American Homefront WWII

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American Homefront WWII

• War Posters, Minorities, and Japanese Internment

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Homefront Themes

• Arsenal of Democracy
• Need to out produce enemies
• Need for Speed

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Recruitment

• First Peacetime Draft

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WPB War Production Board
US Home Front How Can You Do Your Part?
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Conservation of Materials
Office of Price Administration
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Rosie the Riveter
Women in Govt. jobs and Armed Forces
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Rosie the Riveter

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vbU2tt1h53jM

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How to pay for War?
Victory Bonds
Income Taxes taken from paychecks
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Labor
A. Philip Randolph
- War Labor Board - Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act

• African Americans in War Industries
• Fair Employment Practices Committee
• (FEPC)

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Smith-Connally (War Labor disputes Act)

• 1943--The Act allowed the federal government to
  seize and operate industries threatened by or
  under strikes that would interfere with war
  production, and prohibited unions from making
  contributions in federal elections.

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Fair Employment Practices Committee

• Executive Order 8802 was signed by President
  Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, to
  prohibit racial discrimination in the national
  defense industry. It was the first federal
  action, though not a law, to promote equal
  opportunity and prohibit employment
  discrimination in the United States. The
  President's statement that accompanied the Order
  cited the war effort, saying that "the democratic
  way of life within the nation can be defended
  successfully only with the help and support of
  all groups," and cited reports of discrimination
• There is evidence available that needed workers
  have been barred from industries engaged in
  defense production solely because of
  considerations of race, creed, color or national
  origin, to the detriment of workers' morale and
  of national unity

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A. Philip Randolph

• Action Randolph threatens to march on Washington
  in June, 1941.
• Result FDR issued Executive Order 8802 (Fair
  Employment Act), barring discrimination in
  defense industries and federal bureaus.
  _______________________________________
• Action After WWII, Randolph led a campaign in
  favor of racial equality in the military.
• Result Truman issued executive order 9981 in
  July, 1948, banning segregation in the armed
  forces.

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Minorities in Armed Service
Dorie Miller
Tuskegee Airmen
Nisei Soldiers

• Navajo Codetalkers

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Silence
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loose lips sink ships
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Effects of the War on the Home front

• End of the Great Depression
• Increase in wagesgt Post-war prosperity
• Conservationgt Post-war consumption
• Govt. influence on eco. and debt
• Civil Rights movement/ Opportunities (Women and
  minorities)
• CIA search for Communists

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Assessing Japanese Internment

• Exec. Order 9066
• Court Cases
• Korematsu v. US
• Endo Case
• 1988 Settlement

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Justification

• Was justified by the Government in two ways
• 1. The Government claimed that American citizens
  of Japanese ancestry were more loyal to Japan
  than to their own country.
• 2. The Government claimed that because Japan had
  attacked the U.S. territory of Hawaii, those
  Americans of Japanese ancestry might have helped
  Japan.

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Non-citizen Italians and Germans (shown on this
map) were also relocated
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• The population of German citizens in the United
  States  not to mention American citizens of
  German birth  was far too large for a general
  policy of internment comparable to that used in
  the case of the Japanese in America.
• Instead, German citizens were detained and
  evicted from coastal areas on an individual
  basis. The War Department considered mass
  expulsions from coastal areas for reasons of
  military security, but never executed such plans.

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Camp Conditions

• These camps were over crowded and provided poor
  living conditions.
• The buildings were small framed buildings with no
  plumbing or cooking areas.
• Coal was hard to find to keep them warm so they
  slept under many blankets.
• entire families lived in one room cell
• had to use communal areas for washing, laundry
  and eating
• Food was very expensive (48 cents per internee).
• Leadership positions were only offered to the
  Nisei (American-born Japanese) and not the older
  generations (Called the lssei), who were forced
  to watch their children be promoted while they
  themselves were demoted.

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Fred Korematsu

• Fred Korematsu was born and raised in Alameda
  County, California.
• He was of Japanese ancestry but knew nothing when
  it came to the country of Japan.
• In June 1941 he tried to enlist in the Navy but
  denied due to his poor health
• Fred ended up working in a shipyard as a welder

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Korematsu Case

• May 9, 1942 all the Japanese people are ordered
  to leave the Pacific Coastal region.
• Korematsu disobeyed because he believed that as a
  U.S citizen the evacuation order should not apply
  to him.
• He was then arrested and charged with violating
  the order of commander of Military Area No. 1.
• His claim was that military commanders had denied
  Japanese Americans their constitutional rights
• After losing in the Court of Appeals, he appealed
  to the United States Supreme Court, challenging
  the constitutionality of the deportation center.
• Court upheld the exclusion of Japanese Americans
  from the Pacific coastal region.
• They said that the needs of national security
  justified the orders.
• The ruling has never been revoked by law but in
  1988 congress offered payments of 20,000 as
  compensation

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Korematsu

• Korematsu v. United States, (1944), was a
  landmark United States Supreme Court case
  concerning the constitutionality of Executive
  Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into
  internment camps during World War II regardless
  of citizenship.

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Endo Case

• Ex parte Endo, or Ex parte Mitsuye Endo, (1944)
  was a United States Supreme Court decision,
  handed down on December 18, 1944, the same day as
  their decision in Korematsu v. United States. In
  their decision, the Supreme Court ruled that,
  regardless of whether the United States
  Government had a right to exclude people of
  Japanese ancestry from the West Coast during
  World War II, they could not continue to detain a
  citizen that the government itself conceded was
  loyal to the United States. This decision helped
  lead to the re-opening of the West Coast for
  resettlement by Japanese-American citizens
  following their internment in camps across the
  United States during World War II.

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• In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald
  Reagan signed legislation which apologized for
  the internment on behalf of the U.S. government.
  The legislation said that government actions were
  based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a
  failure of political leadership". The U.S.
  government eventually disbursed more than
  1.6 billion in reparations to Japanese Americans
  who had been interned and their heirs.

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The Ugly Side of the Homefront
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Life Magazine December 1941

• http//www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/fos
  ter/lifemag.htm

Japanese
Chinese
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Origins of Japanese Internment
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George Takei

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vyogXJl9H9z0

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Zoot Suit Riots
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Jewish Refugees

• St. Louis
• Reports of Discrimination