Transcript Mobilizing for Defense - Santa Ana Unified School District

Mobilizing for Defense
The United States in World
War II #1
I. Americans Join the War Effort

A. Expanding the military
• 1. Army Chief of Staff George Marshall
introduced the Women’s Auxiliary Army
Corps (WAAC).
• 2. Women would serve in non-combat
positions.
• 3. Nurses, ambulance drivers, radio
operators, electricians, and pilots.

B. Other volunteers
• 1. 300,000 Mexican Americans joined the war.
• 2. 13,000 Chinese Americans, 33,000
Japanese Americans, and 25,000 Native
Americans.
• 3. The Japanese served as spies and
interpreters and the Navajo language became
an unbreakable U.S. code.
• 4. Many African-Americans joined the war
effort as well, but did not see action until the
final year of the war due to widespread racism.
II. A Production Miracle

A. The Industrial Response
• 1. Shipyards and defense plants expanded
with incredible speed.
• 2. 6 million new workers were women. (Rosie
the Riveter)
• 3. Automobile factories started to produce
tanks and planes.
• 4. Ships were being built in a record 4 days
• 5. However, women only earned as much as
60% of men and Blacks were often not allowed
to hold certain jobs.

6. A. Phillip Randolph, the nations
most respected Black labor leader
promised to lead 100,000 Black
protesters to Washington if FDR did
do something to ensure their rights
in the workplace.

“To provide for the
full and equitable
participation of all
workers in defense
industries, without
discrimination
because of racism,
creed, color, and or
national origin.”

B. Mobilization of Scientists
• 1. Office of Scientific Research and
Development (OSRD).
• 2. The Manhattan Project was the
secret project to develop the atomic
bomb before the Nazis did.
III. The Federal Government Takes
Control

A. Economic Controls
• 1. The Office of Price Administration (OPA)
was designed to fight inflation by freezing the
prices on most goods.
• 2. The War Production Board (WPB) ensured
that the armed forces and war industries
received the resources they needed to win the
war.
• 3. The OPA also set up a system of rationing
which is the establishment the fixed alloments
of goods deemd essential for the military.