“Daddy’s Gone to War” – Home Life during the WW2I. Introduction -- A Little Test…- Helped people realize their place in life - career wise. II. World War II and Economic Recovery1) GNP – doubles during the war - Factories are running full time 24/7- Mega factories are created- Factory worker – job pays well, get as much work as you want, work is plentiful- Income of bottom 20% increase 68%- WWII features highest number of people in unions 2) Good working conditions, wages, union membership highIII. African-Americans and War Mobilization- Opportunity to get out of the south, escape sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, etc.1) 700,000 move north to get work in factories during the war; Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia 2) They find segregation and racism there, too a) Detroit race riot – 1943 – small fight between white and black lasting for days. 23 blacks and 9 whites killed3) Employment discrimination- Shut down from certain jobs completely, don’t have management jobs available for blacks, paid less, some factories are segregated without any safety equipmenta) Philadelphia Transit strike – 1944 – 8 black men promoted to street car drivers, white workers all walk out putting the whole town in despair 4) Some Progressa) The Federal Employment Practices Committee – banned racial discrimination in federal or defense government employment; however laws without 1enforcement are pointless – law was made but wasn’t followed through.b) Black self-empowerment – unions, newspapers, etc.IV. Women and Mobilization – gender conflicts- Mothers have to take on a double role since fathers are out at war. Women don’t work much in the factories but rather take on clerical work - paperwork. Women still did however work in factories, 20% of workforce by the end of the war are women – a lot of them black women. Government encourages this but don’t turn women into men (gender confusion) - Images celebrating feminism - Men wouldn’t too happy about this, unions will not go to bat for their female members (no support); legally had to pay men and women the same pay but they found ways around it. 1) “Pink Collar Jobs”2) Industrial jobs – increasing3) Government support- reflects traditional views of women4) Gender discrimination at the factory5) “Latchkey Kids” and delinquency6) Despite all this, working is a liberating experience for many womenV. Japanese-Americans and “Racial Hysteria”- Kicks off with the Chinese Exclusion act; immigration from Asian countries is banned particularly on the westcoast – due to pearl harbor making Americans extremely upset - Declared Japanese race as an enemy race 1) March 1942 – “Relocation” begins – rounding up 100000 Japanese Americans and put them into camps all over the2west and Arkansas (not a holocaust, people aren’t being killed or worked to death) 2) Civil Rights violations – loss of homes, businesses, assets, dignity; given 3 days from the time government tells you to relocate to do sell houses, business resulting in significant financial loss. In turn government takes your land/house and sells it making all the profit. 3) Supreme Court assentsi) Hirabayashi vs. United States (1943)ii) Korematsu vs. United States (1944)4) Irony – the glory of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team- 1982 – making up for financial losses - Need for man power increase and government use them in the war – not against the japenese - Spys broke into Japanese embassy discovering that Japanese government had dismissed the japenese Americans as traighters.
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