America at the time we involved ourselves in World War II had the perfect recipe for military success; we had a solid capital base, large population, advancing infrastructures, and still had generous natural resources.
To make it easier to engage in the war, within a week of Pearl Harbor Congress passed the War Powers Act which gave the President support for war efforts. To begin, the Army needed many more soldiers, which they indeed acquired. Before the war began, the Army had 1.5 million soldiers and afterwards was up to 12 million soldiers. This was in part due to the women’s military forces started by the FDR (and spurred by Eleanor Roosevelt) which included the WACS (Army), WAVES (Navy), WASPS (Air Force), and SPARS (Coast Guard). The new problem with the military expansion was that this caused a large scale shortage in labor. This seemed like a problem at first but the sudden demand for workers pulled America out of the great depression. Suddenly there were more than enough jobs for everyone. Poverty was still pervasive but it was now due to taxation. Some citizens were spending up to 90% of their income on taxes alone.
Over taxation was not necessary during World War I because the U.S raised enough food and materials through volunteerism. But government officials predicted that that would not be enough for this war and so along with relaunching Victory Loan Drives and Liberty (fundraisers during WWI) they also ordered rationing for all citizens. A certain amount of stamps were given to every household for high demand items such as gasoline, sugar, meat, butter, canned goods, fuel oil, shoes and rubber. Said items could not be purchased without stamps.
This, along with an entire halt on production of novelty items such as automobiles and refrigerators cut costs substantially. An example of “making do” was shown as many women during this time began drawing stripes up the back of their legs to simulate stocking which were no longer being produced.
Fuel conservation was a major feature of this rationing project and Victory Speed Limits were put in place to slow down citizens to conserve gasoline for tanks and other war vehicles. To conserve fuel there were also rotating blackouts (electricity) that went across the country. The homefront was extremely productive. Throughout the war, simple backyard gardens produced over 8 million tons of food. These gardens were coined Victory Gardens. But not only was the homefront feeding the war, they also produced weapons for it. Before Pearl Harbor the U.S. Navy had 5000 vessels but by 1945 our navy had over 90,000 vessels. We also manufactured 80,000 tanks and 300,000 aircrafts along with millions of machine guns and rifles, and billions of ammunition cartridges. The boy scouts lead scrap metal drives to gain materials for all of this production. During the war hundreds of alphabet agencies were created to help manage in the states which helped this success and productivity.
To make it easier to engage in the war, within a week of Pearl Harbor Congress passed the War Powers Act which gave the President support for war efforts. To begin, the Army needed many more soldiers, which they indeed acquired. Before the war began, the Army had 1.5 million soldiers and afterwards was up to 12 million soldiers. This was in part due to the women’s military forces started by the FDR (and spurred by Eleanor Roosevelt) which included the WACS (Army), WAVES (Navy), WASPS (Air Force), and SPARS (Coast Guard). The new problem with the military expansion was that this caused a large scale shortage in labor. This seemed like a problem at first but the sudden demand for workers pulled America out of the great depression. Suddenly there were more than enough jobs for everyone. Poverty was still pervasive but it was now due to taxation. Some citizens were spending up to 90% of their income on taxes alone.
Over taxation was not necessary during World War I because the U.S raised enough food and materials through volunteerism. But government officials predicted that that would not be enough for this war and so along with relaunching Victory Loan Drives and Liberty (fundraisers during WWI) they also ordered rationing for all citizens. A certain amount of stamps were given to every household for high demand items such as gasoline, sugar, meat, butter, canned goods, fuel oil, shoes and rubber. Said items could not be purchased without stamps.
This, along with an entire halt on production of novelty items such as automobiles and refrigerators cut costs substantially. An example of “making do” was shown as many women during this time began drawing stripes up the back of their legs to simulate stocking which were no longer being produced.
Fuel conservation was a major feature of this rationing project and Victory Speed Limits were put in place to slow down citizens to conserve gasoline for tanks and other war vehicles. To conserve fuel there were also rotating blackouts (electricity) that went across the country. The homefront was extremely productive. Throughout the war, simple backyard gardens produced over 8 million tons of food. These gardens were coined Victory Gardens. But not only was the homefront feeding the war, they also produced weapons for it. Before Pearl Harbor the U.S. Navy had 5000 vessels but by 1945 our navy had over 90,000 vessels. We also manufactured 80,000 tanks and 300,000 aircrafts along with millions of machine guns and rifles, and billions of ammunition cartridges. The boy scouts lead scrap metal drives to gain materials for all of this production. During the war hundreds of alphabet agencies were created to help manage in the states which helped this success and productivity.