Writing Assignment – World War II and the American Homefront

Writing Assignment – World War II and the American Homefront

Directions:

Essays should be doubled-spaced, size 12 font, with one-inch margins all around.

Essays must be a minimum of 1 page and should be a maximum of 3 pages.

All references from the textbook or documents must be cited parenthetically (Ayers, pg) or (Author).

All references to the telegrams must be cited parenthetically by name of addressee (Hanson Telegram).

All references to the posters must be cited parenthetically with an abbreviated title (Loose Lips Poster).

You may NOT use any outside sources including open source websites.

No bibliography is needed for your essays.

The required heading is only your name and a page number in the top right hand corner of each page.

Writing Assignment:

The Second World War was the most devastating war in human history. The war left seventy million people

dead and millions more wounded or maimed; it turned vast portions of the highly populated industrialized

world into a veritable wasteland of human and environmental destruction; and it changed the nature of

human conflict by introducing new military tactics and horrifying new weapons with potentially devastating

consequences for all of humanity. As a result of World Wars I and II, the first half of the 20 th

century was the

most deadly fifty year period in the history of the world!

Caught in the middle of all of this destruction and violence were ordinary people who were trying to make

sense of their lives. While many of these ordinary people left their homes and families to serve their country,

many more did not. The fact is that the vast majority of people did not fight on the battlefields of Europe or

Asia, rather most Americans remained on the homefront and tried to live normal lives. This writing assignment

will focus on those who stayed on the homefront during the war. The following primary sources are a

collection of excerpts, speeches, interviews, telegrams, and propaganda posters. Read and look at these

documents then write a response paper based on the questions below!

Question:

Read the following letters, excerpts, articles, and telegrams, and look at the various propaganda posters that

reflect the nature of life on the American homefront during World War II. For your essay, discuss the impact of

World War II on the lives of individuals and society-at-large on the American homefront.

Some of the questions to consider when writing your response are: Who was the author and what was their

perspective? How did they feel about the war? What do the documents tell us about the experiences of

people who were not soldiers in the field, how were their lives changing? What do the documents tell us

about homefront society, was it changing or staying the same? Do you see anything within the documents that

foreshadowed changes or problems in the future of America?

You do not need to answer any or all of these specifically, but they might help give you ideas of what to

write. Your response should reference the documents, but not simply describe them to the reader. Your

answer should reflect that you examined all of the primary sources provided.

Primary Sources Women in War Industries Interview with Sybil Lewis, Riveter (1942)

When I first arrived in Los Angeles, I began to look for a job. I decided I didn't want to do maid work anymore, so

I got a job as a waitress in a small black restaurant. I was making pretty good money, more than I had in Sapulpa,

Oklahoma, but I didn't like the job that much; I didn't have the knack for getting good tips. Then I saw an ad in the

newspaper offering to train women for defense work. I went to Lockheed Aircraft and applied. They said they'd call me,

but I never got a response, so I went back and applied again. You had to be pretty persistent. Finally they accepted me.

They gave me a short training program and taught me how to rivet. Then they put me to work in the plant riveting small

airplane parts, mainly gasoline tanks. The women worked in pairs. I was the riveter and this big, strong white girl from a

cotton farm in Arkansas worked as the bucker. The riveter used a gun to shoot rivets through the metal and fasten it

together. The bucker used a bucking bar on the other side of the metal to smooth out the rivets. Bucking was harder

than shooting rivets; it required more muscle. Riveting required more skill. I worked for a while as a riveter with this

white girl when the boss came around one day and said, "We've decided to make some changes." At this point he

assigned her to do the riveting and me to do the bucking. I wanted to know why. He said, "Well, we just interchange

once in a while." But I was never given the riveting job back. This was the first encounter I had with segregation in

California, and it didn't sit too well with me. It brought back some of my experiences in Sapulpa—you're a Negro, so you

do the hard work. I wasn't failing as a riveter—in fact, the other girl learned to rivet from me—but I felt they gave me

the job of bucker because I was black. . . .

The war years had a tremendous impact on women. I know for myself it was the first time I had a chance to get

out of the kitchen and work in industry and make a few bucks. This was something I had never dreamed would happen.

In Sapulpa all that women had to look forward to was keeping house and raising families. The war years offered new

possibilities. You came out to California, put on your pants, and took your lunch pail to a man's job. This was the

beginning of women's feeling that they could do something more. We were trained to do this kind of work

because of the war, but there was no question that this was just an interim period. We were all told that when the war

was over, we would not be needed anymore.

“Why We Should March”

A speech by A. Philip Randolph, (1942)

Background: Angered by the almost complete exclusion of African-Americans from jobs in the rapidly expanding war

industries, black labor leader A. Philip Randolph, in July 1941, called for a March on Washington. To persuade Randolph

to call off the march, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in defense jobs and

established a Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) to monitor compliance.

Though I have found no Negroes who want to see the United Nations lose this war, I have found many who,

before the war ends, want to see the stuffing knocked out of white supremacy and of empire over subject peoples.

American Negroes, involved as we are in the general issues of the conflict, are confronted not with a choice but with the

challenge both to win democracy for ourselves at home and to help win the war for democracy the world over.

There is no escape from the horns of this dilemma. There ought not to be an escape. For if the war for

democracy is not won abroad, the fight for democracy cannot be won at home. If this war cannot be won for the white

peoples, it will not be won for the darker races.

Conversely, if freedom and equality are not vouchsafed for the peoples of color, the war for democracy will not

be won. Unless this double-barreled thesis is accepted and applied, the darker races will never wholeheartedly fight for

the victory of the United Nations. That is why those familiar with the thinking of the American Negro have sensed his

lack of enthusiasm, whether among the educated or uneducated, rich or poor, professional or nonprofessional, religious

or secular, rural or urban, north, south, east, or west.

That is why questions are being raised by Negroes in church, labor union and fraternal society; in poolroom,

barbershop, schoolroom, hospital, hair-dressing parlor; on college campus, railroad, and bus. One can hear such

questions asked as these: What have Negroes to fight for? What’s the difference between Hitler and that “cracker”

Talmadge of Georgia? Why has a man got to be Jim-Crowed to die for democracy? If you haven’t got democracy

yourself, how can you carry it to somebody else?

What are the reasons for this state of mind? The answer is: discrimination, segregation, Jim Crow. Witness the

navy, the army, the air corps; and also government services at Washington. In many parts of the South, Negroes in

Uncle Sam’s uniform are being put upon, mobbed, sometimes even shot down by civilian and military police, and on

occasion lynched. Vested political interests in race prejudice are so deeply entrenched that to them winning the war

against Hitler is secondary to preventing Negroes from winning democracy for themselves. This is worth many divisions

to Hitler and Hirohito. While labor, business, and farm are subjected to ceilings and floors and not allowed to carry on

as usual, these interests trade in the dangerous business of race hate as usual.

When the defense program began and billions of the taxpayers’ money were appropriated for guns, ships, tanks,

and bombs, Negroes were denied skilled employment. Not until their wrath and indignation took the form of a proposed

protest march on Washington, scheduled for July 1, 1941, did things begin to move in the form of defense jobs for

Negroes. The march was postponed by the timely issuance (June 25, 1941) of the famous Executive Order No. 8802 by

President Roosevelt. But this order and the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, established

thereunder, have as yet only scratched the surface by way of eliminating discriminations on account of race or color in

war industry. Both management and labor unions in too many places and in too many ways are still drawing the color

line.

It is to meet this situation squarely with direct action that the March on Washington Movement launched its

present program of protest mass meetings….

The March on Washington Movement is essentially a movement of the people. It is all Negro and pro-Negro,

but not for that reason anti-white or anti-Semitic, or anti-Catholic, or anti-foreign, or anti-labor. Its major weapon is the

non-violent demonstration of Negro mass power. Negro leadership has united back of its drive for jobs and justice….

By fighting for their rights now, American Negroes are helping to make America a moral and spiritual arsenal of

democracy. Their fight against the poll tax, against lynch law, segregation, and Jim Crow, their fight for economic,

political, and social equality, thus becomes part of the global war for freedom.

George Takei

Excerpt from his autobiography To the Stars (1994)

Background: George Takei is a Japanese-American actor most famous for his role as Mr. Sulu on the famed TV show Star

Trek. Takei was a child when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor but the consequences of that attack affected him and

thousands of other Americans of Japanese ancestry directly. War hysteria and racism led President FDR to issue Executive

Order 9066 which allowed for the forced relocation and mass confinement of over 110,000 Japanese Americans without

charges or trials. These Japanese Americans were imprisoned in 10 internment camps across the United States.

Tule Lake was-and is-a cold, windswept, dry lake bed near the northern California-Oregon border. It was the

bleakest opposite of Rohwer. Where the southern Arkansas air was lush and sultry in the summertime, while crisp and

invigorating in the winter, Tule Lake’s higher elevation, at four thousand feet above sea level, always made the air sharp

and biting, with a cold that in winter could plunge down to bone-chilling frigidity. Instead of the soft dust of Rohwer,

here there was gritty gravel and cutting little shards of hard fossils and rocks. From verdant Rohwer, we had come to a

harsh landscape barren of any foliage except for the spiny tumbleweeds that rolled aimlessly around the stark, flat

surface. The only landmark was Castle Rock, a great brown abalone shell of a mountain that loomed bleak and solitary

to the east.

Camp Tule Lake was an internment camp converted into a maximum-security segregation camp for “disloyals,”

those who had responded No-No to the key questions on the Loyalty Questionnaire, or those who had applied for

repatriation or expatriation to Japan, or those whose loyalty was questionable “in the opinion of the Project Director.”

The barbed wire fence and guard towers were here, too, but unlike Rohwer, the fence was heavy wire mesh and “man-

proof.” The guard towers were turrets equipped with machine guns. The outer perimeter was patrolled by a half-

dozen tanks and armored Jeeps. The guards were battle-ready troops at full battalion strength. All this bristly

armament was positioned to keep imprisoned a people who had been goaded into outrage by a government blinded by

hysteria. Half of the 18,000 internees in Camp Tule Lake were children like me.

I liked our barrack in our new Block 80. It was right across the way from the mess hall. To an always-hungry six-

year-old, it was great to be just a short dash through the cold to the noisy warmth and comfort of food. But Mama

hated it. She didn’t like the loud clanging and banging from the kitchen that began early in the morning with the

preparation for breakfast and continued on until the last cleanup after dinner. She didn’t like the idea of people lining

up just outside our windows three times a day, every day. But most of all she complained bitterly about the smell that

blew across from the kitchen—the lingering aroma of mass cooking, combined with detergents and other chemicals

from the dishwashing and the acrid smell of disinfectants from the hosing down of the floor after dinner. “Stink

terrible,” was Mama’s simple summation of the problem.

Daddy was philosophical. He said that was the trade-off. Here at Tule Lake, we had two rooms. Each room

individually was smaller than the one we had at Rohwer, but combined, we had more space. We now had what we

could call a bedroom and a living room.

“What trade-off?” Mama persisted. “Now toilet so far away. Children can’t go so far in cold.” She was right

about that. Sometimes it was sheer torture dashing through the wind, muscles tightly held, to the latrine. There were

occasions when I didn’t think I could make it in time. I would barely get there, frenzy in my eyes, jumpy with tension,

just on the verge of bursting. Fortunately, I never had an accident, though Henry did. That was when Mama started

collecting big coffee cans, which she kept in the bedroom for us kids.

There was another reason I liked being across from the mess hall. Life in camp was usually boring and

monotonous. But the mess hall was the social focal point and cultural center of the block. We were closer and had

better access to those great special events.

World War II and Mexican Americans

Published by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) (1945)

“We do not serve Mexicans here.” “You will have to get out as no Mexicans are allowed.” “Your uniform and service

ribbons mean nothing here. We still do not allow Mexicans.”

These, and many other stronger-worded ones, are the embarrassing and humiliating retorts given our returning

veterans of Latin American descent and their families. They may all be worded differently, and whereas some are toned

with hate and loathness while others are toned with sympathy and remorse, still the implication remains that these so-

called “Mexicans” are considered unworthy of equality, regardless of birthright or service. This situation is ironic indeed,

in view of the fact that these same “Mexicans” have just finished helping this country to defeat countries to the east and

west who would impose upon the world a superior people, a superior culture.

Why this hate, this prejudice, this tendency to discriminate against a people whose only fault seems to be that

they are heirs of a culture older than any known “American Culture,” to find themselves a part of a land and people they

have helped to build and to defend, to find themselves a part of a minority group whose acquired passive nature keeps

them from boldly demanding those rights and privileges which are rightfully theirs? Can it be the result of difference in

race, nationality, language, loyalty, intelligence or ability?

There is no different in race. Latin Americans, or so-called “Mexicans,” are Caucasian or white. There are only

three races: the Caucasian, the Negroid, and the Mongoloid. Racial characteristics place the Latin American among the

white. Who dares contradict nature? There is no difference in nationality. These “Mexicans” were born and bred in this

country and are just as American as Jones or Smith. In fact, the ancestors of these “Mexicans” were here before those

of Jones or Smith decided to take up abode. Difference in language? No. These “Mexicans” speak English. Accented,

perhaps, in some cases, but English all over the United States seems to be accented. That these “Mexicans” can speak

Spanish is not a detriment, it is an asset. After all, there are not too many people in this country who can boast a

knowledge of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Difference in loyalty? How can that be when all revere

the same stars and stripes, when they don the same service uniforms for the same principles? Difference in intelligence

and ability? Impossible….

We could go on and on naming erroneously imagined differences to be used as a basis for this hate and find

each one false. This condition is not a case of difference; it is a case of ignorance. Yes, ignorance. Odd indeed to find

this banal state of mind in a country of such enlightenment and progress. But then, ignorance is like a disease that is

contagious, but contagious only for those who wish to suffer from it. Ignorance, bigotry, prejudice, and intolerance all

down through the centuries have tried to crush intelligence with cruelty, reason with brutality, and spirituality with

madness. This quartet of banalities constitutes the curse of the world. Ignorance is the parent of the other three.

Yes, ignorance broods hate and all its resultant actions of jealousy, misunderstandings, erroneous opinions, and

premeditated feelings of discord and confusion. In this particular case of unjustified failure to foment a fraternal feeling

between two groups of Americans, it is an ignorance of facts that poisons the atmosphere. An ignorance of the cultural

contributions of Americans of Latin American descent to the still young American Culture; an ignorance of the blood,

sweat, and efforts given to this country for its betterment; an ignorance of the sufferings withstood and the lives given

to preserve this country free and independent through its various periods of strife and conflict; and finally, an ignorance

of a sense of appreciation for a long, profitable, and loyal association with a group of Americans whose voice cries out in

desperate supplication:

We have proved ourselves true and loyal Americans by every trial and test that has confronted us; now give us

social, political, and economic equality and the opportunity to practice and enjoy that equality. We ask for it not

as a favor, but as a delegated right guaranteed by our Constitution, and as a reward for faithful service.

Telegrams

27 April 1944

23 June 1944

19 June 1945

These are telegrams sent by the

US Army to Mrs. Signa Hanson

with regard to the condition of her

son Sgt. Richard Hanson.

20 December 1941

These are telegrams sent by the US Navy to Mrs. Grace Ellen Traynor with regard to the condition

of her son BM2 Harold Baker Wood after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.

2 February 1942

Propaganda Posters