Name: World War II Part 2 - The Homefront: Crash Course US History #36
Uploaded: 2022-06-21T11:03:28.000Z
Duration: 14 min 23 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

Episode 36: World War II (2) – the war at home

Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course U.S. History and today we're going to discuss

how World War II played out at home and also the meaning of the war.

Mr. Green, Mr. Green, so is this going to be, like, one of the boring philosophical

Oh, Me From the Past, I remember when you were idealistic.

I remember a time when all you cared about was the deep inner meaning of … mostly girls.

But, you've changed, Me from the Past, and not in a good way.

intro So anyway World War II brought about tremendous

changes in the United States, in many ways shaping how Americans would come to see themselves

and how they would want to be seen by the rest of the world.

Some of these ideological changes were a continuation of the New Deal, others were direct results

of the war, but one thing we can say is that by the end of the war, the country was very

For starters, World War II strengthened the federal government of the United States.

This always happens when a country goes to war, but World War II brought about even more

governmental intervention and control than we had seen in World War I.

Like federal agencies, like the War Production Board, War Manpower Commission and Office

of Price Administration took unprecedented control of the economy.

There was massive rationing of food and supplies, entire industries were completely taken over

The federal government fixed wages, rents, prices, and especially production quotas.

Like, if you're looking to buy a 1942 model Ford, or Chrysler, good luck because there

The government told those car makers not to create new models that year.

So basically FDR was president for life and controlled all the industries.

I mean, how did this Communist end up on the dime?

Well the answer is that while it might have sucked not to have a 1942 Ford, most people

were just happy to be working after the Great Depression.

Unemployment dropped from 14% in 1940 to 2% in 1943.

Of course 13 million Americans were serving in the military in some capacity, so that

But in general the war kicked the American economy into overdrive.

Like, by 1944 American factories were producing an airplane every five minutes and a ship

U.S. Gross National Product went from $91 billion to $214 billion during the war.

Well that's controversial, but primarily because of federal spending.

Government expenditures during the war were twice the amount they had been in the previous

Although a lot of this was financed with debt, much of the war was paid for with taxes.

Like, the federal government began the practice of withholding taxes from paychecks, for instance,

a practice I first became familiar with when working at Steak N Shake discovering that

instead of being paid I don't know, like, $100 a week, I was being paid -$30 a week

Before World War II only 4 million Americans even paid federal income taxes; but after

Also big business got even bigger during the war because of government contracts.

Cost-plus contracts guaranteed that companies would make a profit, and the lion's share

of contracts went to the biggest businesses.

So, by the war's end the 200 biggest American corporations controlled half of all of America's

And all this government spending also spurred development, like defense spending basically

created the West Coast as an industrial center.

Seattle became a shipping and aircraft-manufacturing hub.

And California got 10% of all federal spending.

And Los Angeles became the second largest manufacturing center in the country, meaning

that it was not in fact built by Hollywood, it was built by World War II.

All of this was pretty bad for the South, by the way, because most of this industrialization

happened in cities and the South only had two cities with more than a half a million

And organized labor continued to grow as well, with union membership soaring from around

9 million in 1940 to almost 15 million in 1945.

Besides union-friendly New Deal policies, the government forced employers to recognize

unions in order to prevent labor strife and keep the factories humming so that war production

And, from a human history standpoint, one of the biggest changes is that many of the

You've probably seen this picture of Rosie the Riveter and while there wasn't actually

a riveter named Rosie, or maybe there was but, she's an amalgam.

But by 1944 women made up 1/3 of the civilian labor force in addition to the 350,000 who

And the type of women who were working changed as well.

Married women in their 30s outnumbered single women in the workforce.

But the government and employers both saw this phenomenon as temporary, so when the

war was over most women workers, especially those in high paying industrial jobs, were

This was especially hard on working class women who needed to work to survive and had

to return to lower paid work as domestics or in food services, or, god forbid, as teachers.

We use primary sources for learning as this is a serious show about history and then if

Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic

problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor

For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy.

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple.

They are: Equality of opportunity for youth and for

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

I mean, that's some pretty hardcore New Deal stuff right there.

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World War II Part 2 - The Homefront: Crash Course US History #36

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