The impact of the Second World War on Women
The War provided many American women with the prospect of casting off conventional stereotypes of being housewives and mothers via filling in job vacancies, which was attributable to the conscription of men. There were prospects of acquiring jobs in the armed forces, where innovative jobs such as testing warplanes and welding jobs were propounded; over 350,000 served in the armed forces, 80,000 of which assisted overseas. Moreover, prevalent female organisations were also established, for instance WAVES and WAC, the latter having 150,000 women serving for it after its instigation in May 1942. To supplement this, there were six million women working in factories due to intense vacancies and even black women were provided with prospects of training as nurses in Jim Crow hospitals.
This ongoing demand for workers also gave rise to female poster campaigns and these exposés included a feminist icon called Rosie the Riveter, who was created by Norman Rockwell. She was featured on the Times magazine and her diligence and patriotism enhanced the independence and confidence of the women that she represented. Conversely, women had to endure ridicule and sexist remarks from men at work and were paid less than them for the same job, in all but four states, which strongly induced a sense of sexism in the workplace.
The impact of the Second World War on the Civil Rights Movement
Although over one million black Americans served their country in the Second World War, they were to remain in segregated units and there were only 12 black officers appointed during the war. As well as this, the preponderance were assigned menial or perilous jobs.
However, in January 1942, President Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Navy and USMC to enlist Black Americans into their regular military units and therefore a very gradual increase in mixed-race combat units ensued - in 1944, many blacks fought gallantly at the Battle of the Bulge through this. Moreover, the war provided black women with prospects of training as nurses while the Tuskegee experiment trained over six hundred black pilots. The pilots of the 33rd Fighter Group were also renowned for winning a distinguished unit citation, which contributed to consolidating the repute of black Americans.
In 1941, Philip Randolph organised a march of 100,000 people to Washington, calling for victory in Civil Rights in the U.S and against Hitler abroad – it was a significant symbol for the ‘Double V Campaign’. This incited President Roosevelt to respond by subsequently banning discrimination in industrial and Government jobs, which was the epitome of the Executive Order 8802, issued on the 25th June 1941. Hence, the Fair Employment Practice Committee was instigated and companies were forced to eradicate discrimination to gain contracts. In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was established while membership of NAACP increased tenfold from 46,000 to 460,000 during the course of the war.
The impact of the Second World War on Japanese Americans
On 7th December 1941, the Japanese attacked the US naval base Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. This unanticipated attack entailed the belief that all Japanese-Americans were risks to national security, as potential spies, espionage and saboteurs and were subsequently given the soubriquet ‘Intern Enemy Aliens'. Thus, General John DeWitt ordered that over 110,000 Japanese-Americans were to be removed from their homes in the West Coast of the USA, one third of whom were Issei while the other two-thirds were Nisei.
From this, their estates were expropriated and were coerced into selling their possessions and lost $500 million altogether. President Franklin Roosevelt authorised the internment with the United States Executive Order 9066 in 1942 and rapidly constructed squalid housing facilities, called internment camps, which were in remote portions of the nation’s interior. When the government asked whether internees wished to renounce their U.S. citizenship, 5,589 of them did so. Of those who renounced their citizenship, 1,327 were expatriated to Japan.
Despite this, over 8,000 were conscripted to fight for the USA during the Second World War. As well as this, the 442nd Nisei Combat Regiment were given the most medals and honours of all US military combat units during the Second World War, which consolidated their repute after the second world war.
