Madelynn Rhodes
Cameron Zinsou
HI 1073 Modern US History
14 November 2018
Changes on the Home Front During World War II
The American home front during World War II brought about many changes to the fabric of American society. A changing climate towards racism was already evolving, but World War II forced it to the forefront of America’s mind with the attempts to abolish it by African Americans pursuing equality in jobs, and by the American Government enveloping racism through the evacuation and interment of Japanese Americans from the West Coast after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The workforce in America was rapidly changing because so many of the existing workforce, white males, were serving in the armed forces. Americans were afraid of an economic depression once the war ended, but President Roosevelt enlisted the help of Congress in order to pass The G. I. Bill of Rights in order to ensure that veterans could ease back into civilian life without the worry of how they were going to find jobs or afford a place to live.
Wartime efforts during World War II saw an increase in the manufacturing industry to handle production for the military. This led to an increase in labor related jobs, yet most of the American workforce was overseas serving in active military duty. This left jobs available for women, African Americans, and other minorities. However, the very government that was fighting against dictatorships on foreign soil, was still discriminating against African Americans on the home front by not allowing “Negroes” to work in factories that were working on national defense jobs. Civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, called for a March on Washington in 1941, to have “President Roosevelt issue an executive order abolishing discriminations in all government department, Army, Navy, Air Corps and national defense jobs” (Randolph). Randolph urged African Americans, to stand against the prejudice and hate on the industrial home front by harnessing the power found in the large number of African Americans who were willing and able to work on defense jobs but were powerless to because of blatant discrimination against them. The African American population saw the increase in industrial jobs as an opportunity for them to be able to have access to higher paying and more skilled jobs, with more access to vocational training. Randolph believed that the march, which ended with a demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial would “shake up white America.” He believed that a unified “Negro” front would help encourage their white friends to fight with them, produce self-respect among “Negroes”, and promote true national unity (Randolph).
At the same time that President Roosevelt was conceding to the advocates of civil rights, he was in turn allowing Japanese Americans to be torn from their homes and stripped of their businesses, and sent to live in internment camps based on the beliefs that as a race, they were said to be a “large, unassimilated, tightly knit racial group, bound to the enemy by strong ties to race, culture, custom and religion” (Murphy). Roosevelt stated that this was a national security issue, and the Supreme Court upheld his decision in the case of Korematsu v. United States. What was ironic, was that the United States was fundamentally condemning an entire race without any validation or evidence of wrongdoing, just as the Germans had with the Jews, which was what the Allies were fighting against in the first place. Justice Frank Murphy, who was one of three supreme court justices who dissented in the case, stated that a military judgement should be grounded in military considerations, not the ethnicity of the person. He described it as legalized racism which should not play a part in our democratic society. What is most ironic about this part of the changing home front of America, is that everyone living in the United States had ties to another country, and it’s the diversity of the American people that makes it a great country in which everyone is entitled the rights and freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution, yet as a country, we were infringing on those rights and freedoms for the Japanese Americans.
Another way the home front of America was changing, was that the government recognized the need for comprehensive and affordable benefits for the citizens who were, and would be returning home from their active military service. Congress established The G.I. Bill of Rights (1944) in order to help veterans reestablish themselves in society, and in turn would lay the groundwork for their success after the war. This bill established The Veteran’s Administration and gave the administrator of the Veteran’s Administration the power to establish hospitals that would meet the needs of war veterans. This bill also provided funding for veterans to go back to school if their active duty was “impeded, delayed, interrupted or interfered with by reason of his entrance into the service” (GI Bill of Rights (1944)). It not only paid for the overall and inclusive costs of education, but established a monthly allowance for the veteran. The bill also made it easier for veterans to purchase and build homes, farms and farm equipment and businesses by providing for low interest loans to those veterans that need them. Preferential placement in government jobs, as well as giving them access to occupational counseling and employment placement services, were employment services that the bill established for veterans. The G. I. Bill of Rights helped to cement the foundation of American life by ensuring that the service men and women would be able to settle back into civilian life and prosper (G.I. Bill of Rights (1944)). Americans believed that a depression was inevitable after World War II, as it was with World War I, but the G. I. Bill of Rights helped eliminate some of the issues that caused the depression, and helped veterans ease back into civilian life, which in turn helped stabilize the delicate economy after the war had ended (G.I. Bill of Rights (1944)).
World War II brought about many changes to America as a country, and having the ability to look back and see how a few of those changes on the home front during the war have impacted our country today shows just how far we have come as a country, even though it at times it seems like we have so much farther to go. The changes towards discrimination in the workplace, as well as ensuring that our veterans were taken care of after they returned home from the war through the passing of the G. I. Bill, gave America the boost it needed to begin healing after World War II. Although the evacuation and interment of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor was certainly not a positive aspect on the home front, America did learn something from its mistake. We will not, as a nation, allow discrimination to become the hallmark for which we are known. Our post-war struggles for racial equality bear this out, although we still have far to go. Whether one agrees with the changes to our home front during the war or not, America is still the greatest country in the world.