I need typed notes and bullet points that help answer the question using the two reading documents that I will be attaching along with this question.
hist_1.pdf
hist_2.pdf
Unformatted Attachment Preview
A^’o r TS 015 cor’r T€ts’i5
( (otr’ h €€(lp’tlslv1
(r “rto)
6
Legaciesof World War II
Archibald Macleish saidin 1943′
“The greatmajority of Americans”‘
not a war onlv’ but an end and a
is
war
tr'”‘ this
d;””:;;;;;-*”u
unorthings
ul#il:*
La ,9 ti,rilssknly ?”d” !:-ry”*g
weather’
tt'”” *i”a in the sueets that changes
known. We have smelled
*ill be when the war ends’ the world
We know that whatever tf'” *otld
be different.”r
will
“‘A#;”*tyone
era realized’ as
who looked ahead to the posnvar
would prothat
forces
large
Macleish did, that tf” *”‘ t”a unleashed
greeted
Americans
But
n.ri.an society’
duce a new world and **-,t
liberal’ a
”
Macleish-a
ways’
different
-“ty
the prospects fo, tttt”g”l”
in the wartime government-welNew Dealer, and an ^aJJ-‘*’ot
(thioughtheeffortsof
,.,d b”rl””Jli “”Ja u” harnessed
comedchange
berter and more
creating.a
o{
goal
an enlighteneOgov”t”^””t) to the
many ot them
Odi’erswiewedthe futuie with nepidation’
1,”;#i.t
shapedthe
had
that
wealth
Jpo*”‘
hopingto pres.*” .n. p”iJ”*’
“nd
legacyof
cultural
Th” socialand
world they had known tti;;’h;’*”‘
individuals
no
that
forces
social
World War II wasthe ptclJ”ttoint”ad
But it was also the result of
;trol’
could
institutions
or
“”O;”tt
grouPsof Americansof the posnvarworld amongmany
;”;;;;1″”,
their often sharply
validated
wai
the
that
almost all of them ttti”J
different,andevenconflicdng’expectarions’
his classicporuait of the
In the prologue to Slr Armiesin Notntandy’
lg44Alliedinvasionorrr”..”,thehistorianJohnKeegancapruredone
94
Lrctcrrs op Wonto Ws,nII
critical aspect of horv the war affected the United States. He wrote of
his own wartime experiencesas a child in the English countryside when,
a few months before D-Day, the Americans arrived. Almost overnight,
he recalls, his “backwater” town fiiled with GIs. “How different they
looked from our own jumble-sale champions, beautifully clothed in
smooth khaki, as fine in cut and quality as a Brirish officer’s-an American private, we confided to each other at school, was paid as much as a
British captain, major, colonel.” The British army traveled abour in “a
sad collection of underpowered makeshifts.” The Americans rode in
“magnificent, gleaming . . . four-v’heel-drive juggernauts.” For a few
months-before tley vanished suddenly one night in earlyJune-they
dominated ttre countryside, dazzllng girls, overwhelming roads, shops,
and pubs, distributing largesse. “Thus,” Keegan recalled, “I made my
6rst encounter with the bottomless riches of the American economy.”2
Even as a child, Keegan had understood the role of abundance in
American life and the role of World War II in producing ir. The war
ended the Depression and made t-henation rich again. It created expectations of abundance that would survive for more than a generation.
And it removed what had in the 1930s been deep doubts about the
ability of the capitalist economy ever again to experience substantial
grouth. By 1914, as Keegan suggests,American abundance was already
capruring the global imagination and 6ring the hopes of the American
people themselves. The vast producrive power of the United States
supplied both its own armed forces and those of its allies with airplanes,
ships, tanks, and ammunition. It fed, clothed, and housed the American
people, who experienced only modest privarions, and it helped feed,
clothe, and house much of the rest of the world as well. Alone amonE
the major nations, the United States faced the future in 1945 with an
intact and thriving industrial economy poised to sustain a long period of
prosperity and gro*th. Gross National Product in the war years rose
from $91 billion to $166 billion; l5 million new lobs were created,and
the most enduring problem of the Depression-massive unemployment-came to an end; industrial producrion doubled; personal incomesrose (dependingon the location) by asmuch as 200 percent.3
Abundance created a striking buoyanry in American life in the early
1940sthat the v’ar itself only parrially counterbalanced. Suddenly, people had money to spend again and-despite the many shortages of
consumergoods-at least some things to spend it on. The tleater and
mor,ie industries did record business. Resort hotels, casinos, and race
95
96
L t n r n a l t s M A N DI r s D r s c o N r r N r s
one of the first such conflicts emerged over the political implications of
abundance iself, and of the “democratic” initiatives it spauned. Archibald Macleish and many other liberals eager to see the suntival and
expansion of the New Deai interpreted the rerurn of economic grorth
as a mandate to pursue their emerging goal of “full emplol’rnent”
emerged during t}te rvar from the Nadonal Resources planning Board,
the New Deal’s only real planning agency, which called for, among
otler tlings, a major expansion of the welfare programs the New Dea’i
had laulched and (in the spirit of full employme’tirn expansion as well
of public worls planning to provide the sdmuli they believed the post_
war economy would often need.6
Out of the confluence of abundance and democracy, in other words,
had come a vision of an expandedliberal state.Freed from the immedi_
ate pressures of tl-re Great Depression, convinced by the wanime
gl9trm that the economy was not as irretrievably stagnant as they once
had feared, liberals seized on abundance as t},e basis for an amLitious
social and economic agenda that rvould, if successful,greatly expand the
role of the stare in ensuring prosperiry and protecting the beleaguered.
But to many other Americans, and to the conservative Republicans
and Democrats who already by 1943 were coming to dominate the
U:rited States Congress, abundance had a very different impact-and
the idea of poswar democrary took a very different form. To them tle
end of the Depression removed wharever iustification there had been
for the New- Deal interventions into the economy and mandated a
refurn to a less regulated market, a less profligate government, and a
less expansive welfare state. One by one, in 1943 and 1944, Congress
reduced or eliminated New Deal programs that economi. grortt
seemed to have obviated: the Worlcs Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservarion Corps, the National Youth Administration, and
many others. It abolished the Nadonal Resources planning Board, in
retribution for its ambitious and-to se15srv2tiys5-alarming proposals. It began efforts, which would culminate in 1948, to wialer.the
Wagner Act. Abundance, they argued, was proof that there was no
longer any need for the “socialism” of the New Deal, that it was time to
return to what they considered true democracy-a regime of untram_
meled economic freedom and minimal govemment.T
throughpo,po,.fi.’lgovernmentacdon.AbroadcoalicionofKel’nesian
economists, union lJaders, agriculrural actilists, consunler groups’ and
m a n y o t l e r s r a l l i e d i n | g 4 4 a n d l g 4 5 b e h i n d w h a t u l t i m a t e l y b e c *Full
ame
the ii,mployrnent Act of 1g46, but which they at first caiied the
Emplol,rnent,’ bill-a bill that, had it been passed in its original form,
to
rvould have committed the government to using Kel.nesian toois
sdmu]ateeconomicgrowthtolevelsthatwouldensureverylowjobless.
ness.5Other liberais rallied around the related proposals that had
Politics was only one of many realms in which the war-the ab’ndance
it produced and the hopes for democracy it inspired-provided
conflicting lessonsand divided legacies.Nov.here was that clearer than
in the experiences of African Americans in the 1940s. prosperity transformed the material circumstances of many black men and women; the
war against fascism-and its democratic rationale-transformed their
expectations.But the war also reinforced opposition to their hopes.
trackswerejammedvithcustomers’Advertisers’andattimeseventhe
to ensure a
government, exhorted Americans to suPPort the u’ar effort
and
themselves
for
choice
consumer
iotrr” of material comfort and
sacrifice,”
useless
in
lives
their
giving
are
people
their children. “Your
of ‘.n’arthe Santrilay Eaming irrr *tor” in a mock letter to the leaders
employmass
of
furure
time Japan. “Ours ire fighting for a glorious
ment,massproducdonandm,s’distributionandowrrership.”Even
ffooDs ar the front seemed at times to justilt their efforts with reference
or the
to th. .o-forts of home more than to the character of the enemy
for
home,”
fighting
ideals America claimed to be defending. “They are
(rvith at least a trace of
John IJersey once wrote from Guadalcanal
are-the generosiq”
things
good
the
is
where
dis*ay), becaose”Flome
pie'”4
tlte
democracy,
the
comforts,
the
pay,
the good
o,,’. l”g”.y of World War I[, therefore, was the return of abundance,
popuand with it tire relegitimation of capitalism. Another was a rising
was
what
comfort-of
material
and
security
lar expectation of economic
becoming lno*’n as “the American dream,” a dream that rested
“k””dy
on viiions of increasing consumption. But abundance also helped
to
strengthen other hopes for change. fu Hersey’s statement suggests,
.,Americardream” meant more than apple pie alone. Democsome the
of
rary, he said, was part of the mix-not_as an alternative to visions
material comfort, but as both a precondition for and a result of them.
Defining what democracy meant’ mediating among tle very different
visions ihe word inspired among Americans, created some of the great
struggles of both wartime and the postwar era’
;,,, ,::a7,
7;:ta
Lze tcras or lbntn l4r.tnII
97
98
Lrnsnlr,Isll
exo
I:rs DtscoxrPNts
Tivo million A{rican Americans left the rural South in the 1940s,
before
more than the total number of migrants in the three decades
(decadesthat included what is still kaown as the Great Migrarion before
of them
and during World War I). They moved for many reasons,some
(and
cotton
of
agriculture
of
unrelated-to the war. The mechanization
black
many
labor
of
for
the
demand
the
picking in particular) eliminated
by
weakened
already
system,
The
sharecropping
South.
the
in
ir.-.it
it
the Depression and by Nerv Deal farm subsidies that often made
let
to
than
fallou’
more profitable for landowners to leave their property
it out to tenants’ ali but disintegrated during the u’ar’ Many A{rican
Americans also moved becausethe war created economic oPpoffunities
join
in industrial cities. Arith millions of men leaving the *’orkforce to
factoout
of
some
blacks
the military tradidonal barriers that had kept
in
ries collapsed, at least for a time’ The number of blacks employed
were
maand
there
war;
the
during
doubled
rlan
more
manufacturing
jor increases In the number of African Americans employed as skilied..”ft -.r, or enrolled in unions. There u’as a substantial movement of
black women out of domestic work and into the factory and the shop’
The wartirne migration also helped carry the question of race out of
itr,o the city, out of the South and into the Nonh.
the countrysid”
“.rJ
The gro#ng concentration of black populations in urban areas made
organ”izarioriand collective acdon easier and more likely. It made A-&icai Americ”ns more imponant politically’ Now that many of them
lived in the North, where they could vote more or less at will, they
(to
became an increasingly significant force in the Democratic Parry
during
committed
become
had
which virtually all African Americans
the 1930s, in response to the New Deal)’ Demographic changes, il
short, Iaid the groundwork for the policical mobilizacion of American
blacls both during and after the r,’ar. There was growing membership
and increasing t.tir.ir- in the Urban League, the NAACP, and other
exisring civil rights organizations. A ne.rvand more militant organizadon erirerged, the Congtest of Racial Equalitv-more outspoken, less
than most older ones. And already during lVorld
,..o–oJ”aionist
War II, in Washington, Deuoit, and other cides, there u’ere demonsit-ins, occasionally
strations aEgainstracial discrimination-picketjng,
of a decade and
movement
rights
the
civil
anticipated
violence-that
more later.s
Black Americans rvho attempted to explain these modest but significant political stirrings did so by pointing to the nature of the war
I
Lre ..c,crrs
or Wonrn Wan II
itself. In North carolina one African American told a visiting journal,
ist: “No clear thinking Negro can afford to ignore our Hitlers here
in
America. As long asyou have men like [Governor Eugene] Talmadge in
Georgia [an ouspoken white supremacist] we have to think oi the
home front whether we want to or not.” r{any black rnen and women
talked openly of rhe “Double d” which stood for simulraneous victorv
over the Axis abroad and over racism at home. “If we could not
be[#
in the realizadon of democratic freedom for ourselves,” one black
iournalist wrote, “certainly no one could ask us to die for the preservation of
that ideal for others.” To engage in the struggle for ieedom in the
world u’hile ignoring the smrggle for freedom at home was to make
a
mockery of both.e
Some white Americans were beginning to make trrat connection too.
Fot’tune magazine published an article i’June 1942 endtled ,,The
Negro’s 4/ar,” which suggested the slow shift in thinking among
many
rvhites about rhe nadon’s “racial question.” The essayiatalogied
the
long list of legitimate grievancesAfrican Americans were raisin! againsr
their country, and it argued, in effect, that the war required Ari..]”” to
do something about them. It cited rvirh alarm
Japanese propaganda
about racial injustice in America, describing a recent race riot in Detroit
as “a boon to theJapanese and . . . the German . . . propagandists.” And
it argued, in terms that clearly resonared with the largeir.r,r. of mis_
sion that the war had aroused (and that Henry Luce, Fortune,s pub_
lisher, had endorsed with notable enthusiasm), tirat
. . . this is a war in which ideas . . . are sometimes subsdtutesfor ar_
mies. The Negro’s fate in the U.S. affectsthe fate of white American
soldiers in the Philippines, in the Caribbean, in Africa; bears on the
solidity of our alliance $rith 800 million colored people in china and
India; influences the feelings of countless neighbors in South Amer_
ica. In this shrunken world of ours, a fracasin-Detroit has an echo in
Aden, and v’hat a southern Congressman considers to be a small
home-town affair can actually inteifere with grand straregy.lo
This growing awarenessof the nation’s racial burdens forced many
,..
tt9::rk,even if slov’ly and incompleteiy, to reconsider
one of the staples
of Nerv Deal thought: that the principal goal of public
life was to con_
tront economic, not racial or cultural, issues.perhaps,
some liberals
begannorv to think, the problems of the modern ,uorld
w..e not purely
99
]r,
L r s r n l r – r s r .et N n I r s D r s c o N r r N r s
economic. Perhaps classwas not tie onl% or even the best, concept qrith
which to an lyze social problems. Perhaps race, ethniciry religion, and
divisive, “irrational” issues that had so damaged tle
culture-the
Democratic parry in the 1920sand from which white liberals had taken
pains to distance themselvesin the l9l0s-were, in fact, essentialto
understanding America after all. “One of the greatest problems of
democratic civilizarion,” the great liberal theologian Reinhold Niebuhr
wrote in 1944, “is how to integrate the life of its various subordinate
ethnic, religious and economic groups in the community in such a way
that the richness and harmony of the whole communiry will be enhanced and not destroyed by them.” Niebuhr dismissed the smug liberal confidenceofthe 1920sthat had anticipatedwhat he called a “frictionless harmony of ethnic groups” and the capacity of economic
progress alone to achieve “their eventual assimilation in one racial
uniry.” Instead, he called on “democratic society” to use “every
strategem of education and every resource of religion” to 6ght the
influence of racial bigotry-a bigotry that would not wither away simply
as a result of material prosperity.ll
Early in 1944 an explosive event helped galvanize this growing but
still murly sense of urgency: the publicacion of Gunnar My,rdal’s An
American Dilemma. Mpdal, an eminent Swedish sociologist whom the
Carnegie Foundation had commissioned in the late 1930s to supervise a
major examination of America’s “race problem,” described the “American dilemma” in part as an economic problem-the failure ofAmerican
society to extend its riches to is black citizens. But it was also a moral
dilemma-a problem in the hearts and mirds of u’hite Americans, a
problem born of the impossible aftempt to reconcile a commitrnent to
freedom and democracy with the effort to deny one group of citizens a
set of basic righs guaranteed to everyone else. In the shadow of Nazi
tyranny, such a contradiction seemed to My’rdal-and to many readers
of his book-especially glaring as he made clear in his porverful concluding chapter:
The three great wars of this country have been fought for the idealsof
liberty and equaliry to which the nation was pledged. . . . Now America is again in a life-and-death struggle for liberty and equaliry and the
American Negro is again *-atching for signs of what rvar and victory
will mean in terms of oppomrnir.vand rights for him in his native land.
To the white American, too, the Negro problem has taken on a sig-
Ltclctrs
or Wbnto l4/enII
nificance greater t_l-ran
it has ever had since the Cir.il War. .
. . The
world conflict and America’s erposed por;tior,
,. the defender of the
democratic faith is thus accelerating.” ia”orogi..t
processwhich rvas
well under way.r2
An American Dilnnma became one of those
rare books that help
define a moment in history and its reputarion
grew rapidly over the
next several years. That Myrdal was , Europea-n
arrd a disti.rguisfreJ
scholar; that he couched his findings in rhe jresumrbly
obj..tilr. lrr,_
guage ofsocial science;that a ,espected, nonpartisan
ioundarion had
sponsored the project; that a large n.rmber
of prominent academicshad
collaborated wirh Myrdal on itf thar the
book itself was .r”rrty i,iOO
pages iong, with mountains of data and
over 500 pages of foot roter,
l-en$jng it an air of profound scholarly authoriry:
alietped _rt
it
fudings seem almost unassailable. It *as
,,stuiy
”
a
to end all studies,,,
something close to a definidve analysis of rhe
problem.r:
And yer it would be a mistake ,o .”.gg..”t”‘the
impact of the war on
the willingness of Americans to confrorit the
nation,s ,,race problem.,,
For the war did.not simply inspire rhose who
believed in racial equaliry
to reconsider the nadon,s customs and institutions.
It also inspired
those who did not to defend white suprem””y
*irf, renewed ardor.
Among white Americans, and among *iir”
,oirrh”rn.., ln p”.ti”Jrr,
tlere were many who considered afr” *
, not a challenge to but a
confirmation of tlreir co
fi::[ff::’:Tlf
*:.”::J:ff
f f :;
::”*:l_*;:::;i;;:ffi
preased and to susrain the customs and institutions
they nra
This interpretation of democrary was visible,
“t*ry,
fo, .*r_pI.,
9.T.
in
the
where
southern
-“-b”.,
led
b; the notorious John
_Congress,
Or*i
ofMississippi soughr to obsrruct ,t-,. Cf fin
of Rightr,r.rtiith;;
could feel certain it would not threaten white
,,rpr”rn”ry. It was evident
in the redoubled commitrnent of many
*hlt” .l”t”.urrs when they re_
rurned home to rhe South to protect the
world t-heyknew. Arrd beca,.se
much of what.they sought to prot”.t was
their idearizedvision of white
women, a rrision much romandcized
during the war, segregadon as_
sumed a specially-heightened importan..
foirrr.r,y of them. In much of
the cguntry the World War-II generadon_the
young men who re_
turned from rhe rvar fired uith dJtermination
,o .rirt a better world_
produced dynamic young leaders
impadent with old “strucruresand in_
)usuces.h much of the South the new generation of leaders
emerging
l0l
t02
Lrsrnerrslr eNo Irs DrscoNrlNrs
from the r,r?r became especially militant defenders of the region’s racial
instirudons.ra
World War II changed America’s r …
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
Recent Comments