5-4.5

It Is Essential For Students To Know:

• World War II had a profound social impact on the United States that would have long term political effects. The nation came together as each American was encouraged to “Do Your Part” in the war effort.
• Each and every American was called upon to conserve scarce materials by contributing to scrap metal drives and planting “Victory Gardens”.
• However voluntary conservation was not enough and Americans were required to use ration booklets.
• The economy was finally pulled out of the depression by the war effort as everyone went to work to help win World War II.
• Women, as the homemakers, were responsible for rationing and victory gardens.
• More women also began to work outside the home in greater numbers. They took the place of husbands, sons and brothers in factories and built airplanes, trucks and ships.
• Although women sometimes faced discrimination, ‘Rosie the Riveter’ became an icon of the period.
• Women expected to return home when the war ended and the soldiers returned to their jobs, but many missed the workplace. This wartime experience helped lay the foundation for the women’s movement of the 1960s.
• African Americans demanded the right to wartime jobs and President Roosevelt ordered that they be given opportunity.
• Many more African Americans moved to cities in the north and on the Pacific coast to work in wartime industries.
• African Americans made some strides in the military during the war, such as the Tuskegee Airmen, however, they still served in segregated units and were often called upon to do the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs.
• The role played by African American soldiers in the war and the treatment by whites on the homefront after the war ended prompted President Truman to order that the army be desegregated after the war.
• The experiences of African Americans serving their country at home and abroad helped to lay the foundation for the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
• Japanese Americans faced the most profound discrimination. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 110,000 Japanese Americans were moved to internment camps in the western deserts of the United States.
• Made to leave their homes and businesses with little warning, many Japanese Americans were imprisoned behind barbed wire fences without the right to a trial and without proof that they were disloyal. Nonetheless the Japanese Americans continued to be loyal to the United States.
• Some of the Japanese served with distinction in military units in the European theater.
• As a result of the war, political boundaries of some nation-states were changed and some governments were altered.
• The United States established a democracy in occupied Japan.
• Germany was divided into four zones and occupied by the four Allied powers. Soon the United States, Great Britain and France united their zones and helped to create a democratic government in what became known as West Germany.
• The Soviet Union established a communist government in East Germany.
• Berlin, the former capital of Germany, was similarly divided although it was located entirely within the Soviet zone.
• The Soviet Union also set up puppet regimes in the eastern European nations that they liberated from German occupation.
• Although the United States emerged from the war as a dominant world power, it would soon find itself in confrontation with its World War II ally, the Soviet Union.
• The Cold War had its roots in differences in wartime priorities between the United States, Great Britain and France, and the Soviet Union.

It Is Not Essential For Students To Know:

• This indicator does not require students to recall the total number or the location of the Japanese internment camps.
• Although helpful in highlighting the wartime experiences of African Americans, students are not required to explain the role of A. Philip Randolph in persuading President Roosevelt to set up the Fair Employment Practices Commission.
• Students do not need to understand the wartime confrontations between the western allies and the Soviet Union over the initiation of the second front nor the Soviet suspicion that the delay was because Americans wanted the Soviets to take the brunt of the Nazi war machine.
• It is unnecessary for students to be able to identify the specific nations that came under the domination of the Soviet Union as a result of their march to Berlin.