The Office of Production Management (OPM) was created in January 1941 to coordinate the conversion of industry from civilian to defense production. It proved to be a weak and ineffectual agency for preparing the American ECONOMY for World War II, and in January 1942 was folded into the new War Production Board.
In order to facilitate economic mobilization and rearmament efforts, President Franklin D. Roosevelt organized a National Defense and Advisory Commission (NDAC) in May 1940. NDAC had little success, and in January 1941, Roosevelt replaced that agency with the Office of Production Management. OPM was jointly directed by General Motors executive William S. Knudsen and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America Union president Sidney Hillman in an effort to combine the interests of both BUSINESS and labor in mobilizing the economy for war. The primary objective of OPM was to coordinate the procurement and production of armaments and equipment. Its greatest legacy was its Division of Research and Statistics’ compilation of “shopping lists” of estimates and production requirements for U. S. military needs.
Later in 1941, FDR diminished the potential effectiveness of OPM by creating two new agencies aimed at economic mobilization: the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPACS) headed by Leon Henderson, and the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board (SPAB) led by Donald M. Nelson. The existence of so many mobilization agencies enabled FDR to keep economic organization under his control, but the agencies often overlapped in complex and confusing ways that rendered many of them ineffectual and resulted in consolidations and the creation of still more agencies.
As production demands steadily increased, the OPM was to divert resources from civilian to military needs. But OPM encountered problems in purchasing and procurement of military equipment because the army and navy had divisions with those powers as well. Ironically, despite Knudsen’s position, OPM also failed in getting the automobile industry to convert their factories from civilian production to war production. In January 1942, OPM, together with SPAB, was replaced by the War Production Board.
Further reading: Harold G. Vatter, The U. S. Economy in World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985).
—Michael T. Walsh
World History
