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History That Doesn't Suck
205: Total War on the Home Front: Victory Gardens, Volunteering, and the Double V
01:02:33
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- [00:01]
Greg Jackson
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- [01:31]
Greg Jackson
It's Tuesday night, May 27, 1941. We're in Washington, D.C. at the White House, where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is sitting behind a desk looking over his notes just before going on the air to broadcast one of his famous fireside chats. But this isn't a normal fireside chat, delivered with no more than members of his inner circle present in the Diplomatic Reception room. No, instead, FDR is seated in the White House's most impressive east room, with some 300 leaders from across the Americas, north and south, as a live audience. Interesting and fitting. Tonight the President will explain to the millions of Americans tuning in that though the United States still isn't at war, the growing Nazi threat means the nation must link arms with its western hemispheric neighbors while redoubling war preparations. But enough background. It's 9:30, everyone's settled in and FDR is going live. Let's listen.
- [02:30]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
I am speaking tonight from the White House in the presence of the Governing Board of the Pan American Union, the Canadian minister, and and their families. The members of this board are the ambassadors and ministers of the American republics in Washington, it is appropriate that I do this for now as never before. The unity of the American republics is of supreme importance to each and every one of us and to the cause of freedom throughout the world. Our future, our future independence is bound up with the future independence of all of our sister republics. The first and fundamental fact is that what started as a European war has developed as the Nazis always intended it should develop into a war for world domination.
- [03:28]
Greg Jackson
It's an impressive prediction. Remember, while you and I know from episodes 188 and 189 that Nazi subs will soon be prowling just off American beaches, the worst of that is still months away for Franklin and his listeners. So it really is bold for the president to see Nazi aggression crossing the Atlantic, not as a question of if, but when. Hence, the United States is drawing closer to its fellow democracy loving American nations, that is its sister republics. And that's also why, in addition to helping the British, Franklin's pushed the nation to build up armaments, or as he put it last December, to build up an arsenal of democracy. A fact he reminds all of tonight.
- [04:09]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
And then a year ago, we launched and are successfully carrying out the largest armament production program we have ever undertaken.
- [04:19]
Greg Jackson
But now it's time to do more. After reviewing the past year's aid to Britain through lend Lease, expressing more concern at the godless world the Nazis threatened to create, and declaring that America will actively resist such a fate befalling the western hemisphere, despite the cries of the isolationists, Franklin calls on American citizens to give their all. To set aside the economic battles between capital and labor to sacrifice today so that democracy might live tomorrow. Because truly, this is nothing short of an emergency.
- [04:53]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Defense today means more than merely fighting. It means morale, civilian as well as military. It means using every available resource. It means enlarging every useful plant when the nation is threatened from without. However, as it is today, the actual production and transportation of the machinery of defense must not be interrupted by disputes between capital and capital, labor and labor, or capital and labor. The future of all free enterprise of capital and labor alike is at stake. This is no time for capital to make or to be allowed to retain excess profits. Articles of defense must have undisputed right of way in every industrial plant in the country. Therefore, with profound consciousness of my responsibilities to my countrymen and to my country's cause, I have tonight issued a proclamation that an unlimited national emergency exists and requires the strengthening of our defense to the extreme limit of our national power and authority. The nation will expect all individuals and all groups to play their full part without stint, without selfishness, and without doubt that our democracy will triumphantly survive.
- [06:49]
Greg Jackson
As FDR finishes, the East Room erupts in applause. And almost immediately, this presidentially declared emergency begins, altering the nation in the most permanent of ways, particularly in Huntsville, Alabama. A Little more than five weeks after this fireside chat, on July 3, 1941, the Huntsville Times front page declares that a big project is coming their way. The construction of a more than $47 million chemical warfare plant. To quote the paper, the War Department announces today that plans have been completed for construction of the new manufacturing arsenal to produce smoke materials and other chemical warfare agents for the military establishment. The plant will be located near Huntsville, Alabama. The new arsenal will include chemical manufacturing plants, plants for loading chemical shells, a storage depot, laboratory, shops, offices, hospitals, and warehouses for receiving shipping. More than 1 million square feet of floor space will be required. The tract selected contains more than 30,000 acres. Construction will involve employment of several thousand persons. Close quote. Several thousands is an understatement of what's to come. Within the next week, hundreds of job seekers pour into the small town of 13,000 as plans for three shift around the clock work begins. Ground is broken on August 4, and by September, a veritable tent city is in place. As a force of 2,000 men, both civilian and military, transform this once sparsely populated, cotton dependent community into an industrial hub, soon to employ nearly 20,000. Even before the year ends or this plant opens, it's clear Huntsville will never be the same. Welcome to history that doesn't suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. While what we just witnessed in Huntsville is on the extreme side of things, the mobilization effort is unquestionably impacting the whole United States and only ramps up once Uncle Sam enters World War II at the end of the year. Across the country, sleepy towns are waking up, factories are retooling, and Americans, men, women, and even teenagers are being asked to do something this nation hasn't truly demanded of its citizens since the Great War. Giving everything in a total war. And that total giving a process that sees the gross national product double. That truly ends the Great Depression and its rampant unemployment as men ship out, teens trade homework for shift work, and millions of women step into new fields to fill the factories and shipyards vacated by their husbands, brothers and sons. That giving is our story today. But of course, as citizens ration sugar, rubber and gasoline, plant victory gardens, and cash in their paychecks, to buy war bonds or even melt down Civil War cannons. The US Government has to reckon with the fact that as it asks all Americans to sacrifice in the name of democracy, not all Americans are enjoying the full benefits of that democracy. From women feeling unwelcoming glares as they step into needed positions, to black Americans still living under Jim Crow segregation, and Mexican laborers known as braceros finding their contracts aren't honored, there's a clear disconnect between what the United States is asking of and doing for some not insignificant groups. Indeed, the story of the American home front isn't just a story of remarkable united sacrifice, though it is most certainly that. It's also a story of who gets counted, who gets left out, and a generation demanding that the democracy they're fighting for better fulfill its own promises. And with that, let's press on to the end of this year, 1941, to see the changes that are coming at home as America enters the war. Here we go. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, American men descend on recruiting stations as early as 2:30am on December 8, 1941. Lines are around the block, closing reluctantly after the first day. Stations are thereafter open 24 7. Ultimately, more than 16 million American men and women will don a uniform at some point and for some duration During World War II, a massive number by any measure. But let's also recall that in 1940 there are only about 132 million Americans. This means that by the end of the war, about 12% of the U.S. population serves in the military. About 6 in every 10 men who serve will do so as draftees. Yes, I trust you recall the Selective Training and Service act of 1940 from episode 188, the one that established America's first peacetime draft. The first numbers were picked in October 1940, and more followed in July 1941. The February and March 1942 registration and lottery is expanded to include men between 20 and 45 who hadn't registered before. By the year's end, 3 million are drafted and to zoom out once more. Between 1940 and 1945, just about 10 million men are inducted into military service through the Selective Service system. But as these men head abroad and slow to travel, mail and unreliable news leaves Americans in a constant state of dread, wondering if their beloved sons, fathers and brothers are still alive. There is one change that Americans are welcome, even if most would undoubtedly part with this silver lining to avoid war. That change is a booming economy. To quote historian Mark Leff, war is hell. But for millions of Americans on the booming Home front. It was also a hell of a war. No joke. America's gross national product, or gnp, the monetary value of everything produced by a nation's economy economy doubles in just four years, jumping from 100 billion in 1940 to 200 billion in 1944. Or in today's dollars, the equivalent of jumping from about 1.8 to 3.7 trillion, give or take a few million. If President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal didn't bring America out of the Great Depression, then war production certainly does. While unemployment still hovered around 9 million before the war, millions of men going into the military brings that number to virtually zero by 1943. Living costs rise, but wages rise higher and government spending, still elevated due to the depression, explodes. Between 1940 and 1945, the national debt rockets from roughly 50 billion to more than 250 billion. That's because, as we know, American industry must keep up with war material contracts with allied countries countries and provide for its own rapidly growing military. This gargantuan effort will require complete conversion of peacetime factories to create bomber assemblies, aircraft engines, tanks, tank engines, trucks, anti aircraft guns, machine guns and more. But as this Begins, here's the $64,000 question, or rather the 5 billion dollar question. Just how exactly does Uncle Sam effectively and rapidly turn a peace economy into a war economy? It's mid afternoon, January 5th, 1942. We're in the offices of the Office of Production management or the OPM in Washington D.C. and about 200 suit clad men are just returning from lunch and taking their seats in a large room centered around a long walnut conference table. Settling in, the men shuck off their overcoats. Most drape them on a windowless ledge. A portrait of Winston Churchill looks down on them from one end of the room, while lettered posters with slogans like Time is short and United we stand adorn the walls. The air in the room is pleasantly warm for such a cold winter's day. But more than that, the air feels heavy with urgency. See, these men are representatives of the American economy itself. Itself. They're businessmen, labor leaders and government bureaucrats. You know, the groups FDR told in his fireside chat that opened to this episode to play nice for the sake of the war. They've gathered with the goal of converting the entire automobile industry, or as some call it, the greatest productive machine in the world for the war effort. And make no mistake, these automakers need the government just as much as the government needs them. Rubber rationing and limited tires means that car companies must pivot to survive. Well, given that mutually beneficial situation, this shouldn't be so hard. A tall, bespectacled white haired, likely bow tie clad man pours over a set of papers at the head of that long table. This is the head of the OPM, William Bill Knudsen, appointed by FDR. The Danish born, former GM auto man is currently pondering the US military's $5 billion shopping list. He doesn't have a detailed inventory of American industrial resources, but he's prepared enough to address the group gathered today. As the room grows warmer, perhaps a little too warm, Bill declares, we want to know where some of these things will flow from. We want to know if you can make them or want to try to make them. If you can't, do you know anyone who can? Automakers and laborers look at each other. They're very willing. But what things exactly does Bill want? The Dane glances back down at his list. He starts reading off items one by one. We want more machine guns. Who wants to make machine guns? We need a great many turbine blades. Apart from the creak of benches and whispers between baffled business partners, the room remained silent. After all, what does a carmaker know about machine guns? And how is it so hot in here in the dead of winter? Picking his eyes up from the page, Bill looks around the room, saying a little helplessly, somebody ought to be able to forge these things. The men gathered around the table gape at each other. This government office was established almost exactly a year ago. And now, four weeks post Pearl harbor and well after President Franklin Roosevelt declared a national emergency, the OPM Director General is unable to give direction. Is Bill really just throwing out government contract needs with no how to's? Did he just essentially try to auction off government contracts? It's a truly miserable afternoon. One made worse by the fact that when 200 men draped their overcoats on that one particular ledge, they unknowingly blocked the room's ventilation and turned their meeting into a sauna. The day ends with a few orders accepted, but much of the five billion dollar wish list goes unfulfilled. Unsurprising, but frustrating. Time magazine publishes a scathing article about this debacle, remarking that even after six long months, when it was clear that conversion must come, the OPM still had no plan and still did not know who could or would make what. Nor is Time the only one worried that the government isn't getting this war ramped up right on the same day as this largely failed and piping hot meeting. January 5, 1942. FDR reminds Congress about the crucial need for war production while speaking about the national budget. We cannot outfight our enemies unless at the same time we outproduce them. It is not enough to turn out just a few more planes, a few more tanks. We must outproduce them overwhelmingly so that there can be no question of our ability to provide a crushing superiority of equipment in any theater of the world war. To his credit, FDR soon realizes that perhaps throwing America's peacetime industrial producers into the deep end of the war production pool and expecting them to swim wasn't the best approach. So on January 16, 1942, he issues an executive order creating the War Production Board, or the wpb. The WPB has supreme authority over all industrial production programs and material procurement. Replacing the OPM and the Redundant Supply Priorities and Allocation Board. It transforms peacetime factories into weapons and military manufacturing and takes drastic steps to to conserve critical commodities like steel, aluminum, chemical, nitrogen and rubber. It also prohibits production of nylons and refrigerators. America largely stands behind the President wholeheartedly dedicated to making American products harder, better, faster and stronger than anything the Axis can produce. But it's not just patriotism. Those defense jobs pay top dollar even with FDR's wartime capping of salaries. Teachers, farmers, even department store Santas leave the schools, fields and stores for the war machine. Millions of teenagers trade homework for factory work, helped along by the relaxation of child labor laws in many states. Many of these teens make more than their teachers. I know, I'm as shocked as you, but in all seriousness, this teenage workforce has a massive impact. In August 1943, the Department of Labor writes that, quote, the early withdrawal of boys and girls from school is a greater factor in the expansion of the labor force than is the increase in the number of women working. To be clear, that speaks to just how many teens are working, because women are indeed swelling the ranks of the workforce. As we know from our coverage of the homefront During World War I, in episode 139, When Men Go off to fight, women fill their vacated places in the factories. Many women can even find jobs despite no prior applicable work experience. While 27% of women and girls over 14 are employed in 1940, that figure reaches 37% by 1944. Women are literally doubling or tripling their income by switching from traditionally female industries such as clerical and domestic work, textile factories or cosmetics to defense jobs. And let's not forget that women are in the military too. About 350,000 volunteer and enlist directly in the Women's Army Corps. The Navy's women accepted for volunteer emergency services or the waves. The Marine Corps Women's Reserve and the Coast Guard's Women's Reserve. Their permitted roles are still limited, but have nonetheless grown since the last war. Women serve as mechanics, air traffic controllers, even gunnery instructors. Hundreds of American women will make the ultimate sacrifice before this war is through. But I digress. Keeping our focus on the home front. Sheer need triumphs over tradition and prejudice as women fill not only America's factories and shipyards, but serve as the nation's auto mechanics, taxi and garbage truck drivers, traffic cops and more. That said, the path into traditionally male jobs is not an easy one.
- [22:32]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Foreign
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Greg Jackson
it's an unspecified day in 1942. We're in a noisy factory next to the Burbank Airport just north of Los Angeles, California. 27 year old Adele Ehrenberg is seated at a long workbench with about 30 other women in what's known as the Burr Room. They're all grinding and sanding various machine parts to a smooth finish. This manufacturer, Adel Precision Products, makes the hydraulic valve system for the Air Force's famous bomber, the B17, better known as the Flying Fortress. It's important work, and it sure beats her old gig of selling lipstick in a drugstore. But Adele is sick of standing. The repetition is mind numbing. She finds it just as boring as the inane talk of her benchmates. But maybe there's a chance to do something more. Over the past few weeks, Adele has been learning how to use different machinery and how to read blueprints. And today a supervisor pulls her aside and finally offers her a big break. Okay, how would you like to go into the machine shop?
- [23:36]
Interviewee/First Person Narrator
Terrific.
- [23:37]
Greg Jackson
Now, Adele, it's going to be a real challenge because you'll be the only woman in the machine shop. Adele's not worried. Following the foreman to her new position, she thinks to herself, well, this is
- [23:49]
Sponsor/Ad Announcer
going to be fun. All those guys and Adele in the machine shop.
- [23:54]
Greg Jackson
The two walk into the shop together. It's much larger than the Burr Room and the noise is nearly deafening. Or at least it is until Adele enters the room. Stepping into the shop, Adele feels all eyes fall on her as every machine goes silent. Yes, every man in the room has stopped to turn and glare at the dark haired girl in overalls. Adele will later recall, it took two
- [24:23]
Sponsor/Ad Announcer
weeks before anyone even talked to me. The discrimination was indescribable. They wanted to kill me.
- [24:30]
Greg Jackson
But she survives and even thrives in the machine shop, winning over the older men, joining the union and convincing others to do so all the while developing what she describes as the the most fantastic biceps from throwing that machine into gear. How does the saying go? Ah, a Rosie by any other name would have biceps just as sweet. Yes, Rosie the Riveter. How could we fail to mention this icon of American art? Future generations of Americans will generally associate Rosie with the J. Howard Miller we could do it. Poster of a woman sternly baring her arm. Or Norman Rockwell's illustration of a muscled war worker eating lunch and crushing a copy of Mein Kampf beneath her penny loafers. She's even got her own song. The identity of the namesake is debated, but the many real riveters and machinists become known as Rosies, right alongside the many Wendy the Welders. Together they broaden the American notion of what women are capable of. A capacity that some work sites display spies and others appreciate. In fact, this very dichotomy is captured in the town where today's story began, in Huntsville, Alabama. I trust you recall that cotton town that we left with bulldozers tearing up 30,000 acres. Well, as everything gets built up, officials at the Huntsville Arsenal resist hiring women entirely. In 1942, while just next door at Redstone Ordnance Plan Plant, the commander publicly commits to hiring women wherever possible. By 1942's end, 40% of Redstone's production line workers are women. By 1944, it's 54%. And come September 1945, it peaks at 62%. Same site, same war, vastly different attitudes toward women in the workplace. Meanwhile, the struggle is twofold for black women as they face what Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray calls Jane Crow. It's a brilliant term that clearly nods to the era's racially segregating Jim Crow laws to articulate the fact that black women endure both sex and race based prejudice. For example, 22 white women at the Baltimore Western Electric plant strike over sharing a bathroom with one new black co worker. As historian Matthew F. Delmont writes, the protests, of course, were about more than toilets. Many white workers believed that they had an inalienable right to the best jobs. From this perspective, even a single black employee was seen as dangerous, threatening to bring racial democracy and equality to the factory floor. For some white Americans, World War II is a fight to preserve a certain way of life, one that black Americans are not allowed to share. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP observes in 1942, white folks would rather lose the war than give up the luxury of race prejudice. A sweeping statement perhaps, but not without its merit. One Detroit factory worker striking in response to three black men moving to the aircraft assembly line says, I'd rather see Hitler and Hirohito win the war than work beside it on the assembly assembly line.
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- [29:21]
Greg Jackson
Up until now, 1942, the US has been in what most historians would classify as a state of total war only twice previously first the Civil War and Second World War I. But FDR knows that in order to have any chance of beating the Axis powers, America has to transform itself. The whole of the nation's wealth, national resources and manpower have to mobilize for victory. And for many, the mobilize part is entirely literal. Upwards of 20 million Americans, over 15% of the population move across the country for work, swelling formerly small towns far beyond their pre war capacity. William Peffley, a young machinist in Portsmouth, Virginia's Navy Yard, will later recall, Somebody would say, where are you from? I'd say Pennsylvania. Oh heck, I'm from South Carolina. Somebody else would say Ohio or Kansas. They were coming in there from everywhere. And that 15% of the population doesn't include those who immigrate from other countries. In August 1942, the US and Mexico begin the wartime emergency Bracero program. Bracero meaning arm man or laborer who works with his arms, which allows Mexican guest workers to come to the United States for agricultural and by 1943, railroad jobs. The bracero program capitalizes on American officials long held belief that Mexico is a source for cheap labor. In theory, the program is enacted to fix the worsening farm labor shortage as well as provide legal safeguards against low wages and other types of ill treatment. In practice, workers are met with discrimination and abuse, including long hours, surcharges for room and board and unsafe work practices. Remember, even after all those New Deal progressive programs, we're still in a pre OSHA era. And even though there's legislation supposedly guaranteeing bracero's adequate living conditions and 30 cents an hour, the equivalent of about $6 an hour in the early 21st century, reality is that, well, to quote Professor Kitty Calavita, employers often simply ignored contract provisions they found inconvenient. The nation sorely needs workers. Boys are being drafted left and right. By July 1942, 2 million men have left their farms. And as we'll learn about in a future episode, California farmers who rely heavily on laborers of Japanese descent are losing them to internment camps. To be blunt, America quite simply cannot function without the food produced by farms. And the war effort requires more food than ever to feed GIs and supply Britain and the Soviet Union. So in addition to The Braceros, in April 1943, Congress resurrects the World War I era Women's Land army, turning well over a million women into quote unquote farmer rats. When POWs begin arriving in the US they're put to work on farms too. Some of this strain is alleviated by a push for citizens to grow their own food. Adapted from the War gardens of the Great War, but now branded with the inescapable V, Victory Gardens are a way to free up food for the boys over there. Rural and suburban Americans grow food in their own backyards and in space scarce urban environments. Parks and school grounds are converted into these new victory gardens. As seven year old Cheryl Jankovski will later recall of her community Victory Garden in Long Beach, California. We had the most miserable, hardest cement 3 by 5 foot plot of ground. Our carrots never got bigger than an inch. But there was a huge neighborhood lot on our block where there were a dozen different kinds of squash, corn everywhere, beans growing on poles taller than my head. As a child, it seemed like the Garden of Eden. One Victory Garden advertisement poster shows a family of three harvesting their plot. The text reads, our food is fighting. A garden will make Your rations go further. Ah yes, rations. See, by 1942, most Americans have little coupon books decorated with images of planes, tanks, guns and ships, lest the rationer forget what it's all for. Young though she is, these rations will leave a deep impression on Cheryl too. To quote the seven year old Southern Californian's later record, once more, all the neighborhood women would sit around the kitchen table pooling and trading ration coupons. It was like watching a big Monopoly game. But you know, these Depression era mothers are undoubtedly already accustomed to this sort of resource pooling. Ironically, most Americans eat better on World War II rationing than they did during the Great Depression. As early as January 1942, the Office of Price Administration, or the Opaque, establishes temporary limits on purchasing some highly sought after items. That list gradually grows tires, gas, razors, meat, dairy, sugar, cooking oils, coffee, shoes. You get the picture. Citizens generally accept this curtailing of consumer power. But if you need something badly enough, well, there's always the black market. To discourage hoarding, some stores require people to return their used up items like metal tubes of toothpaste or shaving cream bags before purchasing a new one. This practice also has the added benefit of conserving materials that are in short supply. Scrap metal and rubber are at the top of that list. Scrap drives continuously sweep the country, collecting metal by the ton and sending it away to smelt into steel. One accusatory news advertisement reads, helping Hitler. That scrap metal in your yard hinders our war effort. Americans comb their homes for anything that might fit the bill. Tin cans, keys, scissors and knives. Even an old shovel could be refashioned into four hand grenades. In November 1943, the Tennessee State Guard parades a hanging scrap metal effigy of Adolf Hitler through the streets of Chattanooga to publicize the one day Scrap blitz coordinated metal collection effort. It seems the public gets especially enthusiastic about the idea of hurting the Fuhrer. Another popular slogan for aluminum drives is throw your pots and pans at Hitler. Even Hollywood gets in on it. Rita Hayworth, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, poses ATOP her personal 1941 Lincoln Continental Bumpers removed with a sign reading please drive carefully. My bumpers are on the scrap heap, but sometimes the metal offerings are a little more dear. It's Saturday evening, October 10, 1942. We're in the small town of Holton, Maine, just about as far northeast in the states as you can go. At the behest of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, or the dar, Holtonites are gathered for an appropriate program in the city center of Market Square. The respectful ceremony will include music from the brown capped members who the newly formed Houlton Air Base Air Force Band and of course group singing. Three enormous guns from the blockaway Monument park sit smack in the middle of the square. One is a German howitzer from the World War, as the Portland Press Herald calls what we will later know as World War I. Another is a rapid firing multi barreled Gatling gun from the Spanish American war and alas is an ancient piece of American artillery, a Civil War cannon. Each is adorned with red streamers and tonight's solemn gathering is a farewell to these arms. All three guns and their corresponding piles of cannonballs are being sent back to war. Well, back to the smelter anyway. Holton is answering the call for scrap metal by sacrificing their town's history. Following the singing, the white haired, bespectacled 73 year old former Maine supreme court Chief justice and Holton native Charles P. Barnes rises. He has a few words to share summarizing the sentiments of the day. We are glad to surrender to the government these medals so necessary in winning this struggle and to furnish the boys whom we send away to war at the railroad station with a God bless you these materials which they need at the fronts. And with that, these three guns from three wars are laid on the metaphorical scrap metal altar. One Maine paper patriotically claims that their dearly departed Union ancestors in blue quote, would want to take part in our big national scrap drive too. Close quote. They're probably right. The Holton donation, totaling nearly 600 tons, is part of a larger impulse toward sacrificing Civil War relics to the current war effort. Cities nationwide send their cannons. The Smithsonian even hands over a couple hundred tons worth of World War I cannons, half of them German. Their representative says that he hopes they'll be fired back at the Germans. Here's to hoisting Germany by their own howitzer. President Franklin Roosevelt continues to ask Americans to donate whatever they can. Concurrent with the scrap drives is the need for rubber, which is critical for tanks, tires, gas masks and more. FDR makes the ask over the radio on June 12, 1942.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
You and I want the finest and most efficient army and navy that the world has ever seen. An army and Navy with the greatest and swiftest striking power. That means rubber. Huge quantities of it. We're setting aside the two weeks period to get that old rubber in. I know that I don't need to urge you to take part in this collection drive. All you need to know is the place to take your rubber tool and the time to take it there. And you need to know the fact that your country needs your rubber.
- [39:38]
Greg Jackson
This pick up the Rubber campaign produces 450,000 tons of scrap rubber nationwide. But all this rationing, gardening and scrap piling isn't enough. The US government needs money, funds they cannot get without raising a victory income tax and asking citizens to invest in defense bonds. Basically, a bond is a long term investment in the government. You buy debt securities at a discount, say 75% of their face value. So a $25 bond would be $18.75 and in X amount of years, 10 years. In this case, the government pays you back the full amount. It's sort of like gambling on winning the war and coming out on top. Economically, the $25 bond is the most popular option. But for many still strapped for cash, Americans even 1875 is steep. More accessible war savings stamps are issued in cent rather than dollar increments. By the war's end, bonds will generate 185 billion for the US government. Everyone buys in. Rosie the Riveter spends her paycheck on defense bonds. And Bing Crosby does the promo singing buy, buy, buy, buy a bond and by and by, the bonds you buy will bring you victory. Ah, I trust you caught the wordplay on those two different buys. And I promise it lands far smoother when delivered by the one and only being. Anyhow, buying bonds is seen as one of the most patriotic things a civilian can do. Even advertisers get in on the hype. To quote one wartime ad, if you want cameras for Christmas, Ritz has them, but buy defense bonds first. Advertisers are totally shameless about using the war to promote their own products. Ads show air crews relaxing with a Coca Cola post bombing run and associate weapons with household products. Despite the context of the war, the messaging remains upbeat, encouraging people to spend their money. Of these ads, Anne Maroe Lindbergh, the wife of that most famous of isolationist aviators, Charles Lindbergh, says, what appalled me was the insincere attempt to gild the materialism with patriotic motives. But that positive patriotic spin is inescapable. One might even say propagandistic. More on that in a future episode. But for now, it's time to turn our attention to another aspect of the home front, to those Americans fighting to protect a country that doesn't always protect them.
- [42:06]
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Back
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Greg Jackson
headline is a bottom line.
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Whether it's the funds fueling AI or
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Greg Jackson
crypto's trillion dollar swings.
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Greg Jackson
And when you see the money side,
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- [43:03]
Greg Jackson
Subscribe now@bloomberg.com. Get the most out of your vehicle with GM Genuine Parts and ACDELCO Original Equipment. The only parts designed, engineered, tested and backed by General Motors. You can find your perfect fit for most makes and models and choose from three tiers of parts including GMOE or Gold and Silver aftermarket parts. Visit gmparts.com for more information. Back in episode 189, we saw FDR, black cabinet member Mary McLeod Bethune and President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, A. Philip Randolph, engaging with President Franklin Roosevelt to fight against the era's quote unquote separate but equal racism, an engagement that led to FDR's June 25, 1941, Executive Order 8802, banning discrimination on the basis of race, religion or national origin in industries that receive government contracts. At the time I said take note because we'd hear more about that later. Well, this is later. Executive Order AA 02 seeks to end racial and religious discrimination among employers with government contracts by establishing the Fair Employment Practice committee, or the FEPC. Though it has a tiny initial staff, 11amountain of cases, 1600 in three months, and downright negligible power to enforce its findings, the FEPC's mere creation is encouraging to black Americans. After all, it's an FDR creation, and shortcomings notwithstanding, his New Deal delivered well enough to minorities to shift black voters former allegiance to the Republican Party, to the Democrats, or at least to this Democratic president. To quote one young woman in Pittsburgh
- [45:05]
Interviewee/First Person Narrator
in 1942 I am Gladys Crawley, a Negro girl employed by the City of Pittsburgh. I feel, Mr. President, that it is largely due to the position you have taken in seeing that the Negro citizens and other members of minority groups are accorded equal opportunities, that the members of my race are more hopeful than ever before. We do feel that Negroes have not been given equal opportunities for service in the camps and defense industries. But our faith in you is such that we know that you will do everything that can be done to remedy this condition and at the earliest possible time.
- [45:46]
Greg Jackson
But the Fair Employment Practice Committee quickly becomes less effective that same year as it's placed under the War Manpower Board. The intent here is to align minority hiring with war production needs. The outcome, however, is that Congress, now holding power over the fepc, slashes its budget, thereby rendering it even less able in a Philip Randolph's eyes. This decline of the already almost clawless FEPC proves that FDR was only seeking to appease him just enough to get Philip to call off the march on Washington that would have asked for far more like a desegregated military. And that's a fair take. Weak as the FEPC already was, Southern Democrats are furious that it even exists. But the determined president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters doesn't roll over. Philip keeps the pressure on with his February 1943 Save the FEPC Washington D.C. conference. And in May 1943, FDR signs Executive Order 9346, which brings the FEPC back into the executive branch and therefore out of Congress's reach. Its new life allows for a broader jurisdiction to, quote, take appropriate steps to obtain elimination of such discrimination. A win, but also only a start. After all, let's not forget that Philip Randolph still dreams of a desegregated military. Currently, the segregated service largely means that black soldiers are relegated to non combat roles like transport, kitchen or sanitation work, and unable to advance up the ranks. Ah, we saw this back in episode 194. I trust you recall when the black Texan football player turned sailor, Doris Miller, found himself in the odd position of having to choose between following Navy regulations and manning a gun to defend his country. And to his everlasting credit, the daring USS West Virginia seaman bravely chose the latter. Indeed, the military is starkly segregated, right down to blood and plasma donations. You heard that right. Blood donations, which are just becoming a dependable and large scale miracle of modern medicine thanks to the pioneering work of A black physician, Dr. Charles R. Drew, are separated by race. The Red Cross's relatively newly founded donor program enacted this policy in early 1942. This blood segregation policy, effectively the same as Nazi Germany's, which insists on pure Aryan blood for wounded soldiers, will continue even after the war for a few years. As with other aspects of segregation, there's no scientific or strategic basis for separating blood donations by race and naturally Dr. Drew finds it abhorrent. These ongoing Jim Crow realities in the midst of being asked to serve the nation, Inspire a black 26 year old Kansan named James G. Thompson to write to the Pittsburgh Courier in January 1942. His words are published under the headline Should I sacrifice to live half American. To quote him like all true Americans, my greatest desire at this time, this crucial point of our history is a desire for a complete victory over the forces of evil which threaten our existence today. I suggest that while we keep defense and victory in the forefront we that we don't lose sight of our fight for true democracy at home. The V for Victory sign is being displayed prominently in all so called democratic countries which are fighting for victory over aggression, slavery and tyranny. Let we colored Americans adopt the double V for a double victory. The first V for victory over our enemies from without. The second V for victory over our enemies from within. For surely those who perpetrate these ugly prejudices here are seeking to destroy our democratic form of government. Just as surely as the Axis forces James idea spreads becoming known as the Double V campaign. Now victory at home and abroad isn't a new idea. Think of Frederick Douglass assertion that black soldiers in the Civil War were fighting a double battle against slavery at the south and against prejudice and proscription at the north. Think of Dr. W.E.B. du Bois effectively echoing Frederick's words amid the call to arms of World War I in episode 138. And now during World War II, black Americans are once again unsure if they should answer the call. Do they serve the nation? Wear lynchings like the one that leaves Cleo Wright a charred corpse in January 194042 and is commemorated with postcards continue to exist? Do they serve a government that lets black enlisted men like the nine black soldiers who are sent to Pittsburgh on a 22 hour trip without being allowed to eat continue to be treated as lesser black owned and operated Newspapers report on these injustices with precision that alarms FBI head J. Edgar Hoover. The Federal bigwig believes that the Double V crusade is at best unpatriotic, at worst seditious and in any case harmful to the war effort. But that doesn't mean the reporting on these horrific acts will cease. And one man hopes to build a bridge of understanding. It's an unspecified day, mid June 1942. We're walking through the halls of Washington DC's Department of Justice justice with the neatly dressed 29 year old publisher of the Chicago Defender and president of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, John Sensdack. John is here for a rather high stakes meeting with Attorney General Francis Beverly Biddle. One that if it goes the wrong way, could lead to his and other black newspapers getting shut down. Now, the AG has opposed the recent internment of Japanese Americans. He has also ordered the FBI to investigate the recent lynching of Cleo Wright in Sykeston, Missouri. That's a solid track record. Nonetheless, John can only hope for the best and steel himself for the worst as he enters the conference room. Stepping inside, John finds Francis behind a long table with copies of the Courier, the Afro American, and John's own newspaper, the Defender. And there are still others. At least a dozen FBI gathered copies of black newspapers. John takes his seat. They begin to talk. And it doesn't take long for AG Francis Biddle to make it clear that he isn't in a friendly mood. He gestures to the papers, one of which reads in large print, unrest grows in army camps. The AG then states matter of factly, these types of articles are a disservice to the war effort. He then turns to one of John's own papers from last month, to a prominent story entitled 9 soldiers go hungry, 22 hours on train Only because of Color, and tells John it would have been better if such an article had never appeared. A number of the other articles come very close to sedition, and the Justice Department is watching closely for seditious matter. Looking Francis right in the eye, the Defender's publisher sits up straight. Attorney General, I can understand what you're saying, but that isn't true. John also gestures at the papers before them on the table as he points out that the black press has been writing against racial discrimination since long before the war, for generations, and they aren't about to stop now. After a pause, he adds, have the power to close us down. So if you want to close us, go ahead and attempt it. But then, a final appeal. John wants Francis to know that black newspapermen do want to do right by all, even the government. But no one in the government will have a conversation with them. I've been trying to get an appointment to see Stimson. I've been trying to get in touch with everybody else. Nobody will talk to us, so what do you expect us to publish? We don't want to publish the wrong information. We want to cooperate with the war effort. Seemingly surprised, Francis replies, well, I didn't know that. The AG doesn't waste a moment right then and there. He picks up the phone and calls Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, making an appointment for John to see him. John sinstack and Attorney General Francis Biddle talk for over an hour. By the end, the AG agrees not to pursue sedition charges if the papers don't release anything more critical than what's already out there. And John confirms that he and other publishers will back the war effort as long as they can interview government officials. Nonetheless, racial discrimination continues, particularly as the ongoing war pumps added pressure into the social sphere. One such example of this is the rapidly growing city of Detroit. As hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly from the south, moved to the city, swelling its population to 2 million by June 1943. Rumors fly and racial tensions rise, then turn deadly. Disputes over federal housing projects and promotions lead to three days of bloody riots in which 34 people are killed, 25 of whom are black. Hundreds are injured, and again, they're mostly black. And as for the arrests, well. As black journalist and activist PL Pratis asks, what were the police doing when Negroes were being beaten in the Negro district? They were arresting Negroes. It's not just Detroit. Mobile, Alabama, Beaumont, Texas, New York City and Los Angeles all boil over. Nor is the racial violence limited to black Americans. That same month, June 1943, in Los Angeles, white sailors and Marines literally hunt down young Hispanics for the better part of a week. Known as zoot suitors for the loose yet carefully tailored clothes they wear, these young men are seen as unpatriotic for indulgently using or wasting so much fabric during a time of rationing. There's also an ugly, untrue rumor that they're not doing their fair share of military service. The violence on the west coast is astounding. To quote 16 year old witness Don McFadden, servicemen would go into theaters and make the projectionist shut off the movie. They'd go down both aisles. Any zoot suitors they saw. They'd drag him right out of his seat and beat him, tear his clothes up. I saw a group of servicemen stop a streetcar. They spotted one zoot suitor on it. They got on, he couldn't get off. They carried him off unconscious. Here's a guy riding a streetcar and he gets beat up because he happens to be Mexican. Sometimes they didn't even have zoot suits on. If they happened to be Mexican, that was enough. The summer of violence of 1943 prompts the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, to pen the poem Beaumont to Detroit, 1943. In it, he pointedly holds America accountable for racial thinking that he can't help but compare to the very axis powers the nation is now fighting. It reads in part everything that Hitler and Mussolini do. Negroes get the same treatment from you, yet you say we're fighting for democracy. Then why don't democracy include me? I ask you this question because I want to know how long I got to fight both Hitler and Jim Crow. And yet, even as black Americans and other minorities feel and express their valid sorrow at living under Jim Crow while being asked to sacrifice for those most cherished American promises, the that segregation continues to keep from beyond their reach, Americans of all colors nonetheless work in defense plants and serve in the military, giving their best and even performing honest to God heroics on the home front. It's just before 12:30pm Feb. 18, 1943. Eight army boxers are currently driving north through Seattle's industrial district just between downtown and the Boeing airport. They're headed to a pre competition weigh in at the Civic Auditorium. Among them is the 205 pound Florida heavyweight private Sam Morris. Sam is looking forward to the Pacific Northwest Service boxing championship. After all, this tall black anti aircraft man has a winning streak of 12 fights. Sounds like it's time to make that string of victories a baker's dozen. But suddenly all the levity and joy of the ride comes to a hard stop as a gigantic fireball plunges into a brick industrial building to the left of their vehicle. The all but instantaneous explosive sounds and flames are horrific. Sam and the other servicemen tumble out of the car and set off at a sprint. But not away from the sea of flames and explosions to ensure their own safety. No. They charge straight at the roaring inferno that's taken over the five story fry packing plant. Approaching the burning building, the men realize what caused the massive explosion. That fireball falling from the sky was a prototype for the new Superfortress Boeing bomber B29. And it crashed into the upper stories of the meatpacking plant. As the first to arrive on the scene, the army boxers charge into the building shouting fire. Fire. They heard employees out the door. The commanding officer snatches up the phone and calls the police and the fire department as Sam and the others dash even deeper into the burning building. People and livestock are caught in the blaze. Sam spots two fry employees behind a wall of flames. The Florida heavyweight jumps through it, burning his clothes and singeing off his eyebrows. But reaching the two men in the process. He drags both of them out of the way. Building. Sam then convinces two more to jump to safety before retreating himself. 32 die in this tragic accident. 11 onboard the bomber prototype. 20 factory workers and one firefighter. But that total would have been four more if not for Sam Morris. Next month, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt awards the boxer a soldier's medal for his bravery. While he didn't save lives for the award, it's an honor, one that reflects that Sam is a champion both in and out of the ring. Well, my friends, we've come to the end of today's story, a story that reminds us that as 16 million Americans served in uniform, total war asked millions more to serve in a lower case esque sort of way, in the form of upended lives. Millions of civilians flooded into factory towns that barely existed five years earlier, traded classrooms for cornfields or cosmetic counters for rivet guns. The figurative pots and pans were thrown as paychecks turned into bonds and city parks became victory vegetable gardens. Yes, the American home front showed up. But what we can't do and won't do mistake unity of effort for unity of experience. The men and women who built the bombs and grew the food and bought the bonds did not all do so from the same America. Some worked beside people who'd rather have lost the war than see them promoted. Some bled for a country that wouldn't even keep their blood in the same bottle. Indeed, while a future generation of Americans will, with very good cause, later label Uncle Sam's fight against the actual Axis powers combined imperialism, fascism and genocide as the Good War, a term the great oral historian Studs Terkel will immortalize with his landmark 1984 book of the same name. The fact is that the second V in that double victory will yet remain to be achieved. But those are stories for a much later day. Next time, we turn our attention to another side of the home of this war, one fought not with melted down cannons or ration books, but with cartoons, posters and movie reels. Yes, Bugs Bunny is pushing war bonds, Donald Duck is paying his taxes, and still other iconic characters are getting their start as the most powerful propaganda machine in American history fires up. History that Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson. Episode researched and written by Greg Jackson and Ella Henriksen Executive Editor Riley Neubauer Production by Airship Audio editing by Mohammad Shahzade Sound design by Molly Bach Theme music composed by Greg Jackson Arrangement and additional composition by Lindsey Graham of Airship for bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulted in writing this episode, visit htdspodcast.com. Htds is supported by fans@htdspodcast.com membership. My gratitude to kind souls providing funding to help us continue. Thank you and a special thanks to our patrons whose monthly gift puts them at producer status. Adam goran, ahmad chapman, andrew nissan, andrew sherwin, anna m. Hutta, art lane, bob stinnet, bonnie brooks, brian galligan, brian boyles, brian goodson, bruce hibbert, kaden howitz, charles clandenyo, charles starkey, charlie mages, christopher merchant, christopher pullman, cindy rosenthal, philene martin, colin fares pennington, connor hogan, craig burholst, dan g. Daniel o', kane, darren chambers, david rifkin, dean heiser, durante spencer, donald moore, ellie edwards, elizabeth christiansen, ellen stewart, ernie lomaster, ethan lowrey, even tucker thompson, g2303 jeffrey nelson, george j. Sherwood, gareth griffin, gina johnson, henry brunges, polly hamilton, jake gilbreth, james bledsoe, james blue, james schlender, jarrett zangora, jeff dempsey, jeffrey newtz, jennifer mingioni, jennifer ruth, jeremy wells, jerome edwards, jessica poppett, joe dobas, john boovie, john frugal, dougal, jon huber, john messmer, john oliveros, john river lavich, john schaefer, jonathan scheff, jordan corbett, joshua steiner, julian wright, justin may, justin spriggs, carl and elizabeth salling, carl friedman, carl hindle, ken culver, kim r. Kristen pratt, kyle decker, l. Paul goeringer, l. Norman, lawrence neubauer, linda cunningham, mark ellis, marcia smith, matt siegel, micah perryman, michael sullivan, nick cathrell, o. And w. Sedlak, pamela franklin fiddler, peter hugenroth, philip may, rick runkle, rick brown, robert drazovich, rock day sam holtzman, sarah prescott, sarah treywick, shannon hoagland, sharon thiesen, sean danes, sean colon, stacy ritter, steve williams, the creepy girl, thomas churchill, thomas matthew edwards, thomas sabbath, tim and sarah turner, todd curran, thomas stofka, travis cox, wesley mckee and zack jackson. Join me in two weeks or I'd like to tell you a story.
- [64:52]
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