted, signed his induction papers, was issued a serial number, and was administered the oath of office. The man was then shipped to a training camp for basic training, more medical examinations, inoculations, and aptitude tests. 

Training and Barracks Life 

Basic training is real boys became men in ordinary civilians became soldiers.

At the training camps new recruits underwent rigorous physical conditioning. They were trained to use and maintain their weapons; they were trained to work as a team; they took examinations to determine their talents and were taught more specialized skills; and those who were moving on to become paratroopers, anti-aircraft teams, desert troops, and other unique units were trained at specialized training camps.

Military life in the 1940s was much like it is today. Upon their arrival at the camps for basic training, recruits were stripped of the freedom and individuality they enjoyed and their civilian lives. Recruits were given identical haircuts, uniforms, and equipment; they were assigned to spartan barracks that afforded no privacy and little room for personal belongings; and their daily lives and vault rigorous physical and combat training, routine inspections, and overall strict military conduct.

Civilian Defense Volunteers

Americans didn't just volunteer get drafted into the war. Many Americans trains to keep the American mainland safe as well.

Civilian defense volunteers, as these individuals were known, trained to defend the nation from enemy bombing and/or invasion. They trained in first aid, aircraft spotting, bomb removal, and firefighting; air raid wardens led practice drills and blackouts; and a total of over 10 million Americans were trained as a civilian defense volunteers.

Americans from all walks of life aided in the military's effort at home and abroad. Next time on the blog, we'll examine the American shopping mall and its role in World War II and beyond. 

America in World War II, Part Two

Hello readers! I'm getting away from posting about my book for a bit so I can get back to this blog and writing about history. As promised, this post will examine the methods the US took to mobilize for the war effort during World War II. 

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, public opinion of the US entry into World War II was generally changed. The fear of a possible attack on the American mainland translated to a ready acceptance by a majority of Americans to sacrifice their personal comforts in order to achieve victory. This sacrificing of personal comforts took on many forms. In the spring of 1942, a rationing program was established that set strict limits on the amount of gas, food, and clothing consumers could purchase; families were issued ration stamps that were used to buy their allotment of everything from meat, sugar, fat, butter, vegetables, and fruit to gas, tires, fuel oil, and clothing. The US Office of War Information issued posters in which Americans were urged to "Do with less so they'll have more" ("they" referring to servicemen and women). While this was happening, individuals and communities conducted drives for the collection of scrap metal, aluminum cans, and rubber, all of which were used to produce war goods such as armaments. Individuals also purchased war bonds to help pay for the high cost of involvment in an armed conflict.

The Role of the American Worker

As America geared up for war, the face of the American worker changed. As tens of thousands of men enlisted to fight in the global conflict, women would step up and take their place at the factories.

From the outside of the war, it was clear that huge amounts of airplanes, tanks, warships, rifles, munitions, and other various armaments would be essential to beating the Axis Powers. US workers played a vital role in the production of various war goods, and a vast majority of these workers were women. Women began securing jobs as welders, electricians, and riveters in defense plants; until the US began mobilizing to join world War II these positions had strictly been for men only.

Women defense plant workers soon became part of America's iconography. In 1942 a Pittsburgh artist named J. Howard Miller created the famous Rosie the Riveter "We Can Do It!" poster. That image was popularized further by artist Norman Rockwell on a May 29, 1943 issue of the Saturday Morning Post. 

There's much more to be said about these workers and their continued iconography in American pop culture. American women entered the workforce in unprecedented numbers during the World War II era. Between 1940 and 1945, the female percentage of the US workforce increased from 27% to nearly 37%; and by 1945, nearly one out of four married women were working outside the home. More than 310,000 women worked in the US aircraft industry in 1943, making up 65% of the industry's total workforce; the munitions industry also recruited women workers. During the war years, the decrease in the availability of men in the workforce also led to an uptick in the number of women holding non-war related factory jobs; by the mid-1940s the percentage of women in the US workforce increased from 25% to 36%. However, despite how crucial these women workers were to the war effort, their take-home earnings were about 50% less than the earnings of their male counterparts. 

America's Favorite Past Time

America's favorite pastime, baseball, was affected by the war. In January 1942, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the national commissioner of baseball at the time, wrote a letter to FDR asking if professional baseball shut down for the duration of the war; FDR responded that baseball was good for American morale and at the sport should continue operations as it would provide a much-needed diversion.

During the war, 95% of all professional baseball players who donned major league uniforms in 1941 were directly involved in the war. Future Hall of Famers Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, along with others, traded their baseball jerseys from military fatigues.

With so many male athletes going off to war, baseball belong to the girls in the early- to mid- 1940s as the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, or AAGPBL, was established. One of my favorite movies (of an admittedly large collection of favorite movies) is "A League of Their Own" which depicts some of the teams and women of the AAGPBL; the two main teams depicted in "A League of Their Own", the Rockford Peaches and the Racine Belles, were real teams. 

The AAGPBL was in league from 1943 to 1954 and consisted of ten teams and boasted a fanbase of nearly one million people. the aagpbl was founded by Philip Wrigley, the owner of the Chicago Cubs and the Wrigley Company.

Arts and Entertainment

Baseball wasn't the only cultural shift in America because of the war. 

Like professional baseball players actors and musicians directly join the war effort as well. For example, Clark Gable, who played Rhett Butler in "Gone with the Wind", served as a tail-gunner in the US Army Air Corps and flew combat missions over Germany.

Radio programming was tantamount during this time as a radio allowed for frontline reports from the war. Radio also allowed an escape via radio shows such as "The Green Hornet ", "The Lone Ranger", and others as well as brought music from popular big bands such as the famed Glenn Miller Band to listeners' homes. 

Moviegoing was still very popular during this time as well. Prior to the showings of each film, moviegoers watcged newsreel footage of the Allied war effort. Beloved cartoon characters Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were featured making fun of America's enemies; Superman fought Hitler and the Nazis; and Private SNAFU reminded the public that "loose lips sinks ships". 

Music of the era was often upbeat and entertaining but usually had themes of war, such as the song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" made famous by The Andrews Sisters.

Rationing and Recycling

Although touched upon very briefly previously, let's further examine the rationing and recycling efforts made on the American homefront. Along with the phrase "do with less so they'll have more", another well-known phrase from this era was "make it do or do without". Both phrases stressed the importance of how the average American could help the war effort.

War production created massive shortages of critical supplies such as various metals. Americans participated in scrap drives in recycled aluminum for the war effort. The US Mint assisted in the efforts as well; millions of miles of copper wiring and nickel were needed to communicate on the battlefield so the US Mint began to make pennies and nickels out of steel. 

Rationing became normal for the American household. Things like meat, coffee, and sugar were needed for soldiers K rations; sugar cane was also needed to produce gunpowder, dynamite, and other chemical products. Waste fat was also collected and rationed; a key ingredient needed to make the explosives for ammunition was glycerin, which could be collected from household waste fats. 

As many food items were being rationed to use for the war effort, many Americans began to grow their own food in "Victory Gardens". Millions of Victory Gardens appeared across the country with Americans producing over one billion tons of food. 

America's mobilization effort was astonishing; everyone played a role to ensure the Allied war effort was a successful one. 

Next time, we'll examine how the American soldiers and civil defense volunteers trained for war abroad and to keep those on the American mainland safe at home.