Unit VIII Terms Flashcards
Imperialism
Western frontier was closed. Alfred Thayer Mahan, who said strong navy and colonies were required to have influence on the world stage. Growth of American Industry and desire for new markets after the 1893 depression. Wanted military might, pursuit of political strength, Christianity (Frederick Jackson Turner would say “it’s next”).
Justified imperialism through arguments such as “the white man’s burden”, that they were bringing civilization to the colonies their acquired. Used racism and ethnicity to argue that those in the colonies would benefit from being subjugated.
Acquisition of Hawai’i
Annexed in 1898. After conflict between businessmen and ruler of the island, US staged a coup and established new provisional government.
The Spanish-American War, 1898
Very brief, lasted from April of 1898 to August of 1898. The US had been eyeing Cuba, and was unhappy that the Spanish had control over it, seemed to be looking for an excuse to go to war with Spain. Pro-independence insurrections in late 1800s, led by Jose Marte. War was kickstarted by the sinking of the USS Maine, the blame for which was placed on Spain, though the explosion could have come from the inside. Was ended by the Treaty of Paris, whereby Spain ceded Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the US in exchange for $20 million.
The Filipino War, 1899-1902
Though the US had claimed that they were helping the Filipino’s win their independence, the US acquired the Philippines through the Treaty of Paris, and had no intention of letting them be so. Emilio Aguinaldo led Filipino forces. Huge number of them died – civilians and rebels alike. US wanted the Philippines because it would give them a foothold in China, leading to the Open Door Policy (Much of China had a sphere of influence by other world powers, influence the US wanted).
The Platt Amendment, 1902
Allowed the US to militarily intervene in Cuba if deemed necessary. Limited Cuban government’s ability to control its own foreign policy and manage its debts.
The Panama Canal
1903, seen as the opportunity for a shortcut to trade with Asia. Panama previously owned by Columbia, which refused to sell the land to the US, so American investors inspired a rebellion, then reached a deal with independent Panama.
“Big Stick” Diplomacy
US should deal with other nations by not being too harsh or commandeering, but using the threat of military force to act as policeman of the world.
The Roosevelt Corollary was seen as the extension of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which declared the Americas as under the influence of the US and not to be colonised by other European powers. In 1904, stated that the United States would intervene as a last resort to ensure that other nations in the Western Hemisphere fulfilled their obligations to international creditors, and did not violate the rights of the United States or invite “foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations.”
Dollar Diplomacy
Around 1910/1911. The use of private funds to serve American diplomatic goals and garner profits for American financiers, and at the same time bring reform to less-developed countries. Attempts by President Taft to counter Japanese advances in Asia, which ultimately failed.
Interventions in México, 1914, 1916
Before the overthrowing of dictator Diaz, American investors had owned almost half of Mexican land and basically controlled its foreign trade. When Mexican revolutionaries overthrew his regime, they sought to reclaim their nation’s sovereignty and end their economic dependency on the US. Revolution descended into a bloody civil war, and though President Wilson sent US troops over twice, they ultimately departed in January 1917.
Wilsonianism
Emphasis on the freedom of the seas, and making the world “safe for democracy”.
Wilson’s 14 Points
Emphasized international cooperation – world order based on freedom of the seas, removal of barriers to trade, self-determination for European peoples, and an international organization to resolve conflicts. Made after the end of WWI.
US Entry into WWI
Allied powers seen as the democratic side of the war as czarist Russia is no longer part of it. Central powers portrayed as barbaric and aggressive. Desire to make the world safe for democracy. Zimmerman Note – Germany would help Mexico regain territory lost to the US if it fights for Germany (January 1917). Revoking of Sussex Pledge by Germany (which protected US ships from attack). Pro-war propaganda.
Sent 2 million soldiers, helped attack German-held territory and repelled German advances. Fresh men who haven’t been weighed down by years in the trenches.
US Involvement in WWI
Massive growth of US Government. Building an army: National Defense Act of 1916 – expanded army, created National Guard, ROTC –, Navy Act of 1916, Selective Service Act of 1917, American Expeditionary Force. Organizing the war: War Industries Board, Food Administration, Railroad Administration, Fuel Administration, victory gardens – grow food yourself –, National War Labour Board. Financing the war: liberty bonds, news taxes (income and corporate).
Draft
May 1917, Congress passed the Selective Services Act, requiring all males between the ages of 21 and 30 (later 18-45) to register. National service would not only prepare the nation for battle but also instill patriotism and respect for oder, democracy and personal sacrifice.
War Industries Board
Headed by financier Bernard Baruch. Designed as a clearing-house for coordinating the national economy, the WIB made purchases, allocated supplies and fixed prices at levels that business requested. Ordered the standardization of goods to save materials and streamline production.
National Labour Board
Wilson instituted it in early 1918 to keep factories running smoothly. It discouraged strikes and lockouts and urged management to negotiate with existing unions. Makes sure everyone has a job.
Committee on Public Information
Formed April 1917, employed some of the nation’s most talented writers and scholars to shape and mobilize public opinion using propaganda. Demonized the Germans – thereby alienated German immigrants. Administration’s campaign to win support for the war. Encourage journalism’s “self-censorship” and neighbours to spy on each other.
Espionage and Sedition Acts
Espionage and Sedition Acts
Espionage Act of 1917 forbade “false statements” designed to impede draft or promote military insubordination. The Sedition Act of 1918 made it unlawful to obstruct the sale of war bonds and use disloyal or abusive language to describe the government, the military, the Constitution or the flag.
The Red Scare
The Russian Revolution and communist uprisings scared Americans, fears grew in 1919 when Soviet leadership announced the formation of Communist International.
The Palmer Raids
January 1920, planned by J. Edgar Hoover. Reflection of the Red Scare, in which government agents in 33 cities broke into meeting halls and homes without search warrants. More than 4,000 people were denied counsel and jailed.
The Paris Peace Conference
Wilson’s 14 points: article 10, hopes and warns against alliances, which will inevitably drag countries into conflict in the future. The Allied Powers decided the fate of Germany and other countries involved in the war.
Treaty of Versailles
The US didn’t sign because of the rise in isolationist sentiment (regarding world affairs) and reluctance/refusal to join the League of Nations (the one part of the 14th Points that European Powers welcomed). The Senate did not ratify it, so the US did not join the League. June 1919.
The Great Migration
Feeling stifled in comparison with urban way of life, 6 million Americans left farms for the city. They moved to regional centers or to the West. Streams of rural southerners moved to western industrial cities or to Chicago and Cleveland. African Americans made up 1.5 million of those Americans – pushed from cotton farming and lured by industrial jobs.
National Origins Act of 1924
Replaced Emergency Quota Act of 1921. Limited annual immigration to 150,000 people and set quotas at 2% of each nationality residing in the US in 1890, except for Asians (banned completely). Allowed foreign-born wives and children of US citizens to reside in the US without a quota.
Unilateralism vs Isolationism: 1920s vs 1930s
Isolationism is defined as a national policy of abstaining from political or economic relations with other countries. Unilateralism- undertaken or done by or on behalf of one side, party, or faction: not mutual. Relating to, occurring on, or involving one side only.
Washington Naval Conference
1922, Peace advocated influence Warren G. Harding’s Administration to convene the conference. Delegates from Britain, Japan, France, Italy, China, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands joined a US team led by Secretary of State to discuss limits on naval armaments. Britain, the US and Japan were facing a naval arms’ race whose huge military spending endangered economic rehabilitation. US also feared Japan would overtake the US’ navy. Hughes offered to scrap 30 major US ships.
The Dawes Plan, 1924
Loans to Germany to help them re-establish themselves and repay their war debts.
The Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928
62 nations agreed to “condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it ass an instrument of national policy”. Lacked enforcement provisions. Reflected popular opinion that war was barbaric and wasteful, stimulated serious discussion about peace and war.
Warren Harding
An Ohio native and Republican, Harding was a successful newspaper publisher who served in the Ohio legislature and the U.S. Senate. In 1920, he won the general election in a landslide, promising a “return to normalcy” after the hardships of World War I (1914-1918). As president, he favored pro-business policies and limited immigration. Harding died suddenly in San Francisco in 1923, and was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933). After Harding’s death, the Teapot Dome Scandal and other instances of corruption came to light, damaging his reputation.
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), the 30th U.S. president, led the nation through most of the Roaring Twenties, a decade of dynamic social and cultural change, materialism and excess. He took office on August 3, 1923, following the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), whose administration was riddled with scandal. Nicknamed “Silent Cal” for his quiet, steadfast and frugal nature, Coolidge, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, cleaned up the rampant corruption of the Harding administration and provided a model of stability and respectability for the American people in an era of fast-paced modernization. He was a pro-business conservative who favored tax cuts and limited government spending. Yet some of his laissez-faire policies also contributed to the economic problems that erupted into the Great Depression.
Herbert Hoover
Fused traditional value of individual hard work with modern emphasis on corporate action. Republican candidate in 1928. Quaker, wealthy mining engineer. US Food Administrator and head of the food relief for Europe during and after WW1. Secretary of Commerce, promoted associationalism – wanted to stimulate cooperative associational relationship between business and government. Believed economy would be self-regulatory.
Bonus Army
More than 15 thousand WWI veterans and their families converged on the capital as Congress debated a bill authorizing the immediate payment of cash “bonuses” they had been scheduled to receive in 1945. Set up shantytowns, and when the bill was opposed and marchers stayed on, Hoover sent in several infantry companies and troops of cavalry, who assaulted men, women and children with tear gas and burned down their tents.
Causes of the Great Depression
Agriculture languishing for decades, many areas, particularly the South, excluded from consumer society. Industried failed to sustain profit, fever of speculation, rash investment in California and Florida real estate and in stock market. Declining demand in most industries, underconsumption from income distribution and decreased amount of demand causing falling prices and wages. Businesses overloaded themselves with debt (misrepresented assets). International economic conditions.
Farming Crisis: food prices hit rock bottom, surpluses were dumped in global market, producing more only further lowered the prices. The Dust Bowl drove farmers off their land.
The Crash
October 29 1929, people begin to sell, prices begin to fall, panic sets in. Markets being to crash, fear leads to run on banks. Banks have loaned out all their money to those who were playing the market which they can no longer collect. Banks are forced to close their doors and declare bankruptcy
President’s Organization on Unemployment Relief (POUR)
Aimed to generate private contributions to aid the destitute. However, treasuries were drying up and charitable contributions were nowhere near adequate. Hoover, however, still believe it was not the government’s job to relieve individuals.
Election of 1932
Franklin D. Roosevelt running against Herbert Hoover. Won by a landslide – all but 3 states.
Franklin Roosevelt
Insisted that the federal government ought to play a much greater role. Democratic challenger. Supported direct relief payments for the unemployed, declaring it a matter of social duty. Committed to using the power of the government to combat the economic crisis.
The First New Deal
Mainly focused on helping the economy recover, instead of focusing on core social issues.
National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA), belief that the destructive competition had worsened the economy. Allowed competing businesses to cooperate in crafting industry-wide codes (for production, wages, prices). Hoped stabilization would increase consumer spending. Also allowed workers to unionize. It was voluntary – businesses flew the blue eagle if they agreed to it.
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), established a national system of crop controls, offered subsidies to farmers who agreed to limit production of certain crops – raised agricultural prices, but seen as a waste by those going hungry. Disaster for tenant farmers and sharecroppers.
Tennessee Valley Act, hoped to relieve an impoverished south by bringing water and hydropower to the rural areas of the south. Constructed dams and helped develop the economy. However, very environmentally damaging – caused acid rain, soil erosion and contaminated the water supply.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) hired young unmarried men to do hard labour – work relief.
Second New Deal
Significantly more socially oriented, not just getting involved economically, but also trying to solve glaring social problems.
The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act provided $4 billion in deficit spending – public work programs.
Wagner Act 1935 – guaranteed workers the right to unionize and bargain collectively. Banned unfair labour practices by employers.
National Youth Administration – sponsored work-relief programs for young adults and part-time jobs for students.
Rural Electrification Administration, REA, brought electricity to rural, isolated areas.
Works Progress Administration (WPA), employed 8.5 million people for construction, rebuilding of thousands of roads, buildings, irrigation systems, etc.
Social Security Act, a federal pension system, where eligible workers paid mandatory social security taxes, so will employers, then received federal retirement benefits
Critics of the New Deal
Wealthy business leaders condemned government regulation and taxation and the use of deficit financing for relief and public works. Established American Liberty League.
Populists thought government favoured business too much and paid too little attention to the needs of the common people (Huey Long, wanted to heavily tax the rich, and Father Charles Coughlin, anti-New Deal and anti-Semitic).
Left-wing, socialists and communists, said government was saving capitalism instead of fixing the disparity of wealth and power.
Victories of Labor during New Deal
Wagner Act
Strikes in mid 1930s – sit-down strikes, which proved to be a very effective way of getting employers to listen.
Limits of New Deal
Court Packing, Roosevelt recession, discrimination (Scottsboro Boys).
Lasting New Deal Programs
Social security – Social Security Act, pay in a portion of your check every month. Protected retired, widowed and orphaned people, who would receive a check. Protection for the elderly and children.
FDIC, government insures your money up to $250,000.
Banking Act of 1933, Glass-Steagall Act, banks can only use a certain amount of money to invest, otherwise funds must remain in the bank.
Rise of the KKK
Reconstructed in 1915 by William J. Simmons, the Klan adopted the hoods, intimidation tactics and mystical terminology of its forerunner. Fanned outward from the Deep South and for a time wielded political influence even in diverse places. Members were from middle class who feared losing social and economic gains achieved from postwar prosperity, and nervous about new youth culture seeming to elude family control. Women’s adjunct: omen of the KKK, with 500,000 members. Wanted no immigration, no “mongrelization” of American culture. White supremacy was a matter of survival. Used threatening assemblies, violence and political and economic pressure: meshed out vigilante justice, forced schools to stop teaching the theory of evolution, campaigned against Catholic and Jewish candidates, fueled racial tensions with Mexicans and blacks. Method of Justice was flogging.
Sacco and Vanzetti
Italian anarchists were convicted of murdering a paymaker and guard in Massachusetts, and despite flimsy evidence, judge openly sided with prosecution, calling them “anarchist bastards”. Reflection of fear of immigrant radicals. 1921
Fundamentalism
Pursuit of spiritual purity. Sought salvation from society’s materialism and hedonism by following literal interpretations of the bible. Condemned the teaching of the theory of evolution – claimed that where they were the majority in communities, should be able to decide what gets taught.
The Scopes Trial, 1925
Fundamentalists had banned teaching of theory of evolution in Tennessee. High school teacher volunteered to serve in a test case, and was arrested for violating the law. William Jennings Bryant was for the prosecution and civil liberties lawyers defended Scopes. He was convicted, but modernists claimed testimony showed fundamentalism to be illogical.
Prohibition
Though the 18th Amendment efficiently reduced alcohol consumption and number of drunk arrests, federal and state governments did little to enforce it. Illegal alcohol was made at home or smuggled in and purchased. Mobs like Al Capone controlled politicians and governments.
The Harlem Renaissance
Middle-class, educated African Americans proud of their heritage, rejected white culture. Fostered artists and intellectuals grappling with the notion of identity, realizing they had to come to terms with being free Americans.
Jazz
Evolving from African and black American folk music, reflected their experience in public and political lives.
American Friends Service Committee
Created by Quakers, YMCA officials, and Social Gospel clergy in 1917 to identify pacifist alternatives to warmaking.
Washington Naval Conference
1922, Peace advocated influence Warren G. Harding’s Administration to convene the conference. Delegates from Britain, Japan, France, Italy, China, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands joined a US team led by Secretary of State to discuss limits on naval armaments. Britain, the US and Japan were facing a naval arms’ race whose huge military spending endangered economic rehabilitation. US also feared Japan would overtake the US’ navy. Hughes offered to scrap 30 major US ships.
Nine-Power Treaty
Reaffirmed the Open Door in China, recognizing Chinese sovereignty.
Kellogg-Briand Pact
62 nations agreed to “condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it ass an instrument of national policy”. Lacked enforcement provisions. Reflected popular opinion that war was barbaric and wasteful, stimulated serious discussion about peace and war.
Webb-Pomerene Act (1918)
Excluded from antitrust prosecution those combinations set up for export trade.
Edge Act (1919)
Permitted American banks to open foreign-branch banks.
Reparations
Inter-Allied debts totalled in $26.5 billion ($9.6 billion of them owed to US government). Germany had a $33 billion reparations bill. American investors’ money flowed to Germany, Germany paid reparations to the Allies, and the Allies them paid off some of their debts to the US.
Export-Import Bank
1934, Hull helped create it. A government agency that provided loans to foreigners for the purchase of American goods. Stimulated trade and became a diplomatic weapon, allowing US to exact concessions through the approval or denial of loans
Washington Treaty System
The assumption was that certain powers would be responsible for maintaining order in their regions – Japan in East Asia, US in Latin America.
Good Neighbour Policy
Aimed to bring about closer ties between North and South America (pan-americanism), support for strong local leaders, the training of national guards, economic and cultural penetration, Export-Import Bank loans, financial supervision, and political subversion. US would be less blatant in its domination – less willing to defend exploitative business practices, less eager to launch military expeditions, and less reluctant to consult with Latin Americans.
US-Latin American Relations between 1911-1935
Roosevelt claimed to agree that no nation should interfere with the internal or external affairs of others, however, the US continued to wield great influence over all of Latin America. It has military forces stationed in several Latin-American countries, which it later withdrew. Nonetheless, the US continued to protect itself, preferring dictators and oppressive regimes that would protect US interests.
Conservative Isolationists
Key elements were abhorrence of war and fervent opposition to US alliances with other nations. Feared higher taxes and increased executive power if the nation went to war again. Predicted that as they attempted to spread democracy around the world, Americans would lose their freedoms at home.
Liberal Isolationists
Worried that domestic problems might go unresolved as the nation spent more on the military. Predicted that as they attempted to spread democracy around the world, Americans would lose their freedoms at home.
Nye Committee Hearings
Senator Nye held hearings from 1934 to 1936 on the role of business and financiers in the US decision to enter the First World War. It uncovered evidence that corporations practicing “rotten commercialism” had bribed foreign politicians to bolster arms sales in the 1920s and 1930s and had lobbied against arms control.
Neutrality Act 1937
Introduced the cash-and-carry principle: warring nations wishing to trade with the US would have to pay cash for their nonmilitary purchases and carry the goods from US ports in their own ships. Forbade Americans from traveling on the ships of belligerent nations.
Kristallnacht
Named for the shattered glass that littered the streets after the attack on Jewish synagogues, businesses and homes, sent tens of thousands of Jews to concentration camps.
Blitzkrieg
Lighting war – new form of warfare. Highly mobile land forces and armor combines with tactical aircraft.
Japan
Had seized Chinese territory in 1931, pressured China. Japan thereafter seized the coast of China, though the US still avoided declaring war. Japan then declared a “new order” in Asia and “banged, barred and bolted” the Open Door.
Seized the Philippines, Japanese forced-marched their captives to prison camps 80 miles away in the Bataan Death March. 10,000 Filipinos and 600 Americans died.
Lead up to WWII
By 1941, Germany controls: Poland, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Algeria, Tunisia and parts of the Soviet Union. England stands alone against Hitler.
America First Committee
850,000 members – Gerald Ford, future head of Peace Corps, future Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart, Charles Lindbergh (even JFK contributed). Non-interventionist pressure group against American entry into WWII. Characterized as an anti-semitic and pro-fascist rhetoric.
FDR Prepares
May 1940 – sends old military equipment to Britain and France.
July 1940 – replaces secretaries of War and Navy with Pro-Allied aid backers.
September 1940 – Lend-Lease Act, trades 50 destroyers for leasing space on British military bases.
October 1940 – Selective Service and Training Act, the first peace military draft.
January 1941 – Four freedoms: address to Congress.
August 1941 – Atlantic Charter: FDR and Churchill set up peace objectives for after the war. Shoot on sight: protecting British ships.
Economic sanctions on Japan: no export of steel or iron, froze credit, cut off oil.
Lend-Lease Act
Set up a system that would allow the US to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed “vital to the defense of the US”. Supported England.
Atlantic Charter
Laid out the future for the world post war – would have freedom of the seas, more open trade and the self governance of people in their nations.
US Joins WWII
Japanese attack Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. After the attack, FDR declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy, and we are officially in WWII. Declares war of Axis Powers.
Europe First
America recognized that Germany was a greater danger than Japan to US (if conquered the Soviet Union). Feared SU might pursue separate peace with Germany. First defeat Germany, then Japan.
Invasion of North Africa, 1942
On November 8, 1942, the military forces of the United States and the United Kingdom launched an amphibious operation against French North Africa, in particular the French-held territories of Algeria and Morocco. That landing, code-named ‘Torch,’ reflected the results of long and contentious arguments between British and American planners about the future course of Allied strategy — arguments that were finally stilled by the intervention of the American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. In both a direct and an indirect sense, Torch’s impact was enormous on the course of Anglo-American strategy during the remainder of the war.
Invasion of Italy, 1943
The British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery begins the Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula, crossing the Strait of Messina from Sicily and landing at Calabria–the “toe” of Italy. On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies’ terms for surrender, but no public announcement was made until September 8.
D-Day 1944
June 6th 1944, largest amphibious landing in history, more than 140,000 Allied troops under the command of American general Dwight D Eisenhower scrambled ashore at Normandy, France. Thousands of ships ferried the men within one hundred yards of the sandy beaches. Men were showered with bullets, and many died on the shores. Was a narrow victory for the Allies, and thereafter Germany was on the defensive.
V-E Day, May 1945
May 8th, Germany surrendered. Adolf Hitler killed himself in a bunker in bomb-ravaged Berlin.
The Battle of Midway
June 1942, turning point in Pacific War. As Japanese fleet flew to Midway, found US forces lying in wait (US could decipher Japanese code).
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Truman wasn’t aware the atomic bombs existed until taking office. Leading scientists and military leaders were urging restraint while others, politicians, were advising him to drop the bombs to end the war quickly. Bomb on Hiroshima was dropped on August 6th 1945, and the bomb on Nagasaki was dropped on August 9th 1945.
Tehran Conference, 1943
The Tehran Conference was a meeting between U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran, Iran, between November 28 and December 1, 1943.During the Conference, the three leaders coordinated their military strategy against Germany and Japan and made a number of important decisions concerning the post World War II era. The most notable achievements of the Conference focused on the next phases of the war against the Axis powers in Europe and Asia. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin engaged in discussions concerning the terms under which the British and Americans finally committed to launching Operation Overlord, an invasion of northern France, to be executed by May of 1944. The Soviets, who had long been pushing the Allies to open a second front, agreed to launch another major offensive on the Eastern Front that would divert German troops away from the Allied campaign in northern France. Stalin also agreed in principle that the Soviet Union would declare war against Japan following an Allied victory over Germany. In exchange for a Soviet declaration of war against Japan, Roosevelt conceded to Stalin’s demands for certain territory.
Yalta Conference
Summit meeting to discuss a host of political questions – including what to do with Germany. Feb 1945, the Three Allied leaders met in Russian Crimea. Britain sought to protect its colonial possessions and limit Soviet power. Soviet Union wanted Germany to pay reparations to fund massive rebuilding efforts, wanted to expand sphere of influence. US hopes to expand its influence and to control peace, lobbied for UN Organization. Goals were self-determination for liberized peoples, gradual and orderly decolonization and management of world affairs by the Four Policemen.
Potsdam Conference
Mid-July 1945, Truman was less patient with the Soviets than Roosevelt had been. Since completion of atomic bomb, US no longer needed Soviet support. Wartime bonds among the Allies were breaking.
Rosie the Riveter
War Manpower Commission glorified the invented worker, “doing the job he left behind”. Not an accurate representation of women in the American workforce. Only 16% held jobs in defence plants, only 4.4% had skilled jobs.
Double V
Victory at home and abroad, attempts to force the nation to confront parallel between Nazi regime and Jim Crow. Groups such as NAACP hoped to “persuade, embarrass, compel and shame” the nation into dealing with its treatment of 1/10 of its people.
Navajo Code Talkers
The name code talkers is strongly associated with bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units in the Pacific Theater.
Bracero Program
The Bracero program (1942 through 1964) allowed Mexican nationals to take temporary agricultural work in the United States. Over the program’s 22-year life, more than 4.5 million Mexican nationals were legally contracted for work in the United States (some individuals returned several times on different contracts). Mexican peasants, desperate for cash work, were willing to take jobs at wages scorned by most Americans. The Braceros’ presence had a significant effect on the business of farming and the culture of the United States. The Bracero program fed the circular migration patterns of Mexicans into the U.S.
War Production Labour Board
Established by Roosevelt in early 1942, had enormous task of allocating resources and coordinating production among thousands of independent factories.
National War Labour Board
1942, created to settle disputes of labour. Forged temporary compromises between labour unions’ demands for “closed ship” (only union members could work) and management desire for “open ship”.
Office of Price Administration
Created by Congress in 1942, established a nationwide rationing system for consumer goods such as coffee, sugar and gasoline. By 1943, instituted a point system for rationing food.
Manhattan Project
$2 billion secret effort to build an atomic bomb. Roosevelt was convinced that Germany was working towards one of their own, wanted to beat them. Achieved first sustained nuclear chain reaction in 1942 at University of Chicago.
Office of War Information
The Office of War Information created a propaganda machine that controlled all war-related information given to the public. Images and news reports were censored. Propaganda was created. Government approved ideas were included in films, radio and advertising. Anything that negatively impacted the war effort or damaged morale was removed from public consumption.
Fair Employment Practices Committee
Was established to ensure that the provision of Executive Order No. 8802, which prohibited discrimination in war industries and government jobs, was respected.
Alien Registration Act
Passed in 1940, made in unlawful to advocate the overthrow of the US Government by force of violence, or to join any organization that did so.
Executive Order 9066: Japanese Internment
In March 1942, Roosevelt ordered that all 112,000 Japanese Americans and foreign-born Japanese living on the West Coast be removed to “relocation centers” for the duration of the war. Imprisoned as a group instead of facing individual charges simply because they were of Japanese descent.
Korematsu v. US
Upheld Japanese internment, essentially said that personal liberties were void during wartime.
