The movement of the African American population had dramatic social and political consequences. In 1940, the African American population was about evenly divided between urban and rural areas; in 1950, it was predominantly urban. This rural exodus continued in the 1950s and 1960s. By 1970, three-quarters of the African American population lived in urban areas. The urbanization of the African American population contributed importantly to the civil rights movement and to the ending of legal discrimination. To some extent, that movement began during the war.
The military forces remained segregated for the duration of the war, but in 1940, officer’s candidate schools (except those for the air force) were desegregated. Moreover, the outstanding record compiled in the military by African Americans, along with the growing demand by the African American community for equal justice, contributed to President Harry S. Truman’s decision to issue an executive order desegregating the armed forces in 1948. Progress was also made on the home front. In February 1941, A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, organized a march on Washington to protest discrimination in defense industries. The Roosevelt administration prevailed on the Randolph group to call off the march in exchange for an executive order forbidding discrimination in defense work and the establishment of the Federal Committee on Fair Employment Practices. The committee, although lacking in enforcement powers, worked with employers to end discrimination. Research by William Collins (2000, 2001) shows that these efforts had a positive impact on African American employment levels in war-related industries and that continued employment in such industries was associated with a significant wage premium for blacks.
WOMEN IN THE LABOR FORCE: WAR OR LONG-TERM TRENDS?
We should not jump to the conclusion that all of the changes that occurred during the war or in subsequent decades were the result of women working in war production plants. Recent research by Claudia Goldin (1991) has shown that fundamental changes in the labor market were even more important than the changes in attitudes brought about by the war.
Investigating a sample of women workers over the war decade, Goldin found that more than half of the Rosies who had entered the paid labor force between 1940 and 1944 (the peak year) had dropped out by 1950. Many lost their jobs as a result of seniority rules and social pressures that favored returning servicemen. Others chose to leave because economic circumstances permitted them to do so. Although many of the Rosies left the labor force after the war ended, many other women decided to enter in the late 1940s. Overall, Goldin found that about half of the women who entered the labor force between 1940 and 1950 were Rosies who had entered during the war and continued to work afterward, and about half were women who had not worked during the war but who had entered the labor force between the end of the war and 1950.
What factors brought women into the labor force in the immediate postwar years? One was the growing demand for women workers. Full employment meant more demand for all types of labor, and the clerical sector, which employed many women, was growing especially rapidly. Table 25.5 shows the increase in jobs held by women between 1940 and 1950. The importance of clerical and sales jobs, which accounted for 47 percent of the increase, is evident. Increased education also helped fit women for more jobs. The supply of younger unmarried women was shrinking as a result of low birthrates of the 1930s, and the supply of younger married women was also declining due to the increase in family formation during the postwar period. These changes opened the market for older married women. By 1950, these fundamental forces had pushed the labor force participation of women, and especially that of older married women, above the wartime peak.
Frequent during World War II as in World War I, but in the early summer of 1943, a violent outburst near Detroit left 25 African Americans and 9 whites dead.
One of the worst examples of racial bigotry occurred in 1942. Some 110,000 Japanese Americans (75,000 of them citizens) were forced to leave their homes on the West Coast
And were placed in internment camps until 1945. Many were forced to sell farms and other businesses at “fire-sale” prices, thus being deprived of property built up over decades. Meanwhile, Japanese Americans distinguished themselves in the armed forces, fighting valiantly on the Italian front and serving as interpreters and translators in the Pacific theater. In 1988, Congress formally apologized and granted each of the survivors of the internment $20,000 as compensation.
World History
