WW2 impact of American politics

• What happed on June 6 1944?

  • Allied forces launched a dramatic air-and-sea assault on German-occupied France:
  • planes dropped more than 10,000 paratroopers behind enemy lines
  • hundreds of warships
  • thousands of landing craft delivered
  • 130,000 troops to the beaches of Normandy(Mainly American or British)
• Why was the war significant for America?

  The war was a moment of American domestic comity- ‘beacon of feel good unity and patriotism’
• What was the political state of the US pre-WW2

  • US bitterly divided over New Deal
  • unsure about joining conflict erupting Europe
• What was the societal/ political state of US during WW2?

  • country remained beset by racial and ethnic animosities (Protestants vs Catholics, Catholics vs Jews, White Americans vs POC)
  • Partisan rancor within the US
  • Business community resisted shift from civilian to military production
  • Organised labour demanded wartime prosperity
  • Displays of Political demagoguery
• Define Partisan rancor

  Bitterness, hostility, or conflict between political parties, often lead to polarised environment where co-operation or compromise is difficult.
• Define Political demagoguery

  Leaders use of manipulative tactics – such as appealing to emotions, prejudices and fears – to gain or maintain power often at the expense of rational debate and democratic principles.
• What was the US Military service like 4 years before D-Day

  • 175,000 serving on active duty
  • US army was the 18th biggest in the world - smaller than Switzerland and Bulgaria
• What were armies like (New York) before FDR introduced the first draft

  • 10 000 troops drilled without equipment
  • Broomsticks substituting for rifles
  • trucks for tanks
  • The soldiers had neither the body or psychology of a soldier
• When did FDR introduce the first peacetime military draft in the US?

  September 16, 1940 when he signed the selective training and service act of 1940 into law
• Why was D-Day significant and what did it prove?

  • Americans fractured political culture to mobilise for D-Day
  • Proved a country desperately wanting for consensus can rally together in a moment of common purpose (winning WW2)
• What did Isolationist Charles Lindbergh quote on national radio in October 1939


  ”Our bond with Europe is a bond of race, and not of political ideology… racial strength is vital, politics is a luxury“
• When did the anti-interventionist movement gsin support

  1939 and 1940
• Controversy of Anti-interventionist politics

  • Lindbergh’s brand of anti-interventionist politics was bordering on being pro-Nazi and laced with conspiratorial distrust of Jews.
  • opposed Roosevelt’s domestic and foreign policies
• Anti-semitism in US politics

  Avery Brundage - former head of US Olympic committee was a member of the America First committee -antisemitic group

  In 1936 he booted 2 Jewish runners from the track team at the Berlin games
• What made FDR unpopular

  • 1937: failed attempt to pack the Supreme Court
  • 1938: unsuccessful purge of conservative Democrats in the primaries - he broke with over 150 years of tradition and announced his bid for a third term
• Was the 1940 constriction Act that FDR introduced popular?

  • introduced in the heat of a presidential campaign
  • Hamilton Fish: “the very essence of Nazism and Hitlerism in the United States“
  • passed comfortably with moderate Republic support but reauthorisation a year later - new congress passed it by 1 vote
• When did widespread support for isolationism end?

  Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7th 1941, congress declared war on Axis powers and most Americans supported
• What was the army like in WW2

  • Army and Navy included 250,000 women and 16 million men
  • 17 million men and women worked in war production plants i.e. building ’Liberty Ships’ (took 355 days to build but by end of war only took 56 days)
• How did the US finance the war effort?

  • 85 million citizens lent money to the gov. by purchasing war bonds
  • 42 million people paid federal income taxes
  • Americans willingly diverted over 20% of their monthly income to taxes and bonds
• What were businesses like during the war?

  • Engaged in war production agreed to allow unions to organise their work forces
  • unions agreed to gov. caps on wage increases - keep inflation in check
• Why was WW2 more positive than the Civil War and WW1?

  • No resistance to civilian conscription
  • No major tax revolts
  • no protests against the expansion of the President’s wartime powers
• How did the government ensure WW2 was “better” than WW1

  WW1: federal gov scapegoated German Americans and pacifists + attempted to manipulate public’s opinion

  WW2: FDR and advisers avoided blunt persuasion and emotion to sell the war
• Which groups of individuals were the target of most gossip during the War


  OWI found that Jews, African Americans and Japanese detainees were subject to rampage gossip - tied in some way to rationing, military service or war production
• What was the consumer price index of the US between 1939 and 1943

  A hike of 25%
• Negatives of gossip: Detroit in June 1943

  • Rumour spread that black hoodlums had slit the throat of a white soldier and raped his girlfriend
  • Rioting took place claiming the lives of 34, 675 injured and damage to property
• Negatives of gossip: Harlem

  • White policeman shot a black soldier - variations of story told leading to massive riots
  • hundreds of storefronts shattered and looted
• What increased among politicians?

  Partisanship- in 1944 FDR would run for a fourth term
• Why were people unhappy that Roosevelt was running for a fourth term?

  • Republicans shut out of White House since 1933
  • Convinced he/society would become communist : “New Deal-Communist axis“ (New York Daily Mirror)
  • Governor Thomas Dewey of New York: “In Russia, a Communist is a man who supports the government. In America, a communist is a man who supports the fourth term“
• Did FDR win his fourth term?

  President won comfortably but with smaller margin than in any of his previous elections
• What happens to Roosevelt administration in 1940 and 1941

  • faced widespread resistance - especially from auto companies, to switch from civilian to war production
  • businesses compelled to accept due to government offering “cost-plus” contracts guaranteeing them profit
• How did FDR reduce the 25% Absenteeism? 


  In some cases e.g. when Jon L. Lewis took his members out on strike in 1943 - FDR threatened to draft them into military service
• What did Americans believe they were fighting for in the US?

  • Better standards of living in postwar period - for promise of homes, jobs and end to Depression- era scarcity and wartime rationing
• What did Churchill comment on about the US

  Churchill likened the US to a “gigantic boiler” - “once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate”