Part I- Wars Effect on American Identity
Trend 2- America Using its Superpower Status to Increasingly Sway Foreign Affairs
| 2. Another major change that was caused by the three war periods was the way in which Americans saw their economy and how it should affect international affairs. Americans believed they could use their growing superpower economy to sway international events in their favor. Following the U.S. entry into World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the American people that their production of war materials must dramatically increase. He declared America must build planes and ships to the “utmost capacity.” Due to this, factories across America stopped making civilian, consumer goods and concentrated on production for the war effort. Figure 1 shows FDR’s plans being broadcast through the Philadelphia Record newspaper. |
Figure 1. |
Because of the increased productions, jobs were offered at war plants, steel mills, and shipyards in major cities, such as Los Angeles and Portland. The increase in jobs caused urbanization. In addition, thousands of new factories were built. During his interview in the primary source video “Home Front,” Don Johnson, of Detroit, Michigan, remarked, “I went through a door in the morning that was no longer there in the afternoon.”
Figure 2. |
Because men left for war and America direly needed production help, women and African-Americans filled in the jobs of the soldiers overseas, joining the workforce in many areas of the economy. Figure 2 shows one sign advertising the need for anybody for work. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the total number of people engaged in manufacturing increased by over 4000 laborers between 1940 and 1950 (Labor Force and Employment by Industry 1800-1960).
In just one year (1941-42), the percentage of unemployed workers in the civilian labor force was approximately cut in half. The percentage in 1943 was about one fifth of the percentage two years earlier. Over the course of four years (1941-44), the unemployment percentage was reduced by a factor of 8.25. This dramatic decrease can be seen in Figure 3. |
Figure 3.
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Bill Mulcahy, of Camden, New Jersey, pictured in Figure 4, worked seven days a week, three shifts a day. “There was no time,” he recalled, “a constant struggle [against the clock].” On the whole, the American labor force went from working around fifty to sixty hours per week to over eighty hours per week.
The hard work involved in the production paid off for the workers. In the “Home Front” video, one man’s salary increased from 40 cents an hour to $2.75 an hour within the four years of World War II. In other words, his salary nearly doubled every year! Regarding this change as a gift from heaven, he reminisced, “It made a different man out of me.” After the poverty of the Great Depression, he was now able to purchase new clothing. |
Figure 4. |
Due to the greater income for people of all classes, the working class evolved into a new middle class. Following the war, a quick rise could be seen in the purchase of consumer goods, such as jewelry, convertibles, and television sets. People also had money to spend on entertainment. Attending horse derbies became a common form of entertainment. Places like Miami and Virginia Beach attracted tourists as popular vacation spots. In a September 1945 post-war radio broadcast, Edward R. Murrow, one of the most influential media giants of the day, observed, “The advertisements for new radios, cars, refrigerators, furniture, clothes, travel, [and] drink speak a loud language of confidence.” Through metaphorical anecdotes, he implied that the American standard of living was much higher than that of European nations. “I conclude that there has occurred,” he affirmed, “a change in our attitude toward Europe.”
The amount totals include all equipment and supplies produced during World War II, such as aircraft, ships, guns and fire control, ammunition, combat and motor vehicles, and communication and electronic equipment. Between 1940 and 1945, the United States manufactured a grand total of 186,007 items. From 1940 to 1942, the amount of equipment produced approximately tripled. From 1942 to 1944, the total nearly doubled. This information can be seen in the graph in Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Figure 6. |
Along with the increased production of munitions for World War II giving rise to the disposable income of the American public, it also fundamentally changed the way we viewed ourselves as a nation. In only two years, the United States was out-producing all of our allies and enemies. Detroit produced an average of fifty tanks per day. For every tank that the German military struck down in battle, we had already built five more, according to Dr. Victory. Figure 6 shows tanks coming off one production line during the war. This gave reason for America to see itself as an industrial superpower. That, in turn, inspired motivation to continue our high rate of production in order to secure our standing on top. |
In addition, the United States felt certain that its economy was powerful enough to impact international affairs. Thus, after the war, we began initiating military interventions in various regions of the world and providing more foreign aid. Triggered by prosperity, this superior mindset would lead America into a commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and eventually the grueling entanglement of the Cold War and Vietnam. In a rather short amount of time, America became an industrial superpower and obtained an economy with impact on international affairs.
Figure 7.
As shown in the Figure 7, the gross national product of the United States was much stronger by the end of World War II. Between 1940 and 1950, the GNP rose nearly $200 billion, an incredible feat. One metaphor for the prosperity of the American economy and symbol for our wealth in natural resources was the convertible. After all, at that time we were one of the top petroleum exporters of our time.
After the war, the factories that had been producing radar shifted to the manufacture of a new technology, the TV. With the mass production of television sets, this form of media became much more influential than the radio, for one could not only hear, but also see news and entertainment (Victory). Nearly every year, 10,000,000 more televisions were sold. In addition, millions of rock-and-roll records were sold during the 1950’s post-war baby-boomer economy.
This trend continued throughout the years of the Cold War, as displayed in the steady growth in civilian non-farm jobs under the terms of nine U.S. presidents. The general trend was moving upward doing this time, as seen in Figure 8. The number of jobs kept increasing to fit the excellent economy. |
Figure 8. |
Figure 9. |
Following 1945, the Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe made America and its allies nervous; who drew an immediate parallel to Nazi Germany’s spread of facism prior to WWII. The world powers certainly did not want to make the same mistake again (Victory). In 1947, Winston Churchill, who had once warned about Adolf Hitler, coined the phrase, “an iron curtain has descended.” George Kennan proposed a doctrine of containment in his Article X in July of the same year. This became the central tenet of U.S. foreign policy and security strategy throughout the Cold War. His assumption maintained that the communist system was inherently flawed. Thus, containing the Soviets and allowing little room for growth would lead to the inevitable collapse of communism. Quickly following the creation of this doctrine in 1948, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed in Europe as a military alliance designed to fight communist domination and influence. America joined (U.S. Military Interventions Initiated Since 1945- ). |
Figure 9 shows the Soviet expansion that many capitalist nations feared would result in a repeat of the Nazism of World War II.
As in World War II, we saw ourselves as an industrial superpower with an economy powerful enough to impact international affairs. Because of this, during the height of the Cold War, the United States provided more foreign aid to other nations in return for their support against communism. Figure 10 shows the great increase in U.S. money being used in foreign assistance. Our commitment to Soviet containment led us into countless military interventions and conflicts: the Korean War (1950- 1953), Suez Crisis that resulted in an evacuation of Egypt (1956), and CIA- backed Bay of Pigs invasion (March of 1961). On October 1962 of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviets came the closest to nuclear war than ever during the entire duration of the Cold War (U.S. Military Interventions Initiated Since 1945- ).
Figure 10.
| Because we saw ourselves as a powerful, industrial superpower factories began building intercontinental ballistic missiles, which added to the public sense of anxiety in the 1950’s. Many of the different types of missiles that were developed during the period can be seen in Figure 11. A “bomb shelter mentality” became the common mindset of the people (Victory). The direct threat of a nuclear attack by the Soviets hung in the air for three decades. “Red Nightmare,” a 1950’s video released by the U.S. Department of Defense, envisioned the horrors of America losing the Cold War. Our nation would become a communist state with no freedom of choice or speech, no privacy, and no religion, as portrayed by the film (Open Society Archives, Central European University). Another film, “Red Dawn,” (1984) where the plot revolved around a Soviet invasion of the United States and mass murder of civilians (Internet Movie Database). (Ironically, the complete collapse of the U.S.S.R. would follow in less than two years.) Despite the fear of the American public, the production of weapons only encouraged the American economy and its place as a superpower. |
Figure 11. |
Figure 12. |
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union had successfully launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, which shocked the United States. The event predated a similar planned U.S. launch by several months. The Sputnik, a small metal ball, weighed 185 pounds, measured 23 inches in diameter, and orbited Earth every ninety minutes. It carried two tiny radio transmitters that produced a repetitive beeping noise as it traveled. Although Sputnik, pictured in Figure 12, did not do much of anything, it demonstrated nonetheless that the Soviets were capable of producing rockets that the public though could also could send nuclear weapons through space. As the satellite circled Earth, Americans looked skyward in fear and anxiety, convinced that Sputnik would bring about a Soviet atomic attack. The United States quickly responded to the Soviet launch. In 1958, the federal government created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Between 1958 and 1959, we launched a total of nineteen satellites (U*X*L American Decades). |
To many Americans, the success of the Sputnik satellite proved that the Russians were more technologically advanced. This posed a critical crisis in education.
| 1.Thus, the U.S. government passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) to provide federal funding for higher education, particularly in the math and sciences (Encyclopedia of Education). The point was to hopefully outdo Russian technology. This resulted in an increase of college enrollment and degrees attained. On the whole, it gave rise to the percent of educated men and women in the American population, proving Robert Wiebe’s theory wrong. In The Search for Order, he asserted, “Education, both formal and informal, inhibited specialization and discouraged the accumulation of knowledge.” Clearly, more people were going to college and spreading knowledge, as seen in Figure 13. |
Figure 13. |
America’s view of itself and its place in the world is expressed perfectly in President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Radio and Television Address on January 17, 1961:
“We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment."
Apparently under pressure from his Chinese and Soviet allies and also increasingly certain of his eventual victory, Ho Chi Minh declared he was ready to talk peace. The Big Four (the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and France) agreed to convene a conference in Geneva ("The Final Declarations of the Geneva Conference" July 21, 1954, Pentagon Papers).
Figure 14. |
The French, giving pessimistic reports about their war effort, spoke of seeking a compromise. But President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles did not want to consider a compromise with communism. Offering more aid, and holding out the possibility of bombing intervention, he urged the French to keep fighting. With our powerful economy, we tried to sway the outcome of a foreign conflict, but to no avail. France's military position crumpled that spring. The end of French rule in Vietnam was finally signaled on May 6, 1954, when the Viet Cong swarmed over the central command post at Dien Bien Phu (A Brief Timeline of the History of Vietnam until the United States Involvement).
Beginning on April 26, 1954, the United States had reluctantly gone to Geneva to bargain with the Communists. Figure 14 shows the President of South Vietnam at the Geneva Accords. The principal feature of the Geneva Accords provided for the temporary partition of Vietnam in the area of the 17th parallel into two zones for the regrouping of the two sides' military forces after a cease-fire.The accords, stressing that the demilitarized zone was not to be considered a permanent political boundary, offered a public civilian vote on the form of government for the whole country to be held in July 1956 (Pentagon Papers). The United States refused to sign the accords, knowing that a Viet Cong victory at the polls, and another Communist state, would be inevitable. |
The United States followed a commitment to an anti-Communist policy and an adherence to the “Domino theory" of Communist expansion. That concept was one in which one communist country would undermine its neighboring countries, and was first presented by President Eisenhower.By 1959, insurgent sabotage and terrorism in Vietnam had increased sharply. On July 8, two American military advisers were killed in an attack at Bien Hoa, north of Saigon, becoming the first Americans to lose their lives in the new Vietnam War (Victory).
| In the presidential elections of 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon, as seen in Figure 15. Kennedy’s campaign was centered on the opinion that the United States is losing to communism in all regions of the world: Africa, the Middle East, India, and Asia. Under his term, he began sending troops to Vietnam. Between 1960 and 1965, the United States with the troops of Green Berets armed, equipped, and trained the South Vietnamese to attack the enemy, the northern Viet Cong. We spent so much of our economy overseas on this international affair that our national currency dropped. After the Vietnam War, one quarter was no longer worth its weight in silver. A dollar bill was no longer “strong,” but just a piece of paper, according to Dr. Victory. |
Figure 15. |
In a similar manner, the national economy of Vietnam had been adversely affected by Communist aggression. A decline of exports came from an extensive destruction of many plantations and abandonment of others. South Vietnam regained the manufacturing capacity to cover 90% of its cotton textile needs and approached self-sufficiency in most categories of paper production with American assistance (U.S. Army Infantry School). Eight new industrial plants were built and 51 expanded in 1965.
Figure 16. |
The Tonkin Gulf Incident of August 2, 1964 could be considered the turning point of the Vietnam War. A photograph of the U.S. Maddox, a key warship in the incident, can be seen in Figure 16. After destroyers and patrol boats pounded the harbors of North Vietnam, U.S. troop strength and casualties escalated dramatically (Victory). When President Nixon finally announced the first withdrawal of American troops in June of 1969, American troop strength had reached its apex of 541,000 men, as seen in Figure 17. |
Figure 17.
All of the fight in Vietnam made it clear that the viewpoint Americans had of themselves was very different from what it had been before World War II. Americans had tried to use their political power before the Geneva Accords to keep the communists from taking power and when that did not prevail; they continued to use the country’s powerful economy to influence international affairs in an effort to stop what they believed was evil: communism.
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