World War II -- Techniques Adopted by American Businesses to Expand War Production
During World War II, American industry geared up with several highly effective techniques. These techniques included but were not limited to: absorbing factories and workers idled by the Great Depression, building new factories in new geographical areas, attracting workers from rural areas to industrial areas, using blacks and women in significantly greater numbers, and using/improving mass production. Through these methods, U.S. industry met the military demands of World War II and made America rich by the war's conclusion.
American businesses expanded World War II production in several ways, discussed here in no particular order of importance. First, America used existing factories and built many new ones while it also used idle workers and attracted new ones. Post-Depression American was saddled with a significant number of unemployed workers and idle factories; however, by the summer of 1941, more than half of the American industrial workforce was under military orders,[footnoteRef:1] as war sped up the process of building up home industries.[footnoteRef:2] Private contractors eventually had huge government contracts to supply everything from combat boots to airplanes.[footnoteRef:3] Struggling...
Norton & Company, Inc., 1997), p. 193. Overy, p. 200.] [2: Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p.492.] [3: Ibid., p.494.] [4: Ibid.] [5: John Keegan, The Battle for History: Re-Fighting World War II (New York, NY: First Vintage Books Edition, 1996), p. 95.] [6: Weinberg, p. 494.] [7: Ibid., p. 471.] [8: Ibid., p. 496.] [9: Ibid., p. 495.] [10: Ibid.]
In addition to using…
