T6 Social Cultural

Question 1

Social Effects

Answer 1

• The New Deal did bring about fundamental social changes.
• Relief One of the greatest achievements of the New Deal was in changing the role of federal government. This was particularly true of help for the less fortunate members of society.
• Relief agencies such as FERA and the WPA were set up to offer hope to millions. There were new departures in governmental responsibilities.
• The Social Security Act was not strictly a relief measure as it was financed through contributions paid by recipients.
• However, it did set up a national system of old-age pensions and unemployment benefit for the first time.
• It is true that the amounts spent were inadequate for the needs of a population suffering from a prolonged depression.
• Nevertheless, important precedents were set by this legislation. It could be built on in the future.
• Never before had the Federal Government become involved in granting direct relief or benefits.
• Roosevelt initially saw relief agencies as only temporary expedients until economic recovery was
  achieved.
• In offering direct relief, however, he significantly increased the role of federal government.
• This led in turn to a greater role for state and local governments as partners, however unwillingly
  at first, in many of the programmes.

Question 2

Women and the New Deal

Answer 2

• Women held more important posts in government during the New Deal era than at any time
  before or after until the 1990s.
• Mrs Roosevelt was one of the most politically active first ladies.
• As Secretary of Labour from 1933 to 1945, Frances Perkins was only one of many women holding
  government office and Ruth Bryan Owen became the first female ambassador (to Denmark) in
  1933.
• The New Deal itself did little for women. Unlike African Americans, they did not tend to vote as a
  group.
• As a result, politicians did not set out particularly to win their support. Much New Deal legislation
  worked against them:
• In 1933, the Economy Act forbade members of the same family from working for federal
  government. A total of 75 per cent of those who lost their jobs through this measure were married
  women.
• NRA codes allowed for unequal wages.
• Some agencies, such as the CCC, barred women entirely.
• Women suffered particularly in the professions where, even by 1940, about 90 per cent of jobs
  were filled by men.
• Where women did find employment, which many had to do to balance the family budget, it
  tended to be in low-status, poorly paid jobs.
• On average during the 1930s, at $525 per annum, women earned half the average wage of men.

Question 3

African Americans and the New Deal

Answer 3

• Roosevelt needed the vote of Southern Democrats and not surprisingly, therefore, the New Deal
  saw no civil rights legislation.
• Many measures – the AAA for instance – worked against African Americans.
• African Americans suffered particularly badly in the Depression, often being the last to be taken
  on and the first to be fired.
• Many poorly paid, menial jobs previously reserved for them were now taken by whites.
• NRA codes allowed for African Americans to be paid less than whites for doing the same jobs.
• Some African Americans called the NRA the ‘Negro-run-around’ because it was so unfair to them.
• The CCC was run by a Southern racist who did little to encourage African Americans to join: those
  who did faced strict segregation.
• Anti-lynching bills were introduced into Congress in 1934 and 1937, but Roosevelt did nothing to
  support either and both were eventually defeated.
• The President did employ more African Americans in government, notably Mary McLeod Bethune
  at the National Youth Administration (NYA).
• However, while there were more African Americans in government office, it seems an
  exaggeration to speak as some did of an ‘African-American cabinet’ addressing race issues.
• The civil service tripled the number of African Americans in its employment between 1932 and
  1941 to 150,000.
• There was also some unofficial positive discrimination, notably again in the NYA where African
  American officials were usually appointed in areas where African Americans predominated.

Question 4

Native Americans

Answer 4

• The new Commissioner for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, John Collier, was determined to reverse
  government policy towards Native Americans and abolish assimilation.
• The Indian Reorganisation Act of 1934 recognised and encouraged Native American culture in a
  shift from the former policy of assimilation.
• Tribes were reorganised into self-governing bodies that could vote to adopt constitutions and
  have their own police and legal systems.
• They could control land sales on the reservations, while new tribal corporations were established
  to manage tribal resources.
• However, many argued that respect for traditional Native American culture and society
  undermined efforts to modernise and join mainstream society.
• Indeed, 75 out of 245 tribes vetoed them when asked to vote on the measures.
• These measures in no way relieved Native American poverty.
• Officials did their best to ensure Native Americans could take advantage of New Deal agencies
  such as the CCC and PWA to find jobs, but Native American poverty was so great that these
  measures, for all their good intentions, could have only a very limited effect at best.
• As New Deal programmes wound down in the 1940s, Native Americans began to set up pressure
  groups to promote their development, but they often remained among the poorest people in the
  USA.
• In 1943, for example, a Senate enquiry found widespread poverty among Native Americans on
  reservations.

Question 5

WW2 Social Effects

Answer 5

However, while the economy grew significantly during the war years, the most dramatic changes
occurred in the lives of ordinary Americans.

Question 6

The Treatment of Japanese Americans

Answer 6

• Towards the end of 1941, as US–Japanese relations worsened, 2,000 Japanese-labelled
  subversives had been rounded up (along with 14,000 Germans and Italians), although there was
  no official desire for internment.
• In fact, General John L. Dewitt, Chief of the Army West Coast Command, dismissed any such talk
  as ‘damned nonsense’.
• However, increasing fears of a Japanese attack on the West Coast led to calls for internment even
  by respected journalists such as Walter Lippmann.
• Dewitt, responsible for West Coast security, gave in to this pressure, saying it was impossible to
  distinguish between loyal and traitorous Japanese and therefore all should be locked up.
• Between February and March 1942, 15,000 Japanese Americans, many of whom had relations
  fighting in the American forces, voluntarily left Dewitt’s area of command.
• However, other areas of the USA refused to accept them. The Attorney-General of Idaho, for
  example, said his state was for whites only.
• Dewitt decided on compulsory relocation; ten ‘relocation centres’ were set up throughout the
  West, where 100,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly sent.
• They had to leave their property unprotected. Much looting went on in their absence. One source
  estimated the community suffered losses worth $400 million.
• The relocation centres, meanwhile, were akin to concentration camps with armed guards and
  barrack-type accommodation.
• Riots in the camp at Manzanar left two inmates dead.
• One of the guards said the only thing that stopped him machine gunning them was what the
  Japanese might do to the American POWs in retaliation.
• By 1944, as fear of Japanese attack receded, the internees began to return home.
• In December 1944, the Supreme Court forbade the internment of loyal Japanese Americans.
• Nevertheless, neither their fellow Japanese-American citizens who lived outside Dewitt’s
  command nor German or Italian Americans had been interned in this way, and so ill-feeling among
  many of those involved remained for some time.

Question 7

WW2 & Women

Answer 7

• During the 1940s, the traditional role of a woman was still seen as a wife and mother.
• Nevertheless, at the beginning of the Second World War, there were about 13 million female
  workers and at the height of the war in 1944, this figure had increased to 19 million.
• Many did take on the jobs of men but many employers and male workers considered them inferior
  colleagues.
• Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady, was a powerful spokeswoman for female workers during the
  war.
• Many new jobs during the war were in traditionally ‘male’ occupations such as the shipyards,
  aircraft factories and munitions.
• One in three aircraft workers and half of those working in electronics and munitions were women.
• Indeed, the pay in munitions work could be double that normally paid to women in ‘female’
  occupations.
• In 1942, a poll showed that 60 per cent of Americans were in favour of women helping with the
  war industries, yet there was a degree of ambivalence to the employment of women throughout
  the war.
• Some US states made equal pay between men and women (for the same role) compulsory, while
  others tried to protect women from workplace discrimination. However, racial discrimination
  continued, for instance African-American women were, by and large, almost always the last to be
  hired.
• There were also many ‘hate strikes’, such as the ones at the Packard car factory in Detroit as a
  result of the employment of African-American women.
• At the end of the war, the majority of women gave up their wartime jobs and returned to their
  traditional pre-1941 ‘female’ roles.
• However, they were generally excluded from the top, well-paid jobs.
• On average, women earned 50–60 per cent of the wage that men earned for doing the same job.
  In 1944, the average weekly wage for working women was $31.21 and for men it was $56.65.
• A woman could still be dismissed from her job when she married.

Question 8

WW2 & African Americans

Answer 8

• When war broke out, there was increased optimism that things would change among African
  Americans.
• After all, if the USA was fighting fascism and racism, how could it continue to discriminate and
  deny civil rights to large sections of its own population?
• In 1940, there were 12.9 million African Americans in the USA.
• The census of that year showed that there were almost 5.4 million employed, of whom 3.5 million
  were male.
• The vast majority of those employed had menial jobs, which were low paid. The average annual
  wage was $537 for men in 1939 and $331 for women.
• Both earned less than half that of their white counterparts. When the war broke out in Europe,
  unemployment among whites was fourteen per cent and as war-related industries began to seek
  workers, whites were taken on immediately. Unemployed African Americans did not benefit from
  this initial boom.
• A survey conducted by the US Employment Office in 1940 among the defence industries indicated
  that more than half would not employ African Americans.
• In some cases, it was not simply the companies’ owners who were propounding discrimination, it
  was their workers. The owners did not wish to fall foul of their employees.

Question 9

WW2, African Americans & The Double V Campaign

Answer 9

• Despite the valuable contribution that African Americans made to the war effort, they continued
  to be treated poorly.
• An African-American newspaper, Pittsburgh Courier, created the Double V Campaign after
  readers began commenting on the second-class status of African-American workers during
  wartime.
• ‘Double V’ meant victory at home in terms of improved civil rights as well as victory abroad against
  fascism and dictatorship.
• The newspaper promoted the campaign by publishing numerous articles, letters and
  photographs.
• The effect was immediate and black newspapers across the USA began to support the campaign,
  thereby raising the profile of civil rights.

Question 10

WW2, African Americans & The March on Washington Movement (1941)

Answer 10

• Philip Randolph, one of the most prominent leading African-American activists and trade
  unionists, was appalled at the discrimination not only in the war industries but also in the US
  armed forces.
• Randolph called for immediate action and sought to shame the government into action and bring
  an end to the inequality.
• He wanted direct action and organised the March on Washington Movement.
• It was expected that the march would include up to 100,000 demonstrators and, if this were
  publicised across the world, then it could do little to sustain the USA’s image of the upholder of
  liberty and democracy.
• Roosevelt was concerned that the march would discredit and embarrass not only the government,
  but the USA as a whole.
• Eventually they came to a compromise. Randolph called off the march and Roosevelt issued
  Executive Order 8802 and set up the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to prevent
  discrimination at work.
• However, Randolph did not completely disband the March on Washington Movement.
• He continued to encourage African Americans to go on protest rallies to ensure that the issue of
  discrimination remained firmly in the public view.
• He also encouraged acts of civil disobedience to show opposition to laws that permitted unfair
  and unequal treatment.

Question 11

WW2, African Americans & The Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC)

Answer 11

• As a result of Executive Order 8802, the FEPC was set up in June 1941. Paragraph 3 of Order 8802
  permitted the FEPC to investigate complaints and take action against alleged employment
  discrimination.
• As jobs in the defence industries increased, many African Americans migrated from the South in
  search of employment.
• They were joined by those in the North who sought better paid jobs. However, when African
  Americans were hired for jobs, most were still given menial posts.
• By 1943, the FEPC had become aware of widespread discrimination within a number of
  companies.
• Roosevelt then issued Executive Order 9346, which gave the Commission greater powers, and
  increased its budget to nearly half a million dollars.
• The FEPC investigated about 8,000 instances of discrimination and was successful with 66 per cent
  of its cases in the North-east, 62 per cent in the Mid-west and 55 per cent in the West.

Question 12

WW2, African Americans & the US Armed Forces

Answer 12

• The war highlighted the racism and discrimination in the armed forces.
• Many African-Americans enlisted in what became known as the Jim Crow army.
• On occasions, African-American soldiers were given inferior training, had few recreational
  facilities, and endured racial slurs and even serious physical mistreatment.
• Moreover, many white officers thought that African-American soldiers were undisciplined,
  morally wanting, mentally deficient and even cowardly in battle.
• African-Americans performed the menial non-combat tasks such as cooking, guarding prisoners,
  delivering supplies and building camps and roads.
• They found promotion difficult and the highest rank most reached was first lieutenant.
• As late as the spring of 1943, only 79,000 out of a total of 504,000 African American soldiers were
  overseas, simply because white army commanders did not want them.
• African Americans had not been allowed to enlist in the developing air force.
• However, in 1940, President Roosevelt ordered the air corps to recruit an all-African-American
  flying unit.
• By the end of 1945, more than 600 pilots had been trained, although they were not allowed to fly
  in the same groups as whites.
• The all-African-American squadron was based in Tuskegee, Alabama. It became known as the
  Tuskegee Airmen (332nd Fighter Group) and won great acclaim acting as fighter escorts for US
  bombers.
• There had been progress for African Americans during the Second World War in employment and
  the armed forces, and many African Americans had become more active in campaigning for civil
  rights.
• On the other hand, discrimination and segregation remained a way of life in the Southern states.