Brief History Review of World War Two

¶ … History of World War II: American Involvement and Social Effects of the War on America

Many people think that the United States' involvement in World War II did not actually begin until Japan infamously attacked the American navy base at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941. However, in truth, even before the Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese, the American President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and other U.S. military, industrial, and economic leaders had taken initial steps to mobilize the nation into a wartime economy. In terms of both mobilization at home and social effects of the war, the onset of World War II contributed greatly to changes, many of them permanent, in American society and the American way of life.

In the build-up to the war, American factories were offered economic rewards by the government for adopting wartime production modes and practices. Consequently, United States industry focused increasingly on military-style production. For example, factories like Ford Motor Company, once dedicated solely to automobile production, also begin large-scale manufacturing of tanks and various other combat tools and weapons.

The United States government also correctly anticipated that millions of able-bodied American men (and women) would soon be needed for battle overseas. Toward that end, the passage of the 1940 Selective Service and Training Act paved the way for myriad American draftees to be trained for battle, and then shipped off to war.

In terms of social effects, the onset of World War II changed many aspects of American life, often permanently. For example, although African-Americans had always fought in wars, from the Revolutionary War on, World War II was the first war in which African-Americans were fully integrated into all branches of the U.S. Armed Services. Women also served in the American Armed forces during World War II, although in auxiliary forces rather than in active combat. However, the biggest change for women during this time was that now, with so many men off fighting in the war, great numbers of women were now needed to replace them in factories and other wartime operations. Arguably, then, the era of the 20th century American working woman began not, as many believe, during the feminist movement of the 1960's and 1970's, but instead, during World War II, with the symbolic figure of "Rosie the Riveter" and similar real-life working women.

Moreover, after the war, although many American women were eager to leave the workforce and become housewives and mothers after their men returned home, others, liking their new independence and autonomy, remained at work. In terms of national employment, the World War II era was also a good time for non-military American minority groups (e.g., African-Americans; Hispanic-Americans, and others), to secure employment that would likely have otherwise been unavailable to them, since factory owners were desperate for able-bodied workers, whatever their race or ethnic background.

Consequently, many southern African-Americans in particular, whose parents and grandparents had remained subsistence-level sharecroppers now migrated North, to Philadelphia; Detroit; Washington, D.C., New York; Chicago, and other big urban cities, in search of better employment and lives, for themselves and their families. During World War II, Americans also experienced strict rationing of food; materials, and supplies. Americans widely supported the war effort, though, and most felt, patriotically, more than willing to make any necessary material sacrifices. War bonds were sold, by celebrities and others, to help support the war. One of the darker aspects of World War II, however, was the internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps in California, since after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government considered the Japanese potentially threatening to national security.