1940s Careers
Remember all those really cool World War II movies? This is the part those movies didn’t show you. Due to our vast amount of people available, our determination to continue on, and our influential propaganda; everyday life was improved by the war, as well as rights for women and blacks. Careers were changed as well, the war gave people new jobs and fixed inflation. The ‘Dust Bowl’ had just crippled the Midwest and a lot of people had no easy way of earning money, but the U.S. entering WWII changed it all.
Poverty swept the nation in the 1930s, and the 40s wasn’t so different when it began. We were weak and the Great Depression had been tearing the U.S. to pieces. Yet, we couldn’t quite figure out how to repair the damage;
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from depression, steel and food production was vital to keeping soldiers safe and healthy. While men were on the front lines fighting, women were then allowed to handle jobs normally restricted to men. Tanks and planes needed to be manufactured, and people needed food to eat. So, people began to ration what they had and sometimes people had to plant gardens to combat what the depression had done. People began to plant ‘Victory Gardens’ and increasing food production, and factories were producing weapons, ammunition, and vehicles to help soldiers on the battlefield. The federal government took control of the factories and regulated what they made and the workers’ …show more content…
Some of these films were created specifically towards german fascism, such as ‘Confessions of a Nazi Spy’ and ‘The Great Dictator’, (A Cultural History of the United States: The 1940s). Other movies, such as ‘Sergeant York’, showed that even a pacifist can become our greatest hero, (A Cultural History of the United States: The 1940s). Other form of influence were large billboards displaying Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeve, getting ready for war. These billboards were designed to bring in younger men into military enlistment stations, so they could enlist to fight in the war. Women had influential posters as well, displaying a women doing jobs that men normally do; these posters were showing women shouldn’t standby and watch the country burn, but help with the war
The second World War resulted in a demand for workers after men began leaving for the war. Due to a lot of the working men in America going overseas as well as the demand for war products, women became a major source of labor. Propaganda began to address women, persuading them that it was their duty to start working for the men. The film The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter gives personal accounts of some of the hardships women faced in the era surrounding WWII, and how the media was used to create a desire for women to work.
There was opposition in the United State against intervention in World War II. The war was too far removed from America’s national interests to justify intervention. There was little popular domestic support for intervention in a war in Europe that involved its most powerful industrialized nations. There were many first generation immigrants in the U.S. who were from most of the nations involved, particularly Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy. American entry into World War II would cause a major conflict of national loyalties for those immigrants coming from nations with whom the US would be at war, specifically Germans and Italians.
In both large cities and small towns working class people were destitute without funds to support their families. New York City reported an “estimated half million workers were left without means” (Sellers 137). In Virginia, farms and slaves were auctioned off to pay debts leaving a “sad spectacle of wasted and deserted field” (Feller 56). Feller’s noted the economic downturn took its toll on Americans as it “belied glib confidence in a better tomorrow” (56). There was an “outpouring of anger from the depression’s innocent victims” (Sellers 162).
Although the Great Depression had torn apart the prosperity of the United States, hope soon enough resurfaced in the form of presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s promises of a “new deal”. However, Roosevelt’s attempts at economic and social reform met mixed results - although his efforts to mend the extreme personal debt of farms and banks (as well as the general population) did succeed (at least in part), his attempts to remedy the unemployment crisis and the growing national debt were failures, and in the case of national debt, he may have even made the problem worse. The origin of these failures is likely the methods Roosevelt used themselves - one effort to fix the economy surrounding farmers was even deemed unconstitutional,
The longest and most dreadful downturn in economic history tossed millions of the hardworking people of America into poverty, for more than a decade neither the federal government or the free market were able to restore themselves from prosperity. Due to the Great Depression, an impetus was provided for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, this deal would forever change the relationship between the government and the American people. The New Deal was considered to be one of the most remarkable times of political reform in American history. In hindsight, it began to become easier to view the New Deal as the essential response to the Depression. However, the New Deal at the time was only one of the countless possible responses to an American capitalist system that had professedly lost its way.
Prior to 1939, America as a country was put through many trials and tribulations. Companies failed, men lost their jobs, and women and children were left defenseless. The Great Depression was a dark cloud that remained over America for ten long years. It wasn’t until President Franklin D. Roosevelt came into office and introduced The New Deal that things starting changing for the better. The new deal brought forth liberties and freedom to Americans across the nation, however it also brought up many issues of its own including different experiences for people such as industrial workers, men and women, white Americans, blacks, and indians.
When Roosevelt came into office he had different ideas, his New Deal began to help farmers in many aspects, including helping them refinance their homes and providing loans. ("Dust Bowl 1931-1939" 3). Government relief efforts during the 1930’s were extremely important to the survival of the economy and agricultural industry, because it was a way to keep America alive. These relief efforts gave the farmers a leg to stand on, and s protection from the banks and larger farms. Among the few positive changes in the 1930s, the change in the role of woman was the most evident.
In 1929, America underwent an economic crisis. It was the longest and most severe depression of the industrialized western world. This was known as the Great Depression. The cause of this tragic event was partially caused by buying stock in credit. Banks handed out loans to people but when the stock market crashed, they couldn’t pay back the loan.
With the help of propaganda posters, artists were able to motivate Americans, young and old, to contribute to the role of the United States in the war. Posters often contained children smiling and holding a war bond, with certain words like, “Buy a War Bond today”, or, “Support our troops by buying a War Bond”. However, they didn’t have to involve children. One famous example is “Uncle Sam”, used a propaganda poster to help persuade people to sign up for the draft, was originally published as the cover for the July 6, 1916, issue of Leslie's Weekly this portrait of "Uncle Sam" went on to become--according to its creator, James Montgomery Flagg--"the most famous poster in the world."
The poverty line in 1929 was considered to be an annual income of at least $2000. Most people,at the beginning of 1929, were making that and living happily. But, according to Frederick Lewis Allen’s, The Big Change, the US distribution of income was so uneven that 60% of the population was living in poverty. (Doc. 9). With over half of the country living in poverty, businesses had to lower prices and that caused the businesses to lose money and lay off workers, leading to even more impoverished families.
The War Between the States was one of America’s greatest wars—it was the fight for freedom, but it also impacted the economy. Because of this, America’s labor and transportation systems both took a significant turn during the Civil War, impacting America’s economy forever. In the end, the American Civil War greatly benefitted our transportation system, but devastated the South’s labor force. For a war to be fought strategically well, there first must be a form of simple, yet speedy, transportation. That is where the transcontinental railroad came in.
The statement that “the Home Front during World War II provided many social groups in American society an opportunity for advancement that they would not have otherwise had” is somewhat valid since not all social groups received such opportunities. Women are a specific example of a group that benefitted economically and socially from the war. Advertisements and propaganda encouraged women who had never entered the workforce before to “find their war job” (Doc. 2). New jobs had opened
Industrial production dropped by half, breadlines, soup kitchens, and the homeless shelters became popular in America’s town and cities. In Document six, it explains how consumers have to reduce purchases and cut back on spending habits and how farmers struggled not being able to afford to harvest their crops( William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932, 1958). Also in Document seven, and eight it states that, people and families have to stretch and makes ends meet on what they have and also finding a way to make things cheaper (Paul Blanshard, “How to Live on Forty-six Cents a Day,” The Nation, 1929/ Fortune, February
The war had provided a variety of employment opportunities for women and the most common job for women was at home, working in factories and filling in positions for their husbands, fathers, and brothers in their absence. Although the highest demand for workers were in previously male-dominated
Pop culture during World War II was greatly influenced for the better and for the worse. WWII caused much of America to conserve their resources and efforts for the war, instead of spending money, time and their resources on leisure time. While some leisure activities were hurting during wartime, certain activities actually benefitted from WWII. Certain leisure activities such as baseball, and comic books were used to help boost the mood, and morale during these hard times. Leisure activities during the war were used to keep America’s mind off of the hard times of war, and to forget what was really going on in the world.