Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course U.S. History and today we're going to discuss

how World War II played out at home and also the meaning of the war.

Mr. Green, Mr. Green, so is this going to be, like, one of the boring philosophical

ones, then?

Oh, Me From the Past, I remember when you were idealistic.

I remember a time when all you cared about was the deep inner meaning of … mostly girls.

But, you've changed, Me from the Past, and not in a good way.

intro So anyway World War II brought about tremendous

changes in the United States, in many ways shaping how Americans would come to see themselves

and how they would want to be seen by the rest of the world.

Some of these ideological changes were a continuation of the New Deal, others were direct results

of the war, but one thing we can say is that by the end of the war, the country was very

different.

For starters, World War II strengthened the federal government of the United States.

This always happens when a country goes to war, but World War II brought about even more

governmental intervention and control than we had seen in World War I.

It was like the New Deal on steroids.

Like federal agencies, like the War Production Board, War Manpower Commission and Office

of Price Administration took unprecedented control of the economy.

There was massive rationing of food and supplies, entire industries were completely taken over

by the government.

The federal government fixed wages, rents, prices, and especially production quotas.

Like, if you're looking to buy a 1942 model Ford, or Chrysler, good luck because there

weren't any.

The government told those car makers not to create new models that year.

So basically FDR was president for life and controlled all the industries.

I mean, how did this Communist end up on the dime?

Well the answer is that while it might have sucked not to have a 1942 Ford, most people

were just happy to be working after the Great Depression.

Unemployment dropped from 14% in 1940 to 2% in 1943.

Of course 13 million Americans were serving in the military in some capacity, so that

helped employment.

But in general the war kicked the American economy into overdrive.

Like, by 1944 American factories were producing an airplane every five minutes and a ship

every day.

U.S. Gross National Product went from $91 billion to $214 billion during the war.

Why did this happen?

Well that's controversial, but primarily because of federal spending.

Government expenditures during the war were twice the amount they had been in the previous

150 years.

Combined.

Although a lot of this was financed with debt, much of the war was paid for with taxes.

Like, the federal government began the practice of withholding taxes from paychecks, for instance,

a practice I first became familiar with when working at Steak N Shake discovering that

instead of being paid I don't know, like, $100 a week, I was being paid -$30 a week

because I had to declare my tips.

Because my dad made me.

Before World War II only 4 million Americans even paid federal income taxes; but after

the war 40 million did.

Also big business got even bigger during the war because of government contracts.

Cost-plus contracts guaranteed that companies would make a profit, and the lion's share

of contracts went to the biggest businesses.

So, by the war's end the 200 biggest American corporations controlled half of all of America's

corporate assets.

And all this government spending also spurred development, like defense spending basically

created the West Coast as an industrial center.

Seattle became a shipping and aircraft-manufacturing hub.

And California got 10% of all federal spending.

And Los Angeles became the second largest manufacturing center in the country, meaning

that it was not in fact built by Hollywood, it was built by World War II.

All of this was pretty bad for the South, by the way, because most of this industrialization

happened in cities and the South only had two cities with more than a half a million

people.

And organized labor continued to grow as well, with union membership soaring from around

9 million in 1940 to almost 15 million in 1945.

Besides union-friendly New Deal policies, the government forced employers to recognize

unions in order to prevent labor strife and keep the factories humming so that war production

would not decrease.

And, from a human history standpoint, one of the biggest changes is that many of the

workers in those factories were women.

You've probably seen this picture of Rosie the Riveter and while there wasn't actually

a riveter named Rosie, or maybe there was but, she's an amalgam.

But by 1944 women made up 1/3 of the civilian labor force in addition to the 350,000 who

were serving in the military.

And the type of women who were working changed as well.

Married women in their 30s outnumbered single women in the workforce.

But the government and employers both saw this phenomenon as temporary, so when the

war was over most women workers, especially those in high paying industrial jobs, were

let go.

This was especially hard on working class women who needed to work to survive and had

to return to lower paid work as domestics or in food services, or, god forbid, as teachers.

Oh, it's time for the Mystery Document?

The rules here are simple.

We use primary sources for learning as this is a serious show about history and then if

I guess the author wrong, I get shocked.

Okay, what do we got today?

Let's take a look.

Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic

problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor

in the world.

For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy.

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple.

They are: Equality of opportunity for youth and for

others.

Jobs for those who can work.

Security for those who need it.

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

I mean, that's some pretty hardcore New Deal stuff right there.

And, uh, the biggest New Deal-er of all was FDR, BUT I remember last time when I guessed

FDR and it was actually Eleanor Roosevelt.

So.

You wouldn't do Eleanor Roosevelt twice.

Or would you?

Hm.

No it sounds more like a speech.

FDR.

YES!

So, I mentioned at the beginning of this video that World War II was an ideological war,

and nothing better encapsulates that idea than FDR's “Four Freedoms,” which were:

freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

During the war the National Resources Planning Board offered a plan for a peacetime economy

based on full employment, an expanded welfare state and a higher standard of living for

all.

In 1944 FDR even called for a new Economic Bill of Rights that would expand governmental

power in order to create full employment, and guarantee an adequate income, medical

care, education, and housing to all Americans.

As FDR put it: “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and

independence.”

But that didn't happen, largely because Southern Democrats in the House and Senate

didn't want it to because it would have meant a larger role for unions and also extending

greater equality to African Americans, and they weren't about to let that happen.

I mean, their jobs were literally dependent upon African Americans not being able to vote.

But, Congress did pass the GI Bill of Rights – officially the Servicemen's Readjustment

Act -- to attempt to prevent widespread unemployment for returning soldiers.

It worked amazingly well, and by 1946 more than one million former soldiers were enrolled

in college and almost 4 million got assistance with mortgages, spurring a post-war housing

boom.

Levittown and all the towns since that look like it came after the war.

So, we talked about FDR's Four Freedoms, but big business added a fifth freedom – free

enterprise.

Advertisers helped on this front, trying to make the war about consumption, telling Americans

that they were fighting to “hasten the day when you … can once more walk into any store

in the land and buy anything you want,” according to an ad for Royal Typewriters.

And FDR's vision of extending freedom wasn't limited to the United States, like Henry Luce,

the publisher of Time Magazine published a book called The American Century claiming

that the war had thrust upon the U.S. the opportunity to share with all people their

“magnificent industrial products” (that's a quote) and American ideas like “love of

freedom” and “free economic enterprise.”

Now, of course, there wasn't complete agreement on this liberal, government-led vision of

freedom.

Like, Frederick Hayek in 1944 published the Road to Serfdom, claiming that government

planning posed a threat to individual liberty.

And even though he claimed not to be a conservative because conservatives liked social hierarchy,

Hayek's equating New Deal planning with Fascism and socialism became a foundation

for later American conservatives.

The struggle against Nazism also helped re-shape the way that Americans thought of themselves.

Like, because the Nazis were racists, Americanism would mean diversity, and tolerance, and equality

for all people.

The federal government supported this version of America.

FDR claimed that to be an American was “a matter of mind and heart,” not “a matter

of race or ancestry.”[1] Of course, it wasn't a matter of race and

ancestry, we'd already killed 95% of the indigenous population.

This was also, not coincidentally, the period where American intellectuals began publishing

books debunking the supposed “scientific” basis of racism.

Now this didn't mean that Americans suddenly embraced equality for all people.

Anti-Semitism still existed and contributed to the government's not doing more to help

the Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

In fact, only 21,000 Jewish people were allowed to come to the U.S. during the course of the

war.

And white peoples' fear over minority groups contributed to race riots in Detroit and the

Zoot Suit Riot against Mexicans in Los Angeles in 1943.

Not just a song by the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, also a tragic moment in American history.

The war years saw a dramatic increase in immigration from Mexico under the Bracero program (which