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.
No comments:
Post a Comment