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New Jobs After the Great Depression
Mobilizing the economy finally ended the entire Great Depression, creating almost 19 million new jobs and nearly doubling the average family's revenue/income. -
Women during Defense Plants
The Wartime labor shortage, however, forced factories to recruit married women for industrial jobs traditionally reserved for men. Although the government hired nearly 4 million women, primarily for clerical jobs, the women working in the factories captured the publics imagination. -
The American Support for the Peacetime Draft
The Peacetime Draft was a lottery for men between the ages of 21-25, to take part in the random assortment of cards and choose men to be drafted into the military. Many had opposed these drafts, but opinions changed after France surrendered to Germany in late June of 1940. -
The Lend- Lease Act
This Act was put forth to provide defense to the United States. The US supplied the United Kingdom (Britain) free France, the Republic of China, later the Soviet Union, and other Allied nations. -
The order of Japanese, German, Italian, and American relocation
President Roosevelt signed Executive order 9066, allowing the War Department to declare any part of the United States as a militarized zone and to remove any people from anywhere in the zone needed. -
Women joined the Armed Forces
The US military first began enlisting women in the late Second World War. They was an extreme number, but they were barred from combat. Congress first allowed women to serve during May, 1942 by creating the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACS). -
Office of War Information
President Roosevelt created the first new program called the Office of War Information (OWI). The role of the OWI was to act as a liaison office with various media. -
American Industry
By the late summer of 1942, almost all major industries and some 20,000 companies had converted to absolute war production, and together they made the nation’s wartime “miracle” become embraced fully. -
Henry Ford and the Automobile Industry
Henry Ford, a major producer in modern day cars of the generation, b Egan producing hundreds of thousands of pieces of military equipment, including weapons (rifles), helmets, artillery, and dozens of other pieces of military equipment including, yes, vehicles. Henry Ford also created the assembled line for a new plane. Called the B-24 “Liberator” bomber, the factory went on to build more than 8,600 aircraft. -
Ronald Reagan
President Reagan apologized to Japanese Americans on behalf of the U.S. government and signed legislation granting $20,000 to each surviving Japanese American who had ultimately been interned.
