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History of the United States (1918–1945)
Encyclopedia
The history of the United States from 1918 through 1945 covers the post-World War I
era, the Great Depression
, and World War II
. After World War I, the U.S. rejected the Versailles Treaty and did not join the League of Nations
.
In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by an amendment
to the United States Constitution
. Possession of liquor, and drinking it, was never illegal. The overall level of alcohol consumption did go down, however, state and local governments avoided aggressive enforcement. The federal government was overwhelmed with cases, so that bootlegging and speakeasies flourished in every city, and well-organized criminal gangs exploded in numbers, finances, power, and influence on city politics.
During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of sustained prosperity. Agriculture went through a bubble that collapsed in 1921 and that sector remained depressed, and coal mining was being displaced by oil. Otherwise most sectors prospered. Prices were stable, and the gross national product grew steadily until 1929, when the financial bubble burst.
In foreign policy the nation never joined the League of Nations, but instead took the initiative to disarm the world, most notably at the Washington Conference
in 1921-1922. Washington also stabilized the European economy through the Dawes Plan
and the Young Plan
. The Immigration Act of 1924
was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans, especially Jews, Italians and Slavs, who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929
and the ensuing Great Depression led to government efforts to re-start the economy and help its victims. The recovery, however, was very slow. The nadir of the Great Depression was 1933, and recovery was rapid until the recession of 1938 proved a setback. There were no major new industries in the 1930s that were big enough to drive growth the way autos, electricity and construction had been so powerful in the 1920s. GDP surpassed 1929 levels in 1940.
By 1939, isolationist
sentiment in America had ebbed, but after the fall of France in 1940 the United States began rearming itself and sent a large stream of money and military supplies to Britain, China and Russia. After the sudden Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
, the United States entered the war against Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy
, and Nazi Germany
, known as the "Axis Powers
". Italy surrendered in 1943, and Germany and Japan in 1945, after massive devastation and loss of life, while the US emerged far richer and with few casualties.
, in February. During 1919, a series of more than 20 riotous and violent black-white race-related incidents occurred. These included the Chicago
, Omaha
, and Elaine Race Riot
s.
A phenomenon known as the Red Scare
took place 1918-1919. With the rise of violent Communist revolutions in Europe, leftist radicals were emboldened by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and were eager to respond to Lenin's call for world revolution. On May 1, 1919, a parade in Cleveland, Ohio
, protesting the imprisonment of the Socialist Party
leader, Eugene Debs, erupted into the violent May Day Riots
. A series of bombings in 1919 and assassination attempts further inflamed the situation. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer conducted the Palmer Raids
, a series of raids and arrests of non-citizen socialists
, anarchists
, radical unionists, and immigrants. They were charged with planning to overthrow the government. By 1920, over 10,000 arrests were made, and the aliens caught up in these raids were deported back to Europe, most notably the anarchist Emma Goldman
, who years before had attempted to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick
.
A popular Tin Pan Alley
song of 1919 asked, concerning the United States troops returning from World War I, "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down On the Farm After They've Seen Paree
?". In fact, many did not remain "down on the farm"; there was a great migration of youth from farms to nearby towns and smaller cities. The average distance moved was only 10 miles (16 km). Few went to the cities over 100,000. However, agriculture became increasingly mechanized with widespread use of the tractor
, other heavy equipment, and superior techniques disseminated through County Agents
, who were employed by state agricultural colleges and funded by the Federal government.
In 1919, Woodrow Wilson
campaigned for the U.S. to join the new League of Nations
, which he had been instrumental in creating, but he rejected the Republican compromise on the issue and it was impossible to gain a 2/3 majority. During a grueling cross-country tour to promote the League, Wilson suffered a series of strokes. He never recovered physically and lost his leadership skills and was unable to negotiate or compromise. The Senate rejected entry into the League.
World War I
left Germany in a state of turmoil with no war reparations
payments flowing to the Allies
. The U.S. effectively orchestrated payment of reparations; under the Dawes Plan
, the U.S. loaned money to Germany, to pay the reparations to countries like Britain and France, which in turn paid off their own war debts to the U.S. In the 1920s, European and American economies reached new levels of industrial production and prosperity.
, U.S. women were able in 1920 to obtain the necessary votes from a majority of men to obtain the right to vote in all state and federal elections. Women participated in the 1920 Presidential and Congressional elections.
Politicians responded to the new electorate by emphasizing issues of special interest to women, especially prohibition, child health, public schools, and world peace. Women did respond to these issues, but in terms of general voting they shared the same outlook and the same voting behavior as men.
The suffrage organization NAWSA became the League of Women Voters
and Alice paul's National Woman's Party began lobbying for full equality and the Equal Rights Amendment
which would pass Congress during the second wave of the women's movement in 1972 (but it was not ratified and never took effect). The main surge of women voting came in 1928, when the big-city machines realized they needed the support of women to elect Al Smith
, while rural dries mobilized women to support Prohibition and vote for Republican Herbert Hoover
. Catholic women were reluctant to vote in the early 1920s, but they registered in very large numbers for the 1928 election--the first in which Catholicism was a major issue. A few women were elected to office, but none became especially prominent during this time period. Overall, the women's rights movement was dormant in the 1920s as Susan B. Anthony and the other prominent activists were dead and apart from Alice Paul
few younger women came along to replace them.
with the landslide victory of Warren G. Harding
, who promised a "return to normalcy" after the years of war, ethnic hatreds, race riots and exhausting reforms. Harding used new advertising techniques to lead the GOP to a massive landslide, carrying the major cities as many Irish Catholics and Germans, feeling betrayed, deserted the Democrats.
"The business of America is business," proclaimed President Coolidge. Entrepreneurship flourished and was widely hailed. Business interests had captured control of the regulatory agencies established before 1915 and used progressive rhetoric, emphasizing technological efficiency and prosperity as the keys to social improvement. William Allen White
, a leading progressive spokesman, supported GOP candidate Herbert Hoover
in 1928 as one who could "spiritualize" business prosperity and make it serve progressive ends.
Energy was a key to the economy, especially electricity and oil. As electrification reached all the cities and towns, consumers demanded new products such as light bulbs, refrigerators and toasters. Factories installed electric motors and saw productivity surge. With the oil booms in Texas
, Oklahoma, California, the United States dominated world petroleum production, now even more important in an age of automobiles and trucks.
at a strong system in place. Total union membership had soared from 2.7 million in 1914 to 5 million at its peak in 1919. An aggressive spirit appeared in 1919, as demonstrated by the general strike in Seattle, and the police strike in Boston. The larger unions made a dramatic move for expansion in 1919 by calling major strikes in clothing, meatpacking, steel, coal and railroads. The corporations fought back, and the strikes failed. The unions held on to their gains among machinists, textile workers, and seamen, and in such industries as food and clothing, but overall membership fell back to 3.5 million, where it stagnated until the New Deal passed the Wagner Act in 1935.
Real earnings (after taking inflation, unemployment and short hours into account) of all employees doubled over 1918-45. Setting 1918 as 100, the index went to 112 in 1923, 122 in 1929, 81 in 1933 (the low point of the depression) 116 in 1940, and 198 in 1945
The bubble of the late 1920s was reflected by the extension of credit to a dangerous degree, including in the stock market
, which rose to record high levels. Government size has been at low level, causing major freedom of the economy and more prosperity. It became apparent in retrospect after the Stock Market Crash of 1929 that credit levels had become dangerously inflated. The stock market crash was also used by the increase of government funding of Herbert Hoover and the overflow of the Stock Market.
" symbolize the popularity of new music and dance forms, which attracted younger people in all the large cities, as the older generation worried about the threat of looser sexual standards as suggested by the uninhibited "flapper". In every locality, Hollywood discovered an audience for its silent films. It was an age of celebrity and heroes, with movie stars, boxers, home run hitters, tennis aces, and football standouts grabbing widespread attention.
In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
in an attempt to alleviate high rates of alcoholism and, especially, political corruption led by saloon-based politicians. It was enforced at the federal level by the Volstead Act
. Most states let the federals do the enforcing. Drinking or owning liquor was not illegal, only the manufacture or sale. National Prohibition ended in 1933, although it continued for a while in some states. Prohibition is considered by most (but not all) historians to have been a failure because organized crime
was strengthened.
(KKK) is the name of three entirely different organizations (1860s, 1920s, post 1960) that used the same nomenclature and costumes but had no direct connection. The KKK of the 1920s was a purification movement that rallied against crime, especially violation of prohibition, and decried the growing "influence" of "big-city" Catholics and Jews. Its membership was often exaggerated but possibly reached as many as 4 million men, but no prominent national figure claimed membership; no daily newspaper endorsed it, and indeed most actively opposed the Klan. Membership was verily evenly spread across the nation's white Protestants, North
and South
, urban and rural. Historians in recent years have explored the Klan in depth. The KKK of the 1860s and the current KKK were indeed violent. However, historians discount lurid tales of a murderous group in the 1920s. Some crimes were probably committed in Deep South
states but were quite uncommon elsewhere. The local Klans seem to have been poorly organized and were exploited as money-making devices by organizers more than anything else. (Organizers charged a $10 application fee and up to $50 for costumes.) Nonetheless, the KKK had become prominent enough that it staged a huge rally in Washington DC in 1925. Soon afterward, the national headlines reported rape and murder by the KKK leader in Indiana
, the group quickly lost its mystique and nearly all its members.
of 1925 was a Tennessee
court case that tested a state law which forbade the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." The law was the result of a systematic drive by religious Fundamentalists to throw back the onslaught of modern ideas in theology and science. In a spectacular trial that drew national attention thanks to the roles of three-time Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan
for the prosecution, and famed lawyer Clarence Darrow
for the defense, John T. Scopes
was convicted of teaching evolution, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The Fundamentalists were widely ridiculed, with writers like H.L. Mencken poking merciless ridicule at them; their efforts to pass state laws proved a failure
While, in retrospect, the 1920s are sometimes seen as the last gasp of unregulated Robber Baron
capitalism
, there was actually an increasing role for the federal government. In addition to Prohibition, the government took on new powers and duties such as funding and overseeing the new U.S. Highway system and the regulation of radio frequencies.
The Harding
Administration was rocked by the Teapot Dome scandal
, the most famous of a number of episodes involving Harding's cabinet members. The president, exhausted and ill from the news of the scandals, died of an apparent heart attack in August 1923 during a cruise to Alaska. His vice-president, Calvin Coolidge, succeeded him.
Coolidge could not have been a more different personality than his predecessor. Dour, puritanical, and spotlessly honest, his White House stood in sharp contrast to the drinking, gambling, and womanizing that went on under Harding. In 1924, he was easily elected in his own right with the slogan "Keep Cool With Coolidge". Overall, the Harding and Coolidge administrations marked a return to the hands-off style of 19th-century presidents in contrast to the activism of Roosevelt and Wilson. Coolidge, who spent the entire summer on vacation during his years in office, famously said "The business of the American people is business."
When Coolidge declined to run again in the 1928 election, the Republican Party nominated engineer and Secretary of Commerce
Herbert Hoover
, who was elected by a wide margin over Al Smith
, the first Catholic nominee. Hoover was a technocrat who had low regard for politicians. Instead he was a believer in the efficacy of individualism and business enterprise, with a little coordination by the government, to cure all problems. He envisioned a future of unbounded plenty, and the imminent end of poverty in America. A year after his election, the stock market crashed, and the nation's economy slipped downward into the Great Depression
.
After the crash, Hoover attempted any number of efforts to restore the economy, especially the fast-sinking agricultural sector. None worked. Hoover believed in stimulus spending, and encourage state and local governments, as well as the federal government, to spend heavily on public buildings, roads, bridges—and, most famously, the Hoover dam
on the Colorado River. But with tax revenues falling fast, the states and localities plunged into their own fiscal crisis. Republicans, following their traditional mass drums, along with pressure from the farm bloc, pass the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
, which raised tariffs. Canada and other nations retaliated by raising their tariffs on American goods, and moving their trade in other directions. American imports and exports plunged by more than two thirds, but since international trade was less than 5% of the American economy, the damage done was limited. The entire world economy, led by the United States, had fallen into a downward spiral that got worse and worse, and in 1931-32 began plunging downward even faster. Hoover had Congress set up a new relief agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
, in 1932, but it proved too little too late.
Historians and economists still have not agreed on the causes of the Great Depression
, but there is general agreement that it began in the United States in late 1929, and was either started or worsened by "Black Tuesday", the stock market crash
of Thursday, October 24, 1929. Sectors of the U.S. economy had been showing some signs of distress for months before October 1929. Business inventories of all types were three times as large as they had been a year before (an indication that the public was not buying products as rapidly as in the past); and other signposts of economic health—freight carloads, industrial production, wholesale prices—were slipping downward.
The events in the United States triggered a world-wide depression, which led to deflation
and a great increase in unemployment
. In the United States between 1929 and 1933, unemployment soared from 3% of the workforce to 25%, while manufacturing output collapsed by one-third. Local relief was overwhelmed. Unable to support their families, many unemployed men deserted (often going to "Hooverville
s") so the meagre relief supplies their families received would stretch farther.
For many, their next meal was found at a soup kitchen
, if at all.
Adding to the misery of the times, drought
arrived in the Great Plains
. Decades of bad farming practices caused the topsoil to erode, and combined with the weather conditions (the 1930s was the overall warmest decade of the 20th century in North America) caused an ecological disaster. The dry soil was lifted by wind and blown into huge dust storms that blanketed entire towns, a phenomenon that continued for several years. Those who had lost their homes and livelihoods in the Dust Bowl
were lured westward by advertisements for work put out by agribusiness
in western states, such as California
. The migrants came to be called Okies, Arkies, and other derogatory names as they flooded the labor supply of the agricultural fields, driving down wages, pitting desperate workers against each other. They came into competition with Mexican laborers, who were deported en masse back to their home country.
In the South, the fragile economy collapsed further. To escape, rural workers and sharecroppers migrated north by train with hopes to work in auto plants around Detroit. In the Great Lakes states
, farmers had been experiencing depressed market conditions for their crops and goods since the end of World War I. Many family farms that had been mortgaged during the 1920s to provide money to “get through until better times” were foreclosed
when farmers were unable to make payments.
Worldwide, desperate governments sought economic recovery by adopting restrictive autarkic policies—high tariffs, import quotas, and barter agreements—and by experimenting with new plans for their internal economies. Britain adopted far-reaching measures in the development of a planned national economy. In Nazi Germany
, economic recovery was pursued through rearmament, conscription
, and public works programs. In Benito Mussolini
's Italy
, the economic controls of his corporate
state were tightened. Some observers throughout the world saw in the massive program of economic planning and state ownership of the Soviet Union
what appeared to be a depression-proof economic system and a solution to the crisis in capitalism
.
In the United States, upon accepting Democratic
nomination for president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised "a new deal for the American people," a phrase that has endured as a label for his administration and its many domestic achievements. The Republicans, blamed for the Depression, or at least for lack of an adequate response to it, were easily defeated by Roosevelt in 1932
Unlike many other world leaders in the 1930s, however, Roosevelt entered office with no single ideology or plan for dealing with the depression. The "new deal" was often contradictory, pragmatic, and experimental. What some considered incoherence of the New Deal's ideology, however, was the presence of several competing ones, based on programs and ideas not without precedents in the American political tradition.
The New Deal consisted of many different efforts to end the Great Depression and reform the American economy. Many of them failed, but there were enough successes to establish it as the most important episode of the twentieth century in the creation of the modern American state.
The desperate economic situation, combined with the substantial Democratic victories in the 1932 Congressional elections, gave Roosevelt unusual influence over Congress in the "First Hundred Days" of his administration. He used his leverage to win rapid passage of a series of measures to create welfare programs and regulate the banking system, stock market, industry and agriculture.
Three days later, President Roosevelt sent to Congress the Emergency Banking Act
, a generally conservative bill, drafted in large part by holdovers from the Hoover administration, designed primarily to protect large banks from being dragged down by the failing smaller ones. The bill provided for United States Treasury Department inspection of all banks before they would be allowed to reopen, for federal assistance to tottering large institutions, and for a thorough reorganization of those in greatest difficulty. A confused and frightened Congress passed the bill within four hours of its introduction. Three-quarters of the banks in the Federal Reserve System
reopened within the next three days, and $1 billion in hoarded currency and gold flowed back into them within a month. The immediate banking crisis was over. The Glass-Stegall Act established various provisions designed to prevent another Great Depression from happening again. These included separating investment from savings and loan banks, and forbidding the purchase of stock with no money down. Roosevelt also removed the currency of the United States from the gold standard, which was widely blamed for limiting the money supply and causing deflation, although the silver standard remained until 1971. Private ownership of gold bullion and certificates was banned, and would remain so to 1975.
, which was designed to convince the public, and moreover the business community, that the federal government was in the hands of no radical. The act proposed to balance the federal budget by cutting the salaries of government employees and reducing pensions to veterans by as much as 15%.
Otherwise, Roosevelt warned, the nation faced a $1 billion deficit. The bill revealed clearly what Roosevelt had always maintained: that he was as much of a fiscal conservative at heart as his predecessor was. And like the banking bill, it passed through Congress almost instantly—despite heated protests by some congressional progressives.
(AAA), which Congress passed in May 1933. The AAA reflected the desires of leaders of various farm organizations and Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture
, Henry A. Wallace
.
Relative farm incomes had been falling for decades. The AAA included reworkings of many long-touted programs for agrarian relief, which had been demanded for decades. The most important provision of the AAA was the provision for crop reductions—the "domestic allotment" system, which was intended to raise prices for farm commodities. In order to keep prices at a stable level, farmers were paid to not produce crops.
The most controversial component of the anti-deflationary domestic allotment system was the large-scale destruction of existing crops and livestock to reduce surpluses. At a time in which many families were suffering from malnutrition and starvation, it was a difficult measure. However, gross farm incomes increased by half in the first three years of the New Deal and the relative position of farmers improved significantly for the first time in twenty years. Many families at the time felt that the benefit, increased income for farmers (and the lobbying farm organizations), outweighed the cost of malnourishment and death. Roosevelt felt that without the allotment system, the decreasing commodity prices would have worsened the Great Depression significantly. This was later proven decades later when prices for farm commodities, falling sharply due to the Green Revolution
, led to disastrous results.
The most successful initiatives in alleviating the miseries of the Great Depression were a series of relief measures to aid some of the 15 million unemployed Americans, among them the Civilian Conservation Corps
, the Civil Works Administration
, and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration
.
The early New Deal also began the Tennessee Valley Authority
, an unprecedented experiment in flood control, public power, and regional planning.
(1935–36) was the second stage of the New Deal
programs. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
announced his main goals in January 1935: improved use of national resources, security against old age, unemployment and illness, and slum clearance, as well as a national welfare program (the WPA) to replace state relief efforts. The most important programs included Social Security
, the National Labor Relations Act
("Wagner Act"), the Banking Act, rural electrification
, and breaking up utility holding companies
. Programs that were later ended by the Supreme Court or the Conservative Coalition
included the Works Progress Administration
(WPA), the National Youth Administration
(NYA), the Resettlement Administration
, and programs for retail price control, farm rescues
, coal stabilization, and taxes on the rich
and the Undistributed profits tax
. Liberals in Congress passed the Bonus Bill
for World War veterans over FDR's veto.
The Second New Deal proved especially controversial as it attempted to redistribute wealth, income and power in favor of the poor, the old, farmers and labor unions. Liberals strongly supported the new direction, and formed the New Deal Coalition
of union members, big city machines, the white South, and ethnic minorities to support it; and conservatives—typified by the American Liberty League
were strongly opposed.
Roosevelt's first term saw a massive amount of labor upheaval. In 1934 alone, there was the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike that brought all of San Francisco into a four-day general strike, the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
that brought the Teamsters and other unions out for a strike causing the governor to declare martial law, the 1934 textile workers strike
that brought hundreds of thousands of textile workers on the East Coast out on strike, as well as other strikes.
The Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW) and the communists no longer being a force in the labor movement, the conservative American Federation of Labor
, which organized along craft union lines and which preached labor/capital cooperation, dominated the U.S. labor movement until the 1930s. In 1935, eight unions within the AFL organized the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO) to promote industrial unionism
. The CIO unions were expelled by the AFL in 1936, and in 1938 they formed a rival federation to the AFL. The CIO had much success in organizing, with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
getting a contract with U.S. Steel
in 1937, and winning the Flint Sit-Down Strike
and getting General Motors
to recognize the United Auto Workers
as the collective bargainer for GM workers. Having succeeded with GM, the UAW next turned its attention to Chrysler, which quickly came to terms. The last of the Big Three would prove to be a harder nut to crack, as Henry Ford remained absolutely opposed to unions. His security forces beat several UAW organizers outside the company's River Rouge plant in May 1937. Despite pressure on all fronts, Ford would not budge until a wildcat strike in 1941 convinced him to give in and unionize.
brought back 1934 levels of unemployment. There is a broad consensus among scholars that the New Deal policies did not lengthen and deepen the depression; only 5% of professional historians and 27% of professional economists believe it served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression. Apart from the WPA and CCC, most New Deal spending programs, such as the PWA and AAA, operated through private firms.
The New Deal
and Roosevelt's leadership were under assault during Roosevelt's second term, which suffered new economic setbacks in the Recession of 1937. A sharp economic downturn began in the fall of 1937 and continuing through most of 1938. Conservatives said it was caused by the labor unions' assault on industry through massive strikes and the way the New Deal discourages further investment. Keynesian economists argued it was a result of a premature effort by FDR to balance the budget by reducing federal spending. The administration reacted by launching a rhetorical campaign against business monopoly power, which was cast as the villain. The Supreme Court began busily dismantling the New Deal by ruling many of its programs unconstitutional and Roosevelt sought to replace the judges with more sympathetic ones in his infamous "Court Packing". Despite that, the New Deal gradually wound down and by 1939 the president had turned his attention towards foreign policy.
But the administration's other response to the 1937 downturn had more tangible results. Ignoring his own Treasury Department, Roosevelt embarked on an antidote to the depression, reluctantly abandoning his efforts to balance the budget and launching a $5 billion spending program in the spring of 1938, an effort to increase mass purchasing power and attack deflation. Roosevelt explained his program in a fireside chat
in which he finally acknowledged that it was up to the government to "create an economic upturn" by making "additions to the purchasing power of the nation."
, that the nation's economy fully recovered.
Between 1939 and 1944 (the peak of wartime production), the nation's output almost doubled. Consequently, unemployment plummeted—from 14% in 1940 to less than 2% in 1943, as the labor force grew by ten million.
The war economy was not so much a triumph of free enterprise as the result of government bankrolling business. While unemployment remained high throughout the New Deal years, consumption, investment, and net exports—the pillars of economic growth—remained low. It was World War II, not the New Deal, which finally ended the crisis. Nor did the New Deal substantially alter the distribution of power within American society and economy; and it had only a small impact on the distribution of wealth among the population..
as the majority party in national politics for more than a generation after its own end.
Laying the foundations for the postwar era, Roosevelt and the New Deal helped enhance the power of the federal government as a whole. Roosevelt also established the presidency as the preeminent center of authority within the federal government. By creating a large array of protections for various groups of citizens—workers, farmers, and others—who suffered from the crisis, enabling them to challenge the powers of the corporations, the Roosevelt administration generated a set of political ideas—known to later generations as New Deal liberalism—that remained a source of inspiration for decades and that helped shape the next experiment in liberal reform, the Great Society
of the 1960s.
On the other hand, the Roosevelt administration and its liberalism became the source of a vigorous conservative reaction. Led in Congress by Senator Robert A. Taft and the Conservative coalition
, they blocked almost all New Deal proposals after 1936, and shut down the WPA, CCC and many other programs by 1943. Eventually in the 1970s and 1980s, a bipartisan coalition ended most New Deal regulations and programs. The most important remaining ones in the 21st century are Social Security
and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
sentiment with regard to foreign wars in America had ebbed, but the United States at first declined to enter the war, limiting itself to giving supplies and weapons via Lend Lease to Britain, China
, and the Soviet Union
. American feeling changed drastically with the sudden Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
. The U.S. enthusiastically went to war against the Japan
, Italy, and Nazi Germany. Italy surrendered in 1943, followed by Germany and Japan in 1945. The economy doubled and trebled in size as a massive industrial mobilization was accompanied by artificial wage and price controls. 16 million men entered the military (most were drafted), in addition to 300,000 women volunteers. After a series of defeats inflicted by Japan, the U.S. Navy turned the tide at Midway (June 1942), then inexorably moved toward total destruction of the Japanese military. After small-scale invasions of North Africa (1942) and Italy (1943), the main American effort was a strategic bombing campaign that destroyed the German Luftwaffe, followed by a massive invasion of France in 1944. American forces met up with Soviet forces marching into Germany from the east in May 1945. Overall, the entire nation was turned into a vast war machine, affecting society far more than any other conflict fought by the United States.
After winning a bitter contest for re-election to unprecedented third and fourth terms, Roosevelt's health was deteriorating, and he died on April 12, 1945 of a massive brain hemorrhage. Harry S. Truman
continued most of Roosevelt's wartime policies but changed his cabinet. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb
on Hiroshima, Japan, followed on August 9 by a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered
a few days later and was occupied by the Americans under Douglas MacArthur
; MacArthur's five year rule transformed Japan's government, society and economy along American lines.
battling a conservative Congress
. Everyone agreed on the need for high taxes to pay for the war. Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to impose a 100% tax on incomes over $25,000 (equal to $ today), while Congress enlarged the base downward. By 1944 nearly every employed person was paying federal income taxes (compared to 10% in 1940).
Many controls were put on the economy. The most important were price controls, imposed on most products and monitored by the Office of Price Administration
. Wages were also controlled. Corporations dealt with numerous agencies, especially the War production Board (WPB), and the War and Navy departments, which had the purchasing power and priorities that largely reshaped and expanded industrial production.
To get a classification and a book of rationing stamps, one had to appear before a local rationing board. Each person in a household received a ration book, including babies and children. When purchasing gasoline, a driver had to present a gas card along with a ration book and cash. Ration stamps were valid only for a set period to forestall hoarding. All forms of automobile racing were banned, including Indianapolis. Sightseeing driving was banned, too.
People had more money than they could spend, so they saved it, especially in government savings bonds. Bond rallies were held throughout the U.S. with famous celebrities, usually Hollywood film stars, to enhance the bond advertising effectiveness. The public paid 3/4 of the face value of a war bond, and received the full face value back after a set number of years. Workers were challenged to put "at least 10% of every paycheck into Bonds". Compliance was very high, with entire factories of workers earning a special "Minuteman" flag to fly over their plant if all workers belonged to the "Ten Percent Club". There were seven major War Loan drives, all of which exceeded their goals. An added advantage was that citizens who were putting their money into War Bonds were not putting it into the home front wartime economy.
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The unemployment problem ended in the United States with the beginning of World War II, when stepped up wartime production created millions of new jobs and the draft pulled young men out.
Women also joined the workforce to replace men who had joined the forces, though in fewer numbers. Roosevelt stated that the efforts of civilians at home to support the war through personal sacrifice was as critical to winning the war as the efforts of the soldiers themselves. "Rosie the Riveter
" became the symbol of women laboring in manufacturing. The war effort brought about significant changes in the role of women in society as a whole. At the end of the war, many of the munitions factories closed. Other women were replaced by returning veterans. However most women who wanted to continue working did so.
Labor shortages were felt in agriculture, even though most farmers were given an occupational exemption and few were drafted. Large numbers volunteered or moved to cities for factory jobs. At the same time many agricultural commodities were in greater demand by the military and for the civilian populations of Allies. In some areas schools were temporarily closed at harvest time to enable students to work. About 400,000 German prisoners of war
were used as farm laborers both during and immediately after the war.
With the war’s ever increasing need for able bodied men consuming America’s labor force in the early 1940s, industry turned to teen-aged boys and girls to fill in as replacements. Consequently, many states had to change their child-labor laws to allow these teenagers to work. By 1943, there were almost three million American teenage boys and girls working in American fields and factories.
In the process of bringing great numbers of children into the workforce, the War altered the lives of many adolescents. Lured by high wartime wages, they took jobs and forgot about their education. Between 1940 and 1944, the number of teenage workers in America increased by 1.9 million; the number attending school declined by 1.25 million.
The war mobilization changed the relationship of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
(CIO) with both employers and the national government. Both the CIO and the larger American Federation of Labor
(AFL) grew rapidly in the war years.
Nearly all the unions that belonged to the CIO were fully supportive of both the war effort and of the Roosevelt administration. However the United Mine Workers, who had taken an isolationist stand in the years leading up to the war and had opposed Roosevelt's reelection in 1940, left the CIO in 1942. The major unions supported a wartime no-strike pledge that aimed to eliminate not only major strikes for new contracts, but also the innumerable small strikes called by shop stewards and local union leadership to protest particular grievances. In return for labor's no-strike pledge, the government offered arbitration to determine the wages and other terms of new contracts. Those procedures produced modest wage increases during the first few years of the war but not enough to keep up with inflation, particularly when combined with the slowness of the arbitration machinery.
Even though the complaints from union members about the no-strike pledge became louder and more bitter, the CIO did not abandon it. The Mine Workers, by contrast, who did not belong to either the AFL or the CIO for much of the war, threatened numerous strikes including a successful twelve-day strike in 1943. The strikes and threats made mine leader John L. Lewis
a much hated man and led to legislation hostile to unions.
All the major unions grew stronger during the war. The government put pressure on employers to recognize unions to avoid the sort of turbulent struggles over union recognition of the 1930s, while unions were generally able to obtain maintenance of membership clauses, a form of union security
, through arbitration and negotiation. Workers also won benefits, such as vacation pay, that had been available only to a few in the past while wage gaps between higher skilled and less skilled workers narrowed. Most union leaders saw women as temporary wartime replacements for the men in the armed forces. It was important that the wages of these women be kept high so that the veterans would get high wages.
and the anti-Mexican Zoot Suit Riots
in Los Angeles in 1943. Some German and Italian were rounded up and interned as enemy aliens who lacked U.S. citizenship and were known by the FBI as supporters of the enemy.
and their children were interned
by the U.S. government. They were sent to inland camps. Canada followed a similar policy. The 100,000 or more Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not interred. The American camps were closed in 1944.
was established on October 24, 1945, to serve as a world body to help prevent future world wars. By a vote of 65 to 7, the United States Senate
, on December 4, 1945, approved the treaty that set full American participation in the UN, with a veto in the all-important Security Council. This marked a turn away from the traditional interest in strategic local concerns of the U.S. and toward more international involvement.
Fears of a postwar depression did not materialize, thanks in part to the large stock of savings that paid for the pent-up demands for housing, cars, new clothes—and babies. The Baby Boom
began as the veterans returned, many moving to the rapidly expanding suburbs. Optimism was the hallmark of the new age—an age of grand expectations.
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
era, the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. After World War I, the U.S. rejected the Versailles Treaty and did not join the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
.
In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by an amendment
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
to the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. Possession of liquor, and drinking it, was never illegal. The overall level of alcohol consumption did go down, however, state and local governments avoided aggressive enforcement. The federal government was overwhelmed with cases, so that bootlegging and speakeasies flourished in every city, and well-organized criminal gangs exploded in numbers, finances, power, and influence on city politics.
During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of sustained prosperity. Agriculture went through a bubble that collapsed in 1921 and that sector remained depressed, and coal mining was being displaced by oil. Otherwise most sectors prospered. Prices were stable, and the gross national product grew steadily until 1929, when the financial bubble burst.
In foreign policy the nation never joined the League of Nations, but instead took the initiative to disarm the world, most notably at the Washington Conference
Washington Naval Conference
The Washington Naval Conference also called the Washington Arms Conference, was a military conference called by President Warren G. Harding and held in Washington from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922. Conducted outside the auspices of the League of Nations, it was attended by nine nations...
in 1921-1922. Washington also stabilized the European economy through the Dawes Plan
Dawes Plan
The Dawes Plan was an attempt in 1924, following World War I for the Triple Entente to collect war reparations debt from Germany...
and the Young Plan
Young Plan
The Young Plan was a program for settlement of German reparations debts after World War I written in 1929 and formally adopted in 1930. It was presented by the committee headed by American Owen D. Young. After the Dawes Plan was put into operation , it became apparent that Germany could not meet...
. The Immigration Act of 1924
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act , was a United States federal law that limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already...
was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans, especially Jews, Italians and Slavs, who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
and the ensuing Great Depression led to government efforts to re-start the economy and help its victims. The recovery, however, was very slow. The nadir of the Great Depression was 1933, and recovery was rapid until the recession of 1938 proved a setback. There were no major new industries in the 1930s that were big enough to drive growth the way autos, electricity and construction had been so powerful in the 1920s. GDP surpassed 1929 levels in 1940.
By 1939, isolationist
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
sentiment in America had ebbed, but after the fall of France in 1940 the United States began rearming itself and sent a large stream of money and military supplies to Britain, China and Russia. After the sudden Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
, the United States entered the war against Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
, and Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, known as the "Axis Powers
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
". Italy surrendered in 1943, and Germany and Japan in 1945, after massive devastation and loss of life, while the US emerged far richer and with few casualties.
Strikes, riots and scares
The United States was in turmoil throughout 1919. The huge number of returning veterans could not find work, something the Wilson administration had given little thought to. After the war, fear of subversion resumed in the context of the Red Scare, massive strikes in major industries (steel, meatpacking) and violent race riots. Radicals bombed Wall Street and workers went on strike in SeattleSeattle General Strike of 1919
The Seattle General Strike of February 6 to February 11, 1919, was a general work stoppage by over 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington. Dissatisfied workers in several unions began the strike to gain higher wages after two years of World War I wage controls...
, in February. During 1919, a series of more than 20 riotous and violent black-white race-related incidents occurred. These included the Chicago
Chicago Race Riot of 1919
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 was a major racial conflict that began in Chicago, Illinois on July 27, 1919 and ended on August 3. During the riot, dozens died and hundreds were injured. It is considered the worst of the approximately 25 riots during the Red Summer of 1919, so named because of the...
, Omaha
Omaha Race Riot of 1919
The Omaha Race Riot occurred in Omaha, Nebraska, on September 28–29, 1919. The race riot resulted in the brutal lynching of Will Brown, a black worker; the death of two white men; the attempted hanging of the mayor Edward Parsons Smith; and a public rampage by thousands of whites who set fire to...
, and Elaine Race Riot
Elaine Race Riot
The Elaine Race Riot, also called the Elaine Massacre, occurred September 30, 1919 in the town of Elaine in Phillips County, Arkansas, in the Arkansas Delta, where sharecropping by African American farmers was prevalent on plantations of white landowners.Approximately 100 African American farmers,...
s.
A phenomenon known as the Red Scare
First Red Scare
In American history, the First Red Scare of 1919–1920 was marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism. Concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and alleged spread in the American labor movement fueled the paranoia that defined the period.The First Red...
took place 1918-1919. With the rise of violent Communist revolutions in Europe, leftist radicals were emboldened by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and were eager to respond to Lenin's call for world revolution. On May 1, 1919, a parade in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, protesting the imprisonment of the Socialist Party
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
leader, Eugene Debs, erupted into the violent May Day Riots
May Day Riots of 1919
The May Day Riots of 1919 were a series of violent demonstrations that occurred throughout Cleveland, Ohio on May 1 , 1919. The riots began when Socialist leader, Charles Ruthenberg organized a May Day parade of local trade unionists, socialists, communists, and anarchists to protest the jailing...
. A series of bombings in 1919 and assassination attempts further inflamed the situation. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer conducted the Palmer Raids
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer...
, a series of raids and arrests of non-citizen socialists
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, anarchists
Anarchy
Anarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...
, radical unionists, and immigrants. They were charged with planning to overthrow the government. By 1920, over 10,000 arrests were made, and the aliens caught up in these raids were deported back to Europe, most notably the anarchist Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
, who years before had attempted to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick
Henry Clay Frick was an American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel steel manufacturing concern...
.
Aftermath of World War I
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
song of 1919 asked, concerning the United States troops returning from World War I, "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down On the Farm After They've Seen Paree
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
?". In fact, many did not remain "down on the farm"; there was a great migration of youth from farms to nearby towns and smaller cities. The average distance moved was only 10 miles (16 km). Few went to the cities over 100,000. However, agriculture became increasingly mechanized with widespread use of the tractor
Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
, other heavy equipment, and superior techniques disseminated through County Agents
Agricultural extension
Agricultural extension was once known as the application of scientific research and new knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education...
, who were employed by state agricultural colleges and funded by the Federal government.
In 1919, Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
campaigned for the U.S. to join the new League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
, which he had been instrumental in creating, but he rejected the Republican compromise on the issue and it was impossible to gain a 2/3 majority. During a grueling cross-country tour to promote the League, Wilson suffered a series of strokes. He never recovered physically and lost his leadership skills and was unable to negotiate or compromise. The Senate rejected entry into the League.
World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
left Germany in a state of turmoil with no war reparations
War reparations
War reparations are payments intended to cover damage or injury during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the annexation of land.- History :...
payments flowing to the Allies
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
. The U.S. effectively orchestrated payment of reparations; under the Dawes Plan
Dawes Plan
The Dawes Plan was an attempt in 1924, following World War I for the Triple Entente to collect war reparations debt from Germany...
, the U.S. loaned money to Germany, to pay the reparations to countries like Britain and France, which in turn paid off their own war debts to the U.S. In the 1920s, European and American economies reached new levels of industrial production and prosperity.
Woman suffrage
After a long period of agitationHistory of women's suffrage in the United States
Woman suffrage in the United States was achieved gradually, at state and local levels, during the 19th Century and early 20th Century, culminating in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provided: "The right of citizens of the United States to...
, U.S. women were able in 1920 to obtain the necessary votes from a majority of men to obtain the right to vote in all state and federal elections. Women participated in the 1920 Presidential and Congressional elections.
Politicians responded to the new electorate by emphasizing issues of special interest to women, especially prohibition, child health, public schools, and world peace. Women did respond to these issues, but in terms of general voting they shared the same outlook and the same voting behavior as men.
The suffrage organization NAWSA became the League of Women Voters
League of Women Voters
The League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...
and Alice paul's National Woman's Party began lobbying for full equality and the Equal Rights Amendment
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time...
which would pass Congress during the second wave of the women's movement in 1972 (but it was not ratified and never took effect). The main surge of women voting came in 1928, when the big-city machines realized they needed the support of women to elect Al Smith
Al Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith. , known in private and public life as Al Smith, was an American statesman who was elected the 42nd Governor of New York three times, and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928...
, while rural dries mobilized women to support Prohibition and vote for Republican Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
. Catholic women were reluctant to vote in the early 1920s, but they registered in very large numbers for the 1928 election--the first in which Catholicism was a major issue. A few women were elected to office, but none became especially prominent during this time period. Overall, the women's rights movement was dormant in the 1920s as Susan B. Anthony and the other prominent activists were dead and apart from Alice Paul
Alice Paul
Alice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...
few younger women came along to replace them.
Roaring Twenties
In the U.S. presidential election of 1920, the Republican Party returned to the White HouseWhite House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
with the landslide victory of Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
, who promised a "return to normalcy" after the years of war, ethnic hatreds, race riots and exhausting reforms. Harding used new advertising techniques to lead the GOP to a massive landslide, carrying the major cities as many Irish Catholics and Germans, feeling betrayed, deserted the Democrats.
Prosperity
Except for a recession in 1920-1921, the United States enjoyed a period of prosperity. Good times were widespread for all sectors (except agriculture and coal mining). New industries (especially electric power, movies, automobiles, gasoline, tourist travel, highway construction and housing) flourished."The business of America is business," proclaimed President Coolidge. Entrepreneurship flourished and was widely hailed. Business interests had captured control of the regulatory agencies established before 1915 and used progressive rhetoric, emphasizing technological efficiency and prosperity as the keys to social improvement. William Allen White
William Allen White
William Allen White was a renowned American newspaper editor, politician, author, and leader of the Progressive movement...
, a leading progressive spokesman, supported GOP candidate Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
in 1928 as one who could "spiritualize" business prosperity and make it serve progressive ends.
Energy was a key to the economy, especially electricity and oil. As electrification reached all the cities and towns, consumers demanded new products such as light bulbs, refrigerators and toasters. Factories installed electric motors and saw productivity surge. With the oil booms in Texas
Texas Oil Boom
The Texas Oil Boom, sometimes called the Gusher Age, was a period of dramatic change and economic growth in U.S. state of Texas during the early 20th century that began with the discovery of a large petroleum reserve near Beaumont, Texas...
, Oklahoma, California, the United States dominated world petroleum production, now even more important in an age of automobiles and trucks.
Unions
Labor unions grew very rapidly during the war, emerging with a large membership, full treasuries, and a temporary government guarantee of the right of collective bargaining. Inflation was high during the war, but wages went up even faster. However, unions were weak in heavy industry, such as automobiles and steel. Their main strength was in construction, printing, railroads, and other crafts where the AFLAmerican Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
at a strong system in place. Total union membership had soared from 2.7 million in 1914 to 5 million at its peak in 1919. An aggressive spirit appeared in 1919, as demonstrated by the general strike in Seattle, and the police strike in Boston. The larger unions made a dramatic move for expansion in 1919 by calling major strikes in clothing, meatpacking, steel, coal and railroads. The corporations fought back, and the strikes failed. The unions held on to their gains among machinists, textile workers, and seamen, and in such industries as food and clothing, but overall membership fell back to 3.5 million, where it stagnated until the New Deal passed the Wagner Act in 1935.
Real earnings (after taking inflation, unemployment and short hours into account) of all employees doubled over 1918-45. Setting 1918 as 100, the index went to 112 in 1923, 122 in 1929, 81 in 1933 (the low point of the depression) 116 in 1940, and 198 in 1945
The bubble of the late 1920s was reflected by the extension of credit to a dangerous degree, including in the stock market
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
, which rose to record high levels. Government size has been at low level, causing major freedom of the economy and more prosperity. It became apparent in retrospect after the Stock Market Crash of 1929 that credit levels had become dangerously inflated. The stock market crash was also used by the increase of government funding of Herbert Hoover and the overflow of the Stock Market.
Jazz
The "Jazz AgeJazz Age
The Jazz Age was a movement that took place during the 1920s or the Roaring Twenties from which jazz music and dance emerged. The movement came about with the introduction of mainstream radio and the end of the war. This era ended in the 1930s with the beginning of The Great Depression but has...
" symbolize the popularity of new music and dance forms, which attracted younger people in all the large cities, as the older generation worried about the threat of looser sexual standards as suggested by the uninhibited "flapper". In every locality, Hollywood discovered an audience for its silent films. It was an age of celebrity and heroes, with movie stars, boxers, home run hitters, tennis aces, and football standouts grabbing widespread attention.
Prohibition
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution established Prohibition in the United States. The separate Volstead Act set down methods of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited, and which were excluded from prohibition...
in an attempt to alleviate high rates of alcoholism and, especially, political corruption led by saloon-based politicians. It was enforced at the federal level by the Volstead Act
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was the enabling legislation for the Eighteenth Amendment which established prohibition in the United States...
. Most states let the federals do the enforcing. Drinking or owning liquor was not illegal, only the manufacture or sale. National Prohibition ended in 1933, although it continued for a while in some states. Prohibition is considered by most (but not all) historians to have been a failure because organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
was strengthened.
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
(KKK) is the name of three entirely different organizations (1860s, 1920s, post 1960) that used the same nomenclature and costumes but had no direct connection. The KKK of the 1920s was a purification movement that rallied against crime, especially violation of prohibition, and decried the growing "influence" of "big-city" Catholics and Jews. Its membership was often exaggerated but possibly reached as many as 4 million men, but no prominent national figure claimed membership; no daily newspaper endorsed it, and indeed most actively opposed the Klan. Membership was verily evenly spread across the nation's white Protestants, North
Northern United States
Northern United States, also sometimes the North, may refer to:* A particular grouping of states or regions of the United States of America. The United States Census Bureau divides some of the northernmost United States into the Midwest Region and the Northeast Region...
and South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, urban and rural. Historians in recent years have explored the Klan in depth. The KKK of the 1860s and the current KKK were indeed violent. However, historians discount lurid tales of a murderous group in the 1920s. Some crimes were probably committed in Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
states but were quite uncommon elsewhere. The local Klans seem to have been poorly organized and were exploited as money-making devices by organizers more than anything else. (Organizers charged a $10 application fee and up to $50 for costumes.) Nonetheless, the KKK had become prominent enough that it staged a huge rally in Washington DC in 1925. Soon afterward, the national headlines reported rape and murder by the KKK leader in Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, the group quickly lost its mystique and nearly all its members.
Scopes "Monkey" Trial
The Scopes TrialScopes Trial
The Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act which made it unlawful to...
of 1925 was a Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
court case that tested a state law which forbade the teaching of "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." The law was the result of a systematic drive by religious Fundamentalists to throw back the onslaught of modern ideas in theology and science. In a spectacular trial that drew national attention thanks to the roles of three-time Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
for the prosecution, and famed lawyer Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...
for the defense, John T. Scopes
John T. Scopes
John Thomas Scopes , was a biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who was charged on May 5, 1925 for violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools...
was convicted of teaching evolution, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. The Fundamentalists were widely ridiculed, with writers like H.L. Mencken poking merciless ridicule at them; their efforts to pass state laws proved a failure
Federal government
Robber baron (industrialist)
Robber baron is a pejorative term used for a powerful 19th century American businessman. By the 1890s the term was used to attack any businessman who used questionable practices to become wealthy...
capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, there was actually an increasing role for the federal government. In addition to Prohibition, the government took on new powers and duties such as funding and overseeing the new U.S. Highway system and the regulation of radio frequencies.
The Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
Administration was rocked by the Teapot Dome scandal
Teapot Dome scandal
The Teapot Dome Scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States in 1922–23, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome and two other locations to private oil companies at low...
, the most famous of a number of episodes involving Harding's cabinet members. The president, exhausted and ill from the news of the scandals, died of an apparent heart attack in August 1923 during a cruise to Alaska. His vice-president, Calvin Coolidge, succeeded him.
Coolidge could not have been a more different personality than his predecessor. Dour, puritanical, and spotlessly honest, his White House stood in sharp contrast to the drinking, gambling, and womanizing that went on under Harding. In 1924, he was easily elected in his own right with the slogan "Keep Cool With Coolidge". Overall, the Harding and Coolidge administrations marked a return to the hands-off style of 19th-century presidents in contrast to the activism of Roosevelt and Wilson. Coolidge, who spent the entire summer on vacation during his years in office, famously said "The business of the American people is business."
When Coolidge declined to run again in the 1928 election, the Republican Party nominated engineer and Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
, who was elected by a wide margin over Al Smith
Al Smith
Alfred Emanuel Smith. , known in private and public life as Al Smith, was an American statesman who was elected the 42nd Governor of New York three times, and was the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1928...
, the first Catholic nominee. Hoover was a technocrat who had low regard for politicians. Instead he was a believer in the efficacy of individualism and business enterprise, with a little coordination by the government, to cure all problems. He envisioned a future of unbounded plenty, and the imminent end of poverty in America. A year after his election, the stock market crashed, and the nation's economy slipped downward into the Great Depression
Great Depression in the United States
The Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement...
.
After the crash, Hoover attempted any number of efforts to restore the economy, especially the fast-sinking agricultural sector. None worked. Hoover believed in stimulus spending, and encourage state and local governments, as well as the federal government, to spend heavily on public buildings, roads, bridges—and, most famously, the Hoover dam
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President...
on the Colorado River. But with tax revenues falling fast, the states and localities plunged into their own fiscal crisis. Republicans, following their traditional mass drums, along with pressure from the farm bloc, pass the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
The Tariff Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was an act, sponsored by United States Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, and signed into law on June 17, 1930, that raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels.The overall level tariffs...
, which raised tariffs. Canada and other nations retaliated by raising their tariffs on American goods, and moving their trade in other directions. American imports and exports plunged by more than two thirds, but since international trade was less than 5% of the American economy, the damage done was limited. The entire world economy, led by the United States, had fallen into a downward spiral that got worse and worse, and in 1931-32 began plunging downward even faster. Hoover had Congress set up a new relief agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was an independent agency of the United States government, established and chartered by the US Congress in 1932, Act of January 22, 1932, c. 8, 47 Stat. 5, during the administration of President Herbert Hoover. It was modeled after the War Finance Corporation...
, in 1932, but it proved too little too late.
Great Depression
Causes of the Great Depression
The causes of the Great Depression are still a matter of active debate among economists, and is part of the larger debate about economic crises, although the popular belief is that the Great Depression was caused by the crash of the stock market...
, but there is general agreement that it began in the United States in late 1929, and was either started or worsened by "Black Tuesday", the stock market crash
Stock market crash
A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors...
of Thursday, October 24, 1929. Sectors of the U.S. economy had been showing some signs of distress for months before October 1929. Business inventories of all types were three times as large as they had been a year before (an indication that the public was not buying products as rapidly as in the past); and other signposts of economic health—freight carloads, industrial production, wholesale prices—were slipping downward.
The events in the United States triggered a world-wide depression, which led to deflation
Deflation (economics)
In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% . This should not be confused with disinflation, a slow-down in the inflation rate...
and a great increase in unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
. In the United States between 1929 and 1933, unemployment soared from 3% of the workforce to 25%, while manufacturing output collapsed by one-third. Local relief was overwhelmed. Unable to support their families, many unemployed men deserted (often going to "Hooverville
Hooverville
A 'Hooverville' was the popular name for shanty towns built by homeless people during the Great Depression. They were named after the President of the United States at the time, Herbert Hoover, because he allegedly let the nation slide into depression...
s") so the meagre relief supplies their families received would stretch farther.
For many, their next meal was found at a soup kitchen
Soup kitchen
A soup kitchen, a bread line, or a meal center is a place where food is offered to the hungry for free or at a reasonably low price. Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoods, they are often staffed by volunteer organizations, such as church groups or community groups...
, if at all.
Adding to the misery of the times, drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
arrived in the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
. Decades of bad farming practices caused the topsoil to erode, and combined with the weather conditions (the 1930s was the overall warmest decade of the 20th century in North America) caused an ecological disaster. The dry soil was lifted by wind and blown into huge dust storms that blanketed entire towns, a phenomenon that continued for several years. Those who had lost their homes and livelihoods in the Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
were lured westward by advertisements for work put out by agribusiness
Agribusiness
In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term for the various businesses involved in food production, including farming and contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales....
in western states, such as California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The migrants came to be called Okies, Arkies, and other derogatory names as they flooded the labor supply of the agricultural fields, driving down wages, pitting desperate workers against each other. They came into competition with Mexican laborers, who were deported en masse back to their home country.
In the South, the fragile economy collapsed further. To escape, rural workers and sharecroppers migrated north by train with hopes to work in auto plants around Detroit. In the Great Lakes states
Great Lakes region (North America)
The Great Lakes region of North America, occasionally known as the Third Coast or the Fresh Coast , includes the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as the Canadian province of Ontario...
, farmers had been experiencing depressed market conditions for their crops and goods since the end of World War I. Many family farms that had been mortgaged during the 1920s to provide money to “get through until better times” were foreclosed
Foreclosure
Foreclosure is the legal process by which a mortgage lender , or other lien holder, obtains a termination of a mortgage borrower 's equitable right of redemption, either by court order or by operation of law...
when farmers were unable to make payments.
Worldwide, desperate governments sought economic recovery by adopting restrictive autarkic policies—high tariffs, import quotas, and barter agreements—and by experimenting with new plans for their internal economies. Britain adopted far-reaching measures in the development of a planned national economy. In Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, economic recovery was pursued through rearmament, conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
, and public works programs. In Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, the economic controls of his corporate
Corporatism
Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is a system of economic, political, or social organization that involves association of the people of society into corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common...
state were tightened. Some observers throughout the world saw in the massive program of economic planning and state ownership of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
what appeared to be a depression-proof economic system and a solution to the crisis in capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
.
The New Deal
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
nomination for president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt promised "a new deal for the American people," a phrase that has endured as a label for his administration and its many domestic achievements. The Republicans, blamed for the Depression, or at least for lack of an adequate response to it, were easily defeated by Roosevelt in 1932
United States presidential election, 1932
The United States presidential election of 1932 took place as the effects of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, the Revenue Act of 1932, and the Great Depression were being felt intensely across the country. President Herbert Hoover's popularity was falling as...
Unlike many other world leaders in the 1930s, however, Roosevelt entered office with no single ideology or plan for dealing with the depression. The "new deal" was often contradictory, pragmatic, and experimental. What some considered incoherence of the New Deal's ideology, however, was the presence of several competing ones, based on programs and ideas not without precedents in the American political tradition.
The New Deal consisted of many different efforts to end the Great Depression and reform the American economy. Many of them failed, but there were enough successes to establish it as the most important episode of the twentieth century in the creation of the modern American state.
The desperate economic situation, combined with the substantial Democratic victories in the 1932 Congressional elections, gave Roosevelt unusual influence over Congress in the "First Hundred Days" of his administration. He used his leverage to win rapid passage of a series of measures to create welfare programs and regulate the banking system, stock market, industry and agriculture.
"Bank holiday" and Emergency Banking Act
On March 6, two days after taking office, Roosevelt issued a proclamation closing all American banks for four days until Congress could meet in a special session. Ordinarily, such an action would cause widespread panic. But the action created a general sense of relief. First, many states had already closed down the banks before March 6. Second, Roosevelt astutely and euphemistically described it as a "bank holiday." And third, the action demonstrated that the federal government was stepping in to stop the alarming pattern of bank failures.Three days later, President Roosevelt sent to Congress the Emergency Banking Act
Emergency Banking Act
The Emergency Banking Act was an act of the United States Congress spearheaded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. It was passed on March 9, 1933...
, a generally conservative bill, drafted in large part by holdovers from the Hoover administration, designed primarily to protect large banks from being dragged down by the failing smaller ones. The bill provided for United States Treasury Department inspection of all banks before they would be allowed to reopen, for federal assistance to tottering large institutions, and for a thorough reorganization of those in greatest difficulty. A confused and frightened Congress passed the bill within four hours of its introduction. Three-quarters of the banks in the Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve System
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907...
reopened within the next three days, and $1 billion in hoarded currency and gold flowed back into them within a month. The immediate banking crisis was over. The Glass-Stegall Act established various provisions designed to prevent another Great Depression from happening again. These included separating investment from savings and loan banks, and forbidding the purchase of stock with no money down. Roosevelt also removed the currency of the United States from the gold standard, which was widely blamed for limiting the money supply and causing deflation, although the silver standard remained until 1971. Private ownership of gold bullion and certificates was banned, and would remain so to 1975.
Economy Act
On the morning after passage of the Emergency Banking Act, Roosevelt sent to Congress the Economy ActEconomy Act
The Economy Act of 1933, officially titled the Act of March 20, 1933 , is an Act of Congress that cut the salaries of federal workers and reduced benefit payments to veterans, moves intended to reduce the federal deficit in the United States....
, which was designed to convince the public, and moreover the business community, that the federal government was in the hands of no radical. The act proposed to balance the federal budget by cutting the salaries of government employees and reducing pensions to veterans by as much as 15%.
Otherwise, Roosevelt warned, the nation faced a $1 billion deficit. The bill revealed clearly what Roosevelt had always maintained: that he was as much of a fiscal conservative at heart as his predecessor was. And like the banking bill, it passed through Congress almost instantly—despite heated protests by some congressional progressives.
Farm programs
The celebrated First Hundred Days of the new administration also produced a federal program to protect American farmers from the uncertainties of the market through subsidies and production controls, the Agricultural Adjustment ActAgricultural Adjustment Act
The Agricultural Adjustment Act was a United States federal law of the New Deal era which restricted agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant part of their land and to kill off excess livestock...
(AAA), which Congress passed in May 1933. The AAA reflected the desires of leaders of various farm organizations and Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture
United States Secretary of Agriculture
The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...
, Henry A. Wallace
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the Secretary of Agriculture , and the Secretary of Commerce . In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.-Early life:Henry A...
.
Relative farm incomes had been falling for decades. The AAA included reworkings of many long-touted programs for agrarian relief, which had been demanded for decades. The most important provision of the AAA was the provision for crop reductions—the "domestic allotment" system, which was intended to raise prices for farm commodities. In order to keep prices at a stable level, farmers were paid to not produce crops.
The most controversial component of the anti-deflationary domestic allotment system was the large-scale destruction of existing crops and livestock to reduce surpluses. At a time in which many families were suffering from malnutrition and starvation, it was a difficult measure. However, gross farm incomes increased by half in the first three years of the New Deal and the relative position of farmers improved significantly for the first time in twenty years. Many families at the time felt that the benefit, increased income for farmers (and the lobbying farm organizations), outweighed the cost of malnourishment and death. Roosevelt felt that without the allotment system, the decreasing commodity prices would have worsened the Great Depression significantly. This was later proven decades later when prices for farm commodities, falling sharply due to the Green Revolution
Green Revolution
Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between the 1940s and the late 1970s, that increased agriculture production around the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s....
, led to disastrous results.
'Alphabet soup'
Roosevelt also created an alphabet soup of new federal regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to oversee the stock market, a reform of the banking system that included a system of insurance for deposits.The most successful initiatives in alleviating the miseries of the Great Depression were a series of relief measures to aid some of the 15 million unemployed Americans, among them the Civilian Conservation Corps
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D...
, the Civil Works Administration
Civil Works Administration
The Civil Works Administration was established by the New Deal during the Great Depression to create manual labor jobs for millions of unemployed. The jobs were merely temporary, for the duration of the hard winter. Harry L. Hopkins was put in charge of the organization. President Franklin D...
, and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration
Federal Emergency Relief Administration
Federal Emergency Relief Administration was the new name given by the Roosevelt Administration to the Emergency Relief Administration which President Herbert Hoover had created in 1932...
.
The early New Deal also began the Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
, an unprecedented experiment in flood control, public power, and regional planning.
Second New Deal
The Second New DealSecond New Deal
The Second New Deal is the term used by commentators at the time and historians ever since to characterize the second stage of the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt...
(1935–36) was the second stage of the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
programs. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
announced his main goals in January 1935: improved use of national resources, security against old age, unemployment and illness, and slum clearance, as well as a national welfare program (the WPA) to replace state relief efforts. The most important programs included Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
, the National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
("Wagner Act"), the Banking Act, rural electrification
Rural Electrification Act
The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve rural areas of the United States....
, and breaking up utility holding companies
Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935
The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 , , also known as the Wheeler-Rayburn Act, was a law that was passed by the United States Congress to facilitate regulation of electric utilities, by either limiting their operations to a single state, and thus subjecting them to effective state...
. Programs that were later ended by the Supreme Court or the Conservative Coalition
Conservative coalition
In the United States, the conservative coalition was an unofficial Congressional coalition bringing together the conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly Southern, wing of the Democratic Party...
included the Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
(WPA), the National Youth Administration
National Youth Administration
The National Youth Administration was a New Deal agency in the United States that focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 24. It operated from 1935 to 1939 as part of the Works Progress Administration . Following the passage of the Reorganization Act of...
(NYA), the Resettlement Administration
Resettlement Administration
The Resettlement Administration was a U.S. federal agency that, between April 1935 and December 1936, relocated struggling urban and rural families to communities planned by the federal government....
, and programs for retail price control, farm rescues
Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act
The Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act was an Act of Congress passed in the United States in 1934 that restricted the ability of banks to repossess farms.-Background:Between 1933 and 1936, the United States Congress in conjunction with President Franklin D...
, coal stabilization, and taxes on the rich
Revenue Act of 1935
The Revenue Act of 1935, , raised United States taxes on higher income levels, gifts, estates and corporations, by introducing the "Wealth Tax". It was a new graduated tax that took up to 75 percent of the highest incomes in taxes, starting at incomes above $50,000.It was signed into law by...
and the Undistributed profits tax
Undistributed profits tax
The Undistributed Profits Tax was enacted in 1936 by the United States administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt , during the Great Depression . The UP Tax was a revenue program for FDR's New Deal. The act was controversial even within FDR's United States Treasury Department, as some noted...
. Liberals in Congress passed the Bonus Bill
Adjusted Compensation Payment Act
The Adjusted Compensation Payment Act , one of several pieces of legislation popularly called the "Bonus Act," was enacted when Congress overrode President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto on January 27, 1936....
for World War veterans over FDR's veto.
The Second New Deal proved especially controversial as it attempted to redistribute wealth, income and power in favor of the poor, the old, farmers and labor unions. Liberals strongly supported the new direction, and formed the New Deal Coalition
New Deal coalition
The New Deal Coalition was the alignment of interest groups and voting blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until the late 1960s. It made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952...
of union members, big city machines, the white South, and ethnic minorities to support it; and conservatives—typified by the American Liberty League
American Liberty League
The American Liberty League was an American political organization formed in 1934 by conservative Democrats to oppose the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was active for just two years...
were strongly opposed.
Labor agitation
Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, a major distribution center for the Upper Midwest. The strike began on May 16, 1934 in the Market District and ensuing violence lasted periodically throughout...
that brought the Teamsters and other unions out for a strike causing the governor to declare martial law, the 1934 textile workers strike
Textile workers strike (1934)
The textile workers' strike of 1934 was the largest strike in the labor history of the United States at the time, involving 400,000 textile workers from New England, the Mid-Atlantic states and the U.S. Southern states, lasting twenty-two days...
that brought hundreds of thousands of textile workers on the East Coast out on strike, as well as other strikes.
The Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
(IWW) and the communists no longer being a force in the labor movement, the conservative American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
, which organized along craft union lines and which preached labor/capital cooperation, dominated the U.S. labor movement until the 1930s. In 1935, eight unions within the AFL organized the Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO) to promote industrial unionism
Industrial unionism
Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations...
. The CIO unions were expelled by the AFL in 1936, and in 1938 they formed a rival federation to the AFL. The CIO had much success in organizing, with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
Steel Workers Organizing Committee
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO in 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Steel Workers of America....
getting a contract with U.S. Steel
U.S. Steel
The United States Steel Corporation , more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. The company is the world's tenth largest steel producer ranked by sales...
in 1937, and winning the Flint Sit-Down Strike
Flint Sit-Down Strike
The 1936–1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike changed the United Automobile Workers from a collection of isolated locals on the fringes of the industry into a major labor union and led to the unionization of the domestic United States automobile industry....
and getting General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
to recognize the United Auto Workers
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers , is a labor union which represents workers in the United States and Puerto Rico, and formerly in Canada. Founded as part of the Congress of Industrial...
as the collective bargainer for GM workers. Having succeeded with GM, the UAW next turned its attention to Chrysler, which quickly came to terms. The last of the Big Three would prove to be a harder nut to crack, as Henry Ford remained absolutely opposed to unions. His security forces beat several UAW organizers outside the company's River Rouge plant in May 1937. Despite pressure on all fronts, Ford would not budge until a wildcat strike in 1941 convinced him to give in and unionize.
Recession of 1937 and recovery
The economy eventually recovered from the low point of the winter of 1932-33, with sustained improvement until 1937, when the Recession of 1937Recession of 1937
The Recession of 1937–1938 was a temporary reversal of the pre-war 1933 to 1941 economic recovery from the Great Depression in the United States.-Background:...
brought back 1934 levels of unemployment. There is a broad consensus among scholars that the New Deal policies did not lengthen and deepen the depression; only 5% of professional historians and 27% of professional economists believe it served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression. Apart from the WPA and CCC, most New Deal spending programs, such as the PWA and AAA, operated through private firms.
The New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
and Roosevelt's leadership were under assault during Roosevelt's second term, which suffered new economic setbacks in the Recession of 1937. A sharp economic downturn began in the fall of 1937 and continuing through most of 1938. Conservatives said it was caused by the labor unions' assault on industry through massive strikes and the way the New Deal discourages further investment. Keynesian economists argued it was a result of a premature effort by FDR to balance the budget by reducing federal spending. The administration reacted by launching a rhetorical campaign against business monopoly power, which was cast as the villain. The Supreme Court began busily dismantling the New Deal by ruling many of its programs unconstitutional and Roosevelt sought to replace the judges with more sympathetic ones in his infamous "Court Packing". Despite that, the New Deal gradually wound down and by 1939 the president had turned his attention towards foreign policy.
But the administration's other response to the 1937 downturn had more tangible results. Ignoring his own Treasury Department, Roosevelt embarked on an antidote to the depression, reluctantly abandoning his efforts to balance the budget and launching a $5 billion spending program in the spring of 1938, an effort to increase mass purchasing power and attack deflation. Roosevelt explained his program in a fireside chat
Fireside chats
The fireside chats were a series of thirty evening radio addresses given by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944.-Origin of radio address:...
in which he finally acknowledged that it was up to the government to "create an economic upturn" by making "additions to the purchasing power of the nation."
World War II and the end of the Great Depression
It was not until the administration expanded Federal spending to support World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, that the nation's economy fully recovered.
Between 1939 and 1944 (the peak of wartime production), the nation's output almost doubled. Consequently, unemployment plummeted—from 14% in 1940 to less than 2% in 1943, as the labor force grew by ten million.
The war economy was not so much a triumph of free enterprise as the result of government bankrolling business. While unemployment remained high throughout the New Deal years, consumption, investment, and net exports—the pillars of economic growth—remained low. It was World War II, not the New Deal, which finally ended the crisis. Nor did the New Deal substantially alter the distribution of power within American society and economy; and it had only a small impact on the distribution of wealth among the population..
Legacies of the New Deal
Although the New Deal did not end the depression, it increased the regulatory functions of the federal government in the stock market, the banking system, and others. It also produced a new political coalition that sustained the Democratic PartyDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
as the majority party in national politics for more than a generation after its own end.
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States promoted by President Lyndon B. Johnson and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice...
of the 1960s.
On the other hand, the Roosevelt administration and its liberalism became the source of a vigorous conservative reaction. Led in Congress by Senator Robert A. Taft and the Conservative coalition
Conservative coalition
In the United States, the conservative coalition was an unofficial Congressional coalition bringing together the conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly Southern, wing of the Democratic Party...
, they blocked almost all New Deal proposals after 1936, and shut down the WPA, CCC and many other programs by 1943. Eventually in the 1970s and 1980s, a bipartisan coalition ended most New Deal regulations and programs. The most important remaining ones in the 21st century are Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Foreign and military policy
IsolationistIsolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
sentiment with regard to foreign wars in America had ebbed, but the United States at first declined to enter the war, limiting itself to giving supplies and weapons via Lend Lease to Britain, China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
, and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. American feeling changed drastically with the sudden Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. The U.S. enthusiastically went to war against the Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
, Italy, and Nazi Germany. Italy surrendered in 1943, followed by Germany and Japan in 1945. The economy doubled and trebled in size as a massive industrial mobilization was accompanied by artificial wage and price controls. 16 million men entered the military (most were drafted), in addition to 300,000 women volunteers. After a series of defeats inflicted by Japan, the U.S. Navy turned the tide at Midway (June 1942), then inexorably moved toward total destruction of the Japanese military. After small-scale invasions of North Africa (1942) and Italy (1943), the main American effort was a strategic bombing campaign that destroyed the German Luftwaffe, followed by a massive invasion of France in 1944. American forces met up with Soviet forces marching into Germany from the east in May 1945. Overall, the entire nation was turned into a vast war machine, affecting society far more than any other conflict fought by the United States.
After winning a bitter contest for re-election to unprecedented third and fourth terms, Roosevelt's health was deteriorating, and he died on April 12, 1945 of a massive brain hemorrhage. Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
continued most of Roosevelt's wartime policies but changed his cabinet. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
on Hiroshima, Japan, followed on August 9 by a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered
Surrender of Japan
The surrender of Japan in 1945 brought hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent...
a few days later and was occupied by the Americans under Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
; MacArthur's five year rule transformed Japan's government, society and economy along American lines.
Economics
The main contributions of the U.S. to the Allied war effort comprised money, industrial output, food, petroleum, technological innovation, and (especially 1944-45), soldiers. Much of the focus in Washington was maximizing the economic output of the nation. The overall result was a dramatic increase in GDP, the export of vast quantities of supplies to the Allies and to American forces overseas, the end of unemployment, and a rise in civilian consumption even as 40% of the GDP went to the war effort. This was achieved by tens of millions of workers moving from low-productivity occupations to high efficiency jobs, improvements in productivity through better technology and management, and the move into the active labor force of students, retired people, housewives, and the unemployed, and an increase in hours worked. It was exhausting; leisure activities declined sharply. People tolerated the extra work because of patriotism, the pay, and the confidence it was only "for the duration" and life would return to normal as soon as the war was won. Most durable goods became unavailable, and meat, clothing, and gasoline was tightly rationed. In industrial areas housing was in short supply as people doubled up and lived in cramped quarters. Prices ane wages were controlled, and Americans saved a high portion of their incomes, which led to renewed growth after the war instead of a return to depression.Taxes and controls
Federal tax policy was highly contentious during the war, with President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
battling a conservative Congress
Conservative coalition
In the United States, the conservative coalition was an unofficial Congressional coalition bringing together the conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly Southern, wing of the Democratic Party...
. Everyone agreed on the need for high taxes to pay for the war. Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to impose a 100% tax on incomes over $25,000 (equal to $ today), while Congress enlarged the base downward. By 1944 nearly every employed person was paying federal income taxes (compared to 10% in 1940).
Many controls were put on the economy. The most important were price controls, imposed on most products and monitored by the Office of Price Administration
Office of Price Administration
The Office of Price Administration was established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA was originally to control money and rents after the outbreak of World War II.President Franklin D...
. Wages were also controlled. Corporations dealt with numerous agencies, especially the War production Board (WPB), and the War and Navy departments, which had the purchasing power and priorities that largely reshaped and expanded industrial production.
Rationing
In 1942 a rationing system was begun to guarantee minimum amounts of necessities to everyone (especially poor people) and prevent inflation. Tires were the first item to be rationed in January 1942 because supplies of natural rubber were interrupted. Gasoline rationing proved an even better way to allocate scarce rubber. By 1943 one needed government issued ration coupons to purchase typewriters, sugar, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, fuel oil, silk, nylon, coffee, stoves, shoes, meat, cheese, butter, margarine, canned foods, dried fruits, jam, and many other items. Some items—like new automobiles and appliances were no longer made. The rationing system did not apply to used goods (like clothes or cars).To get a classification and a book of rationing stamps, one had to appear before a local rationing board. Each person in a household received a ration book, including babies and children. When purchasing gasoline, a driver had to present a gas card along with a ration book and cash. Ration stamps were valid only for a set period to forestall hoarding. All forms of automobile racing were banned, including Indianapolis. Sightseeing driving was banned, too.
People had more money than they could spend, so they saved it, especially in government savings bonds. Bond rallies were held throughout the U.S. with famous celebrities, usually Hollywood film stars, to enhance the bond advertising effectiveness. The public paid 3/4 of the face value of a war bond, and received the full face value back after a set number of years. Workers were challenged to put "at least 10% of every paycheck into Bonds". Compliance was very high, with entire factories of workers earning a special "Minuteman" flag to fly over their plant if all workers belonged to the "Ten Percent Club". There were seven major War Loan drives, all of which exceeded their goals. An added advantage was that citizens who were putting their money into War Bonds were not putting it into the home front wartime economy.
Work force
Women also joined the workforce to replace men who had joined the forces, though in fewer numbers. Roosevelt stated that the efforts of civilians at home to support the war through personal sacrifice was as critical to winning the war as the efforts of the soldiers themselves. "Rosie the Riveter
Rosie the Riveter
Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military...
" became the symbol of women laboring in manufacturing. The war effort brought about significant changes in the role of women in society as a whole. At the end of the war, many of the munitions factories closed. Other women were replaced by returning veterans. However most women who wanted to continue working did so.
Labor shortages were felt in agriculture, even though most farmers were given an occupational exemption and few were drafted. Large numbers volunteered or moved to cities for factory jobs. At the same time many agricultural commodities were in greater demand by the military and for the civilian populations of Allies. In some areas schools were temporarily closed at harvest time to enable students to work. About 400,000 German prisoners of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
were used as farm laborers both during and immediately after the war.
With the war’s ever increasing need for able bodied men consuming America’s labor force in the early 1940s, industry turned to teen-aged boys and girls to fill in as replacements. Consequently, many states had to change their child-labor laws to allow these teenagers to work. By 1943, there were almost three million American teenage boys and girls working in American fields and factories.
In the process of bringing great numbers of children into the workforce, the War altered the lives of many adolescents. Lured by high wartime wages, they took jobs and forgot about their education. Between 1940 and 1944, the number of teenage workers in America increased by 1.9 million; the number attending school declined by 1.25 million.
Labor unions
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
(CIO) with both employers and the national government. Both the CIO and the larger American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
(AFL) grew rapidly in the war years.
Nearly all the unions that belonged to the CIO were fully supportive of both the war effort and of the Roosevelt administration. However the United Mine Workers, who had taken an isolationist stand in the years leading up to the war and had opposed Roosevelt's reelection in 1940, left the CIO in 1942. The major unions supported a wartime no-strike pledge that aimed to eliminate not only major strikes for new contracts, but also the innumerable small strikes called by shop stewards and local union leadership to protest particular grievances. In return for labor's no-strike pledge, the government offered arbitration to determine the wages and other terms of new contracts. Those procedures produced modest wage increases during the first few years of the war but not enough to keep up with inflation, particularly when combined with the slowness of the arbitration machinery.
Even though the complaints from union members about the no-strike pledge became louder and more bitter, the CIO did not abandon it. The Mine Workers, by contrast, who did not belong to either the AFL or the CIO for much of the war, threatened numerous strikes including a successful twelve-day strike in 1943. The strikes and threats made mine leader John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
a much hated man and led to legislation hostile to unions.
All the major unions grew stronger during the war. The government put pressure on employers to recognize unions to avoid the sort of turbulent struggles over union recognition of the 1930s, while unions were generally able to obtain maintenance of membership clauses, a form of union security
Union security
A union security agreement is a contractual agreement, usually part of a union collective bargaining agreement, in which an employer and a trade or labor union agree on the extent to which the union may compel employees to join the union, and/or whether the employer will collect dues, fees, and...
, through arbitration and negotiation. Workers also won benefits, such as vacation pay, that had been available only to a few in the past while wage gaps between higher skilled and less skilled workers narrowed. Most union leaders saw women as temporary wartime replacements for the men in the armed forces. It was important that the wages of these women be kept high so that the veterans would get high wages.
Racial tensions
The cities were relatively peaceful; much-feared large-scale race riots did not happen, but there were small-scale confrontations, notably the 1943 race riot in DetroitDetroit Race Riot (1943)
The Detroit Race Riot broke out in Detroit, Michigan in June 1943 and lasted for three days before Federal troops restored order. The rioting between blacks and whites began on Belle Isle on 20 June 1943 and continued until 22 June, killing 34, wounding 433, and destroying property valued at $2...
and the anti-Mexican Zoot Suit Riots
Zoot Suit Riots
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles, California between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout thehi c mlc city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored...
in Los Angeles in 1943. Some German and Italian were rounded up and interned as enemy aliens who lacked U.S. citizenship and were known by the FBI as supporters of the enemy.
Japanese internment
About 100,000 Japanese citizens on the West CoastWest Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
and their children were interned
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
by the U.S. government. They were sent to inland camps. Canada followed a similar policy. The 100,000 or more Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not interred. The American camps were closed in 1944.
End of an era
1945 marked the end of an era. In foreign policy the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
was established on October 24, 1945, to serve as a world body to help prevent future world wars. By a vote of 65 to 7, the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, on December 4, 1945, approved the treaty that set full American participation in the UN, with a veto in the all-important Security Council. This marked a turn away from the traditional interest in strategic local concerns of the U.S. and toward more international involvement.
Fears of a postwar depression did not materialize, thanks in part to the large stock of savings that paid for the pent-up demands for housing, cars, new clothes—and babies. The Baby Boom
Baby boom
A baby boom is any period marked by a greatly increased birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds and when the number of annual births exceeds 2 per 100 women...
began as the veterans returned, many moving to the rapidly expanding suburbs. Optimism was the hallmark of the new age—an age of grand expectations.