Chapter 25 Section 4 Study Guide

How did the war and its aftermath affect the following?

1. Labor: During the war, the need for laborers caused the unemployment rate to drop to 1.2% at the lowest in 1944 and the average weekly paycheck rose by 35%.

2. Agriculture: The weather for growing crops was good in the 1940s, and improvements in farm equipment and fertilizers added to this. Crop prices were rising rapidly, and crop production rose by 50% with the farm income tripling. Many farmers were able to pay off their mortgages by the end of the 40s.

3. Population Centers: During and after the war, many Americans migrated to find work in other places; California had 1 million people come in between 1941 and 1944, and towns that had factories that were producing things for the war had their populations double and sometimes triple. A great number of African Americans also left the South for northern cities in this period.

4. Family Life: Families were torn apart during the war as fathers were sent to fight overseas and mothers went to work during the day to support their families. Children were often left to daycare centers or in the care of relatives, and when the fathers came home from war the families had to get to know each other again. Many times, couples hurried to get married before their significant other was sent to the war; the number of marriage licenses went up by 300% in the early years of the war in Seattle.

5. Returning G.I.s: The Servicemen's Readjustment Act (a.k.a. the G.I. Bill of Rights) provided education and and training for men who were trying to readjust after coming home, all paid for by the government. About 7.8 million veterans (about half of all the veterans) attended colleges and technical schools because of the bill, and veterans buying homes or farms or starting businesses were given a federal loan guarantee.

How did these groups react to racism during and after the war?

6. African Americans: During the war African Americans were able to make progress towards equality, many moving north and the number of African Americans working skilled or semi-skilled jobs rising from 16% to 30%. To confront problems like discrimination and segregation, the Congress of Racial Equality was started, which combated urban segregation in the north and stages it-ins. In 1943, racial tension caused by African Americans moving into crowded cities erupted into a 3 day riot, which resulted in the death of 9 whites and 25 blacks. This forced people to see that racial tension in the U.S. was a serious problem, and by 1945 more than 400 committees dedicated to helping this problem had been established.

7. Mexican Americans: During the years of the war, there were a lot of anti-Mexican feelings, particularly in places like California where there were higher populations of Mexican Americans. In 1943 the anti-Mexican "zoot suit" (a zoot suit was a suit worn by Mexican American youths who wanted to rebel against tradition) riots broke out. The riot started when 11 sailors in Los Angeles claimed to have been attacked by Mexican Americans in zoot suits. the result was extreme violence : people barged into Mexican American neighborhoods and attacked anyone wearing zoot suits, ripping the suits off and beating them mercilessly.

8. Japanese Americans: Due to the fear resulting from Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a wave of prejudice against Japanese Americans. In 1942, the War Department called for an emergency evacuation of all Japanese Americans from Hawaii. The military governor of Hawaii initially resisted this because it would screw with Hawaii's economy and would be bad for U.S. military operations there (37% of Hawaii's population was Japanese American), but was finally forced to allow the internment of 1,444 Japanese Americans. On the west coast, where 1% of the population was Japanese American, newspapers ran ugly stories attacking Japanese Americans, and stirred up prejudice in whites. In 1942 Roosevelt signed an order that required all people of Japanese ancestry in California to be removed to designated areas in Washington, Oregon and Arizona, saying it was a necessary security measure. The army then rounded up about 110,000 Japanese Americans and sent them to shoddy prison camps, which was justified as a "military necessity" by the Supreme Court in 1944's Korematsu v. United States. After the war, the Japanese American Citizens League pushed Congress to compensate these families, and the court designated the spending of $38 million as compensation, which was only a tenth of what Japanese Americans lost.