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Shortages And Controls
Wartime jobs gave many people their first extra cash since the Depression. Still, shortages and rationing limited the goods that people could buy.Nylon stockings, introduced in 1939, vanished from shops because the nylon was needed for parachutes.This proves that familiar consumer items were simply unavailable. -
The Selective Training and Service Act
Required all males aged 21 to 36 to register for military service. A limited number of men was selected from this pool to serve a year in the army. This was the first peacetime draft in the nations history authorized in September, 1940. -
The North Africa Campaign
Starting in August 1940, a British army had successfully battled Italian troops in the Egyptian and Libyan deserts of North Africa. Then, in February 1941, Hitler sent General Erwin Rommel and a German division to reinforce the Italians -
The Two Warships
In August 1941, two warships quietly lay at anchor off the coast of Newfoundland. Aboard were Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.The two leaders met in secret to discuss the war's aims and to agree on a set of principles to guide them in the years ahead. -
War Production
In January 1942, the government set up the War Production Board (WPB) to direct the conversion of peacetime industries to industries that produced war goods. FDR knew that the federal government would have to coordinate the production of American businesses to meet Allied demand. -
The Wartime Work Force
War production benefited workers, too, ending the massive unemployment of the 1930s.Not only did people find jobs, they also earned more money for their work. Average weekly wages in manufacturing, adjusted for inflation, rose by more than 50 percent between 1940 and 1945. -
Women In The Military
By the war's end, roughly 350,000 American women had volunteered for military service.Many worked as clerks, typists, airfield control tower operators, mechanics, photographers, and drivers. Others ferried planes around the country and towed practice targets for antiaircraft gunners. Officials agreed to use women in evey area except combat in late 1942. -
Victory Garden
A home vegetable garden planted to add to the home food supply and replace farm produce sent to feed the soldiers. People planted tomatoes, peas, and radishes in backyards.By 1943, victory gardens produced about one third of the country's fresh vegetables. -
Office Of War Mobilization
In May 1943, the President appointed James F. Byrnes, a longtime member of Congress and a close presidential advisor, to head the Office Of War Mobilization. The office would serve as a superagency in the centralization of resources. -
Financing The War
Federal spending increased from $8.9 billion a year in 1939 to $95.2 billion in 1945. The Gross National Product (GNP) more than doubled. Overall, between 1941 and 1945, the federal government spent about $321 billion—ten times as much as it had spent in World War I.
