Part I- Wars Effect on American Identity

Trend 1- Isolationist to Interventionalist: Americans see Themselves Living a Policy Change

            World War II, the Cold War, and the Viet Nam War were all catalysts that had similar effects on the way Americans saw themselves and their place in the world during that period. One major change in American thought was the view of the country and government policy as isolationist, which throughout the wars made a stronger and stronger change to Interventionalist. After the First World War, Americans tried very hard to stay out of the war. They didn’t want to enter a conflict on that scale again. The first Neutrality Act of 1935 was one result of this desire to remain isolated from war. The Neutrality Act states:

“Providing for the prohibition of the export of arms, ammunition, and implements of war to belligerent countries; the prohibition of the transportation of arms, ammunition, and implements of war by vessels of the United States for the use of belligerent states; for the registration and licensing of persons engaged in the business of manufacturing, exporting, or importing arms, ammunition, or implements of war; and restricting travel by American citizens on belligerent ships during war.”

Figure 1.

This is only part of the Act, which included many more prohibitions in relation to war. The price for breaking this law was a fine of $10,000, which according to the Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator is about $111,830 today. In other words, it was an absurd amount of money, proving how much America wanted to stay out of war. One cartoonist of the times portrayed the Neutrality Act as keeping the “good guys” from winning the war. The cartoon, published on September 28, 1941, can be seen in Figure 1. The beginning of the change to Interventionalist policy began on December 7, 1941. The direct attack on the United States by Japan at Pearl Harbor was a large enough motivation to cause the United States to feel the need to enter the Second World War.

Figure 2.

Lillian Bailey, who was twenty two years old that year, remembered in her memoir “World War II on the Home front: They Also Serve Who Only Sit and Wait”, “The attack at Pearl Harbor unified the country and the sniping so common in Washington took a back seat to the war effort. The supplies needed were stupendous.” Everyone’s focus immediately shifted to the war effort. It was truly a unified effort. Everyone in the United States did what they could in order to contribute. One example of efforts that American citizens used every day during World War II was the rations for food and the victory gardens. According to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, approximately 20,000,000 gardens were planted in support of the war.

Figure 3.

            Figure 2 illustrates the encouragement of victory gardens through a popular poster of the times. Its slogan says “Our food is fighting” telling the people that the food rations and victory gardens were their way of fighting the war. It made them feel important, so they were more likely to plant a garden.Figure 3 shows another WWII poster from 1944 discussing rations. It shows a young woman, probably a mother saying, “Of Course I Can!” to the ration points. It is another way of convincing the population about unifying in the war effort, even down to the food.

The pop culture of the time also endorsed the war effort. Songs of the time period encouraged young men to fight, their families to support them, and others to help in any way they could. The song “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” by Frank Loesser declares, “Praise the Lord, we're on a mighty mission; All aboard, we're not a-goin' fishin'; Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition; And we'll all stay free.” It encourages boys to go to war to help the war effort and win, so that Americans can still enjoy the freedoms they are used to

Figure 4.

4. More proof of the unity the country held in the war against the Axis powers was the way the gender gap in the workface was dropped for the period of the war. Sherna Berger Gluck estimated in the Dictionary of American History Article, “Should Your Wife Take a War Job?” that 6 million women joined the workforce. All types of women worked in the effort. She sites women that just graduated college, are married, have young children, and older women. Figure 4 shows one woman working in a factory at the E.G. Budd Manufacturing Company.Again pop culture appears in the war effort. The famous figure Rosie the Riveter was first mentioned in the song by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. The song says, All the day long, Whether rain or shine, She's a part of the assembly line. She's making history, Working for victory, Rosie the Riveter.” It later goes on to say, “That little girl will do more than a male will do. Rosie's got a boyfriend, Charlie. Charlie, he's a Marine. Rosie is protecting Charlie, Working overtime on the riveting machine.” Later, her famous portrait was the front page of the Saturday Evening Post on May 29, 1943. This portrait can be seen in Figure 5. The unity between the genders was key to the war effort.

One final example of the unity in the war that proves that America was on the brink of isolationist principles, is the production effort throughout the war. The United States entered the war far behind every other country in production for the war, but by the time the war ended America had out produced every all of the Axis powers combined. Gordon Sullivan, a United States army General, wrote in Mobilization: The U.S. Army in WWII, the 50th Anniversary, “The United States developed produced and delivered a flood of equipment and supplies for its own and Allied troops. The country showed a preeminent capability for what R. Elberton Smith characterized as "technological warfare on a global scale" and furnished the Allies with decisive economic and industrial power.” The United States rose to the challenge of the production race during the war, which drove the country to become and economic and industrial power in the world. Americans realized we could take on challenges, such as this, and overcome them and be a world superpower.

Figure 7.

3.Sidney Pash wrote in the Dictionary of American History Article, Economy, World War II, “Industrial production jumped from $8 billion in 1941 to over $30 billion the next year, and by 1944 American factories produced twice as much war material as the entire Axis.” Figure 6 shows three WWII posters based on convincing the public to keep up the production. Each in its own way reminds the American citizens that they can help dramatically in the war effort to aid the soldiers and keep America free from the Axis powers.

Figure 6.

We truly had outrun everyone with our fierce unity and industrial power. Another way to look at the production is to look at a country’s GDP or Gross Domestic Product, which is the total goods and services produced in a country during a certain period of time. Figure 7 shows the GDP of all of the major powers during WWII in billions of dollars. It is very obvious that the United States was far above everyone else.

            Figure 7.                        

World War II was the beginning of the switch from an isolationist government and viewpoint to and Interventionalist one. The unity that the country showed against a common world enemy showed the Americans as still on the brink of isolationism and not yet having reached the stage of the American bully in foreign policy.

            The Cold War period had a similar effect on the change in way Americans thought, but changed how they saw their government and its place in the world. The American people remained on the brink of isolationist principles, but the government continued pushing forward into Interventionalist policies.
            The arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States proved that the governments were no longer trying to stay out of foreign affairs. Instead of following the Neutrality Acts, the United States followed new policies such as the Truman Doctrine and Article X. George Kennan wrote in Article X, “In these circumstances it is clear the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient, but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” The article does not specifically mention any war action against Russia, but only the fact that we should keep the Russians expansion of communist ideas contained, so as not to infect the rest of the world. The government used this idea for the arms race, where their rationale was based on the MAD principle and how the Russians would trick us. The basic premise of the MAD principle, or mutually assured destruction, was that if the enemy wiped out 95% of your nuclear weapons, the remaining 5% would still be enough to remove their entire civilization, so they couldn’t continue to threaten your own, according to Dr. Victory.

More proof of the frightened American public is in the thoughts of the time. Many Americans built bomb shelters in their houses in an attempt to survive a nuclear bomb should it come. This became known as “bomb shelter/bunker mentality.” According to Dr. Victory, the government first suggested this only in an effort to calm the hysterical public. Figure 12 shows one such bomb shelter made out of brick, which common sense suggests would no way survive a nuclear bomb. But the “bomb shelter mentality” does suggest that Americans were scared of the possibility of war with the Soviets. During the Cold War while the government was taking giant leaps toward Interventionalist policy, it is clear that the American public was still reluctant to head in that direction for fear of the wars and trouble it would cause.

Figure 12.

            By the time of the Vietnam War, the government of the United States had turned fully toward Interventionalist policies. The American public, however, had turned around and headed back to isolationist ideas. According to the Dictionary of American History, “the United States was slowly drawn into the conflict in Vietnam.” This was crucial to both the government’s reasons for entering and to the citizens’ reasons for protesting.

Figure 15.  

           The people on the other hand, clung to isolationist principles. They continued to want to avoid war. The biggest indicator of this was the opposition and protests to the war in Vietnam. Signs of protest could be seen everywhere from college campuses to the president’s support polls. The beginning of the protest movement began with teach-ins at colleges and universities across the United States. They began at University of Michigan on March 24, 1965 and spread to other campuses.

Figure 16 shows this revolutionary protest. Protests also took standard march form. One march consisted of 25,000 people protesting down Washington Avenue. (The United States Antiwar Movement and the Vietnam War, studyworld.com, April 21, 2007) One protesting group, the Yippies, wrote a “Revolution Towards a Free Society: Yippie!” In this document, their first rule is “an immediate end to the war in Vietnam.” It is placed number one and it can’t be put more simply than that. It was most important in many people’s minds because they didn’t understand the reason for Vietnam and there was no reason to fight a war that had no purpose. Johnson’s public approval rates plummeted, as seen in Figure 17. The American public was not ready for the shift the government wanted to make in policy.

Figure 16.

Figure 17.

Throughout all three war periods, Americans saw shifts in the way they saw themselves and their place in the world. The American public continued to see itself as an isolationist people, but gradually began to see that their government and place in the world was shifting heavily toward isolationist policies.

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