¶ … World War II (WWII) Transformed the United States Domestically
World War II was a global military conflict that, in terms of lives lost and material destruction, was the most tragic war in human history. It started in 1939 as a European conflict between Germany and an Anglo-French coalition but eventually grew to include most of the nations of the world. It ended in 1945, leaving a new world that was dominated by the United States and the U.S.S.R.
When the United States became involved with World War II, there were immediate and long-term changes in virtually every aspect of American life. Millions of men and women joined the military and saw areas of the world they would likely never have seen on their own. The labor demands of war industries caused millions more Americans to relocate, mainly to the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts, where most defense plants were located. When World War II ended, the United States was in better economic condition than any other country in the world.
Building on the economic base left after the war, American society became more affluent after the war than most Americans believed possible before or during the war. Public policy, such as the GI Bill of Rights, passed in 1944, providing money for veterans to attend college, to purchase homes, and to buy land. The overall impact of these public policies was great, and helped many returning veterans improve their lives. Americans began creating families and having children in unprecedented numbers.
Not all Americans participated equally in these growing life opportunities and in the increasing economic prosperity. The image and reality of overall economic prosperity -- and the opportunities it provided for many white Americans -- provoked groups like African-Americans, Hispano Americans, and American women to become more aggressive in trying to win their complete and deserved freedoms and civil rights as guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution during the postwar era.
According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia:...
The New Deal and World War II precipitated major economic changes in the state, hastening urbanization,
industrialization, and the decline of the
power of the planter elite. Emboldened by their experience in the army, black veterans confronted white supremacy, and riots were common on Georgia's
army bases. Furthermore, the political tumult of the World War II era, as the nation fought for
democracy in
Europe, presented an ideal opportunity for African-American leaders to press for racial change in the South. As some black leaders pointed out, the notorious German leader Adolf Hitler gave racism a bad name."
The postwar world also gave Americans a number of new problems and issues. Excited about their
success against Germany and Japan in 1945, most Americans initially perceived their
place in the postwar world as a powerful and infallible one. However, near the end of the war, new challenges and perceived threats had shaken their confidence. By 1948, a new form of international tension had reared its head -- the
Cold War, which took place between the United States and its allies and the
Soviet Union and its allies. For the next 20 years, the Cold War created many tensions between the two superpowers abroad and fears of Communist subversion changed domestic politics in the U.S.
For twenty years after 1945, there was a broad political consensus regarding the Cold War and anti-Communism. Mostly there was bipartisan support for most U.S. foreign policy initiatives. After the U.S. intervened militarily in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, however, this political consensus started to break down. By 1968, loud debate among Americans about the Vietnam War signified that the Cold War consensus was damaged beyond repair.
More so than any previous war, World War II involved the commitment of many nations' entire human and economic resources, as well as the
expansion of the battlefield to include all of the enemy's territory. The key determinants of its outcome were industrial capacity and personnel. In the last stages of the war, two major new…
