The War and Social Change

New wartimeNew wartime jobs offered opportunity for jobs offered opportunity for millions of Americans, but their rapid millions of Americans, but their rapid

migration to war production sites created migration to war production sites created severe social stresses and strained family severe social stresses and strained family

relationships.relationships.

Americans on the move

The flow of soldiers overseas and the movement of job hunters into areas with defense jobs produced the greatest short-term migration in US history.

In general, Americans immigrated from rural areas to urban areas, from the East to the West, and from the North to the South. The largest gains were in states along the West coast, followed by Texas and the South Atlantic states of Maryland, Florida, and Virginia

Americans on the move

• As for African Americans, they were usually "the last to be hired and the first to be fired."

• African Americans made up a large part of this migrating stream. While other migrants moved temporarily, African Americans tended to remain in their new homes.

Boomtowns emerge

The massive migration turned small communities into boomtowns and resulted in housing shortages and overburdened services nearly everywhere.

The rapid growth created many problems. Migrants often lived in unhealthy conditions. Lack of adequate sewage resulted in water pollution and other ecological damage. Older residents often refused to accept the new arrivals, creating bitter social tensions.

Social stresses multiply

• Social tensions manifested themselves in different ways. In some large cities, native residents stereotyped rural migrants as “hillbillies.”

• In cities with large numbers of African American migrants, racial tensions exploded into rioting. In Detroit attacks on African Americans by white mobs erupted in what was known as Bloody Monday–an incident so violent that federal troops intervened. Elsewhere discrimination in army training camps, mostly in the South, also led to rioting.

Social stresses multiply

• Opportunities for farmworkers in the Southwest brought thousands of Mexicans illegally into the United States, while many Americans of Mexican descent shifted from agricultural work to industrial and manufacturing jobs.

• Like African Americans, people of Mexican descent were segregated from other Americans, insulted by police, and given only the lowest-paying jobs. In Los Angeles, this prejudice led to violent clashes between Hispanic American teenage zoot-suiters and white sailors.

The Zoot-suit riots California governor, Democrat Cuthbert L. Olson,

was becoming increasingly concerned about juvenile delinquency. The Los Angeles Police Department rounded up more than 600 youth -- mostly Mexican Americans known as “zoot-suiters" for the ballooned pants and long coats they wore -- and indicted Hank Leyvas and twenty-one others for José Díaz's murder. The subsequent trial dominated headlines in the City of Angels for months. The 38th Street boys were convicted in Los Angeles' tabloid journals -- and the jury agreed. Hank Leyvas was sentenced to life in San Quentin.

Wartime family stresses

• Children were exposed to a number of wartime stresses–migration to unfamiliar surroundings, family members fighting overseas, women managing families in the absence of their soldier-husbands, and working parents forced to leave households unsupervised. As teenagers fended for themselves, juvenile delinquency rose, leading some communities to enact curfews.

• There were five million "war widows" trying to care for their children alone.

• Labor shortages led to widespread disregard of child labor laws, allowing large numbers of teenagers to take jobs.

End of the New Deal

• The war made it possible to phase out a number of New Deal agencies such as the CCC and WPA. However, other New Deal programs such as Social Security, unemployment compensation, old-age benefits, and the TVA had become a permanent part of American life.

End of the New Deal?

• World War II also extended the New Deal in some respects by continuing the role of government in economic planning. Wartime economic growth convinced many people that government spending could be used to correct future economic downswings. In addition, the war made possible the election of FDR to an unprecedented fourth term.