Mobilization on the Home Front

Selective Service System

• Provided ten million soldiers to American armed forces

• GI’s trained for 8 weeks– Government Issue

Women

• George Marshall pushed for WAAC• Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps• Women performed duties being done by

soldiers

Discrimination

• Unidentified African American male after receiving his draft notice

• “Just carve on my tombstone, Here lies a black man killed fighting a yellow man for the protection of a white man.”

Minorities in the Armed Services

• 500,000 Mexican Americans served• 1,000,000 African Americans served• Around 50,000 Asian Americans served• 25,000 Native Americans served

Industrial Response

• Factories converted to produce war materials• Tanks• Guns• Uniforms• Ships• planes

A. Philip Randolph

• Organized a march on Washington to challenge segregation in war industries

• Roosevelt desegregated war industries as a response (Executive Order 8802)

• March never held

OSRD: Office of Scientific Research and Development

• Led by scientists researching ways to create the atom bomb

• The Manhattan Project had begun

Celebrity Culture

• Geared towards the War

• Propaganda films produced such as Hitler, Beast of Berlin

OPA: Office of Price Administration

• Fought inflation by freezing wages, prices, and rents

• Rationed foods such as meat, butter, cheese, vegetables, sugar, and coffee

WPB: War Production Board

• Rationed fuel and materials vital to the war effort such as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, and plastics

Rationing

• Carpooling• Collecting materials• Coping with shortages• Americans felt they were contributing to the

war effort