America in WWII - (Page 51) the way we were back then by Judy P. Sopronyi L L EC II CO WW IC A IN TION NATIONAL ARCHIVES / ROGER SMITH RIGHT: NATIONAL ARCHIVES/ ROGER SMITH; OPPOSITE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / JACK DELANO AME R NATIO patch from the front lines meant for relatives and friends in the thick of the war. By the numbers, the war had a huge impact on the American economy. Between 1940 and 1943, Americans increased the output of planes, tanks, ammunition, weapons, and other war goods an amazing 25 times. By comparison, Germany’s and Russia’s output doubled, Britain’s trebled, and Japan’s quadrupled. Unemployment fell from 14.6 percent in 1940 to 1.2 percent in 1944. Women went from making up a quarter of the workforce to making up more than a third. African Americans boosted their employment by moving north to take manufacturing jobs or by enlisting in the military. Wages increased across the economic spectrum, especially for those on the bottom, and the number of full-time jobs rose, along with overtime hours. Americans had more money to spend, though not much to spend it on, as automobile production ceased hard work was the american way, but the war made Americans more productive and opened opportunities for some who had long been excluded. Involvement in the war seemed inevitable even in December 1940, when workers in Brockton, Massachusetts, found headlines such as “Prince Calls on Roosevelt” alongside local news and “Flying Santa Behind Schedule” in the Enterprise’s window (opposite). The war created a huge job market, especially with much of the labor force in the service. Women—like this hammer-toting mechanic (bottom right) and Clara Carroll (bottom left), a young African American from Cleveland, Ohio, who had just arrived in the nation’s capital to take a federal clerk job— became an indispensable part of the economy and war machine. Minority workers were suddenly sought after, too; at Baltimore’s BethlehemFairfield shipyard, black workers joined white workers of various ethnic groups (top right, returning tools at day’s end) to build the Liberty Ship SS Frederick Douglass. The US workforce was no longer the all-white, all-male crowd behind Uncle Sam in this 1943 calendar (top left). OCTOBER 2007 AMERICA IN WWII 51 NAL A RCHIV ES
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