"Here are the sleeve insignia by which you can identify the various groups of U.S. Civilian Defense Workers - men and women, boys and girls, who volunteer for home duty to protect you in war [emergencies]" This was an important article for its time. It seems hard to believe, but it took the Federal Government the full six months after Pearl Harbor to figure out how the home front would be governed and what would be rationed. This article heralds that new day and clarified how the war would affect their salaries, savings, education, shopping, clothing, taxes, leisure time, transportation and their general manner of living:
In 1944, a class of sixth graders wrote General Eisenhower and asked him how they can help in the war effort; click here to read his response...
Click here food rationing at U.S. POW camps.
The war in the Pacific interrupted the flow of illegal narcotics to the United States. By the Spring of 1942 opioids were becoming scarcer and the prices were predicted to rise. Drug suppliers turned to an untested source closer to home: Latin America.
Click here to read aboutdrug addiction in the Twenties. Some six months prior to Pearl Harbor FDR signed Executive Order 8802 which made it illegal for defense contractors to discriminate based on race or religious faith. Eight months later the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices was convened in New York City to review the evidence at hand indicating that numerous defense contractors were failing to comply with the law. After suffering eleven years of the squalor brought on by the Great Depression, many Americans were in shock to find their pockets fully lined with cash and their days spent in gainful employment when W.W. II came along (in 1943, the U.S. unemployment rate stood at 1.9%). The bars and restaurants that were situated around defense plants found that for the first time in years they were fully booked with paying customers. This article points out that this new economic boom on the home front was not without complications: absenteeism. As more factory workers discovered the joy of compensated labor, the more frequent they would skip work - which was seen as a nuisance for an industrial nation at war.
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"Many workers, not just youngsters, are making more money than they ever made before in their lives." The National Youth Administration (NYA) was established in 1935 as one of FDR's many alphabet agencies created to alleviate the sting of the Great Depression; it was tasked with providing work and education for young Americans between the ages of 16 through 25. By the time World War II kicked -in, many in Congress felt it was time to do away with the organization, but as this article spells out, NYA members could now be put to work in the defense plants.
Click here to read about the travails of young adults during the Great Depression.
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