History That Doesn't Suck - 205: Total War on the Home Front: Victory Gardens, Volunteering, and the Double V

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

“I suggest that while we keep defense and victory in the forefront, that we don't lose sight of our fight for true democracy at home.” This is the story of life on the American home front.  While millions of brave men and women are sacrificing life and limb “over there,” those left behind are making sacrifices of their own—heeding the call to grow gardens in their backyards or on community lots, combing their homes for spare scrap metal and rubber, rationing so there’s enough to go ‘round, and buying up war bonds.  The economy changes drastically; for one thing, the Great Depression is definitely over. Unemployment drops to just about nil as millions join the military or the workforce. Small towns swell with floods of people following industrial government contracts, and women and teenagers take on new roles to fill critical gaps.  And yet, though every American is asked to make these sacrifices to win the war, not even close to every American receives the same protections and benefits from wartime contracts and legislation. Black Americans, still stifled by Jim Crow, fight for a Double Victory—against the Axis powers, and against prejudice back home. The “Good War” is not an evenly distributed burden by any means, but all in all, the home front is pulling its weight in this war.  ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and preorder Prof. Jackson’s new book go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Wayfair, every style, every home. It's Tuesday night, May 27th, 1941. We're in Washington, D.C., at the White House, where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is sitting behind a desk, looking over his notes just before going on the air, to broadcast one of his famous fireside chats. But this isn't a normal fireside chat, delivered with no more than members of his inner circle present

in the diplomatic reception room. No, instead, FDR is seated in the White House's most impressive East Room, with some 300 leaders from across the Americas, North and South, as a live audience. Interesting and fitting. Tonight, the president will explain to the millions of Americans tuning in that, though the United States still isn't at war, The growing Nazi threat means the nation must link arms with its western hemispheric neighbors

while redoubling war preparations. But enough background. It's 930. Everyone's settled in and FDR's going live. Let's listen. I am speaking tonight from the White House in the presence of the governing board of the Pan American Union, the Canadian minister and their families. The members of this board are the ambassadors and ministers

of the American Republic's in Washington. It is appropriate that I do this, for now as never before, the unity of the American republics is of supreme importance to each and every one of us and to the cause of freedom throughout the world. Our future, our future independence

is bound up with the future independence of all of our sister republics. The first and fundamental fact is that what started as a European war has developed, as the Nazis always intended it should develop, into a war for world domination. It's an impressive prediction. Remember, while you and I know from episodes 188 and 189 that Nazi subs will soon be prowling just off American beaches, the worst of that is still months away for Franklin and his listeners. So it really is bold for the president to see Nazi aggression crossing the Atlantic, not as a question of if, but when. Hence, the United States is drawing closer to its fellow democracy-loving American nations,

that is, its sister republics. And that's also why, in addition to helping the British, Franklin's pushed the nation to build up armaments, or as he put it last December, to build up an arsenal of democracy. A fact he reminds all of tonight. And then a year ago we launched and are successfully carrying out the largest armament production program

we have ever undertaken. But now, it's time to do more. After reviewing the past year's aid to Britain through Lend-Leese, expressing more concern at the godless world the Nazis threatened to create and declaring that America will actively resist such a fate befalling the Western Hemisphere, despite the cries of the isolationists.

Franklin calls on American citizens, to give their all. To set aside the economic battles between capital and labor, to sacrifice today so that democracy might live tomorrow. Because truly, this is nothing short of an emergency. Defense today means more than merely fighting. It means morale, civilian as well as military. It means using every available resource. It means enlarging every useful plant. When the nation is threatened from without, however, as it is today, the actual production and transportation of the machinery of defense must not be interrupted by disputes between capital and capital, labor and labor, or capital and labor. The future of all free enterprise of capital and labor alike is at stake. This is no time for capital to make or to be allowed to retain excess profits.

Articles of defense must have undisputed right of way in every industrial plant in the country. Therefore, with profound consciousness of my responsibilities to my countrymen and to my country's cause, I have tonight issued a proclamation that an unlimited national emergency exists and requires the strengthening of our defense to the extreme limit of our national power and authority. The nation will expect all individuals and all groups to play their full part without stem, without selfishness, and without doubt that our democracy will triumphantly survive. As FDR finishes, the East Room erupts in applause. And almost immediately, this presidentially declared emergency begins altering the nation. in the most permanent of ways, particularly in Huntsville, Alabama.

A little more than five weeks after this fireside chat on July 3, 1941, the Huntsville Times front page declares that a big project is coming their way, the construction of a more than $47 million chemical warfare plant. To quote the paper, the War Department announces today that plans have been completed for construction of the new manufacturing arsenal to produce smoke materials and other chemical, warfare agents for the military establishment. The plant will be located near Huntsville, Alabama. The new arsenal will include chemical manufacturing plants, plants for loading chemical shells,

a storage depot, laboratory, shops, offices, hospitals, and warehouses for receiving shipping. More than one million square feet of floor space will be required. The tract selected contains more than 30,000 acres. Construction will involve employment of several thousand persons. close quote Several thousands is an understatement of what's to come. Within the next week, hundreds of job seekers pour into the small town of 13,000, as plans for three-shift around-the-clock work begins.

Ground is broken on August 4th, and by September, a veritable tent city is in place as a force of 2,000 men, both civilian and military, transform this once sparsely populated, cotton-dependent community, into an industrial hub, soon to employ nearly 20,000. Even before the year ends or this plant opens, it's clear.

Huntsville will never be the same. Welcome to history that doesn't suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. While what we just witnessed in Huntsville is on the extreme side of things, the mobilization effort is unquestionably impacting the whole United States. And it only ramps up once Uncle Sam enters World War II at the end of the year. Across the country, sleepy towns are waking up, factories are retooling, and Americans, men, women, and even teenagers, are being asked to do something this nation hasn't truly demanded

of its citizens since the Great War, giving everything in a total war. And that total giving, a process that sees the gross national product double, that truly ends the Great Depression and its rampant unemployment as men ship out. Teens trade homework for shift work, And millions of women step into new fields to fill the factories and shipyards vacated by their husbands, brothers, and sons. That giving is our story today. But of course, as citizens rations sugar, rubber, and gasoline, plant victory gardens, and cash in their paychecks to buy war bonds, or even melt down civil war cannons. The U.S. government has to reckon with the fact that as it asks all Americans to sacrifice in the name of democracy, not all Americans are enjoying the full benefits of that democracy.

From women feeling unwelcoming glares as they step into needed positions, to black Americans still living under Jim Crow segregation, and Mexican laborers, known as Paraceros, finding their contracts aren't honored, there's a clear disconnect between what the United States is asking of and doing for some not insignificant groups. Indeed, the story of the American Home Front isn't just a story of remarkable united sacrifice, though it is most certainly that. It's also a story of who gets counted, who gets left,

out, and a generation demanding that the democracy they're fighting for better fulfill its own promises. And with that, let's press on to the end of this year, 1941, to see the changes that are coming at home as America enters the war. Here we go. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, American men descend on recruiting stations. As early as 2.30 a.m. on December 8th, 1941, lines are around the block. Closing reluctantly after the first day, Stations are thereafter open 24-7. Ultimately, more than 16 million American men and women will don a uniform at some point and for some duration during World War II. A massive number by any measure, but let's also recall that, in 1940, there are only about 132 million Americans.

This means that, by the end of the war, about 12% of the U.S. population serves in the military. About six in every 10 men who serve will do so as draftees. Yes, I trust to recall the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 from episode 188, the one that established America's first peacetime draft. The first numbers were picked in October, 1940, and more followed in July, 1941. The February and March, 1942 registration and lottery is expanded to include men between 20 and 45, who hadn't registered before. By the year's end, three million are drafted, and to zoom out once more, between 1940 and

in 1945, just about 10 million men are inducted into military service through the selective service system. But as these men head abroad and slow to travel mail and unreliable news leaves Americans in a constant state of dread wondering if their beloved sons, fathers and brothers, are still alive. There is one change that Americans welcome, even if most would undoubtedly part with this silver lining to avoid war. That change is a booming economy. To quote historian Mark Leff, War is hell, but for millions of Americans on the booming home front, it was also a hell of a war. Close quote. No joke.

America's gross national product, or GNP, the monetary value of everything produced by a nation's economy, doubles in just four years, jumping from $100 billion in 1940 to $200 billion in 1944. Or in today's dollars, the equivalent of jumping from about $1.8 to $3.7 trillion, give or take a few, million. If President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal didn't bring America out of the Great Depression, then war production certainly does. While unemployment still hovered around 9 million before the war, millions of men going into the military brings that number to virtually zero by 1943. Living costs rise, but wages rise higher, and government spending still elevated due to the Depression, explodes. Between 1940 and 1945, the national debt rockets for roughly 50 billion to more than 250 billion. That's because, as we know, American industry must keep up with war material contracts with allied countries

and provide for its own rapidly growing military. This gargantuan effort will require complete conversion of peacetime factories to create bomber assemblies, aircraft engines, tanks, tank engines, trucks, anti-aircraft guns, machine guns, and more. But as this begins, here's the $64,000 question, or rather the $5 billion question. Just how exactly does Uncle Sam effectively and rapidly turn a peace economy into a war economy? It's mid-afternoon, January 5, 1942.

We're in the offices of the Office of Production Management, or the OPM in Washington, D.C., and about 200 suit-clad men are just returning from lunch and taking their seats in a large room, centered around a long walnut conference table. Settling in, the men shuck off their overcoats. Most draped them on a windowless ledge. A portrait of Winston Churchill looks down on them from one end of the room,

while lettered posters with slogans like, Time is short and, United We Stand, adorn the walls. The air in the room is pleasantly warm for such a cold winter's day, but more than that, The air feels heavy with urgency. See, these men are representatives of the American economy itself. They're businessmen, labor leaders, and government bureaucrats. You know, the group's FDR told in his fireside chat that opened to this episode to play nice for the sake of the war.

They've gathered with the goal of converting the entire automobile industry, or as some call it, the greatest productive machine in the world for the war effort. And to make no mistake, these automakers need the government. just as much as the government needs them. Rubber rationing and limited tires means that car companies must pivot to survive. Well, given that mutually beneficial situation, this shouldn't be so hard.

A tall, bespectacled, white-haired, likely bow-tie-clad man pours over a set of papers at the head of that long table. This is the head of the OPM, William Bill Nudson. Appointed by FDR, the Danish-born, former GM Auto Man,

is currently pondering the U.S. military's $5 billion shopping list. He doesn't have a detailed inventory of American industrial resources, but he's prepared enough to address the group gathered today. As the room grows warmer, perhaps a little too warm, Bill declares, We want to know where some of these things will flow from. We want to know if you can make them or want to try to make them. If you can't, do you know anyone who can? Automakers and laborers look at each other.

They're very willing, but what things exactly does Bill want? The dean glances back down at his list. He starts reading off items one by one. We want more machine guns. Who wants to make machine guns? We need a great many turbine blades. Apart from the creak of benches and whispers between baffled business partners, the room remains silent.

After all, what does a car? Make her know about machine guns. Hooh, and how's it so hot in here in the dead of winter? Picking his eyes up from the page, Bill looks around the room, saying a little helplessly, somebody ought to be able to forge these things. The men gathered around the table gape at each other. This government office was established almost exactly a year ago, and now, four weeks post-Purl Harbor, and well after President Franklin Roosevelt declared a national emergency,

the OPM Director General is unable to give direction. Is Bill really just throwing out government contract needs with no-how-toes? Did he just essentially try to auction off government contracts? It's a truly miserable afternoon. One made worse by the fact that, when 200 men draped their overcoats on that one particular ledge, they unknowingly blocked the room's ventilation and turned their meeting into a sauna. The day ends with a few orders accepted,

but much of the $5 billion wish list goes unful, fulfilled. Unsurprising, but frustrating. Time magazine publishes a scathing article about this debacle, remarking that, quote, even after six long months, when it was clear that conversion must come, the OPM still had no plan, and still did not know who could or would make what, close quote. Nor is time the only one worried that the government isn't getting this war ramped up right. On the same day as this largely failed and piping hot meeting, January 5th, 9th, 9th. 1942. FDR reminds Congress about the crucial need for war production while speaking about the national budget. We cannot outfight our enemies unless, at the same time, we outproduce them.

It is not enough to turn out just a few more planes, a few more tanks. We must outproduce them overwhelmingly so that there can be no question of our ability to provide a crushing superiority of equipment in any theater of the World War. To his credit, FDR soon realizes that perhaps throwing America's peacetime industrial producers into the deep end of the war production pool and expecting them to swim wasn't the best approach. So on January 16th, 1942, he issues an executive order creating the War Production Board, or the WPB. The WPB has supreme authority over all industrial production programs and material procurement, replacing the OPM and the redundant supply priorities and allocation board.

It transforms peacetime factories into weapons and military manufacturing and takes drastic steps to conserve critical commodities like steel, aluminum, chemical nitrogen, and rubber. It also prohibits production of nylons and refrigerators. America largely stands behind the president, wholeheartedly dedicated to making American products harder, better, faster, and stronger than anything the Axis can produce. But it's not just patriotism. Those defense jobs pay top dollar, even with FDR's wartime capping of salaries. Teachers, farmers, even department store Santas leave the schools, fields, and stores for the war machine.

Millions of teenagers trade homework for factory work, helped along by the relaxation of child labor laws in many states. Many of these teens make more than their teachers. I know, I'm as shocked as you. But in all seriousness, this teenage workforce has a massive impact. In August 1943, the Department of Labor writes that, quote, the early withdrawal of boys and girls from school is a greater factor in the expansion of the labor force than is the increase in the number of women working, close quote.

To be clear, that speaks to just how many teens are working because women are indeed swelling the ranks of the workforce. As we know from our coverage of the home front during World War I in episode 139, when men go off to fight, women fill their vacated places in the factories. Many women can even find jobs despite no prior applicable work experience. While 27% of women and girls over 14 are employed in 1940, that figure reaches 37% by 1944. Women are literally doubling or tripling their income

by switching from traditionally female industries, such as clerical and domestic work, textile factories or cosmetics, to defense jobs. And let's not forget that women are in the military too. About 350,000 volunteer and enlist directly in the Women's Army Corps, the Navy's women accepted for voluntary emergency services, or the waves, the Marine Corps's Women's Reserve, and the Coast Guard's Women's Reserve. Their permitted roles are still limited, but have nonetheless grown since the last war.

Women serve as mechanics, air traffic controllers, even gunnering instructors. Hundreds of American women will make the ultimate sacrifice before this war is through. But I digress, keeping our focus on the home front, sheer need triumphs over tradition and prejudice, as women fill not only America's factories and shipyards, but serve as the nation's auto mechanics, taxi and garbage truck drivers, traffic cops, and more. That said, the path into traditionally male jobs is not an easy one. It's an unspecified day in 1942. We're in a noisy factory next to the Burbank Airport, just north of Los Angeles, California.

27-year-old Adele Errenberg is seated at a long workbench with about 30 other women and what's known as the Burr Room. They're all grinding and sanding various machine parts to a smooth finish. This manufacturer, ADEL, Precision Products, makes the hydraulic valve system for the Air Force's famous bomber, the B-17, better known as the Flying Fortress. It's important work, and it sure beats her old gig of selling lipstick in the drugstore, but Adele is sick of sanding. The repetition is mind-numbing. She finds it just as boring as the inane talk of her benchmates. But maybe there's a chance to do something more. Over the past few weeks, Adele has been learning how to use different machinery and how to read blueprints.

And today, a supervisor pulls her aside and finally offers her a big break. Okay, how would you like to go into the machine shop? Terrific. Now, Adele, it's going to be a real challenge because you'll be the only woman in the machine shop. Adele's not worried. Following the foreman to her new position, she thinks to herself. Well, this is going to be fun. All those guys in Adele in the machine shop.

The two walk into the shop together. It's much larger than the burrow room, and the noise is nearly deafening. Or at least, it is until Adele enters the room. Stepping into the shop, Adele feels all eyes fall on her as every machine goes silent. Yes, every man in the room has stopped to turn and accomplish. glare at the dark-haired girl in overalls. Adele will later recall, It took two weeks before anyone even talked to me.

The discrimination was indescribable. They wanted to kill me. But she survives, and even thrives in the machine shop, waning over the older men, joining the union and convincing others to do so, all the while developing what she describes as... The most fantastic biceps from throwing that machine into gear. How does the saying go?

Ah, a Rosie by any other name would have biceps just as sweet. Yes, Rosie the Riveter. How could we fail to mention this icon of American art? Future generations of Americans will generally associate Rosie with the J. Howard Miller, We Could Do It poster of a woman sternly bearing her arm, or Norman Rockwell's illustration of a muscled war worker eating lunch and crushing a copy of Mind Conf beneath her penny loafers. She's even got her own saw.

The identity of the namesake is debated, but the many real riveters and machinists become known as Rosies, right alongside the many Wendy the Welders. Together, they broaden the American notion of what women are capable of, a capacity that some worksites despise and others appreciate. In fact, this very dichotomy is captured in the town where today's story began in Huntsville, Alabama. I trust you recall that cotton town that we left with bulldozers, tearing up 30,000 acres. Well, as everything gets built up, officials at the Huntsville

Arsenal resist hiring women entirely in 1942, while just next door at Redstone Ordinance Plant, the commander publicly commits to hiring women wherever possible. By 1942's end, 40% of Redstone's production line workers are women. By 1944, it's 54%. And come September, In November, 1945, it peaks at 62%. Same sight, same war, vastly different attitudes toward women in the workplace. Meanwhile, the struggle is twofold for black women, as they face what Reverend Dr. Polly Murray calls Jane Crow. It's a brilliant term that clearly nods to the era's racially segregating Jim Crow laws

to articulate the fact that black women endure both sex and race-based prejudice. For example, 22 white women at the Baltimore Western Electric Plant strike over sharing a bathroom with one new black co-worker. As historian Matthew F. Delmont writes, quote, the protests, of course, were about more than toilets. Many white workers believed that they had an inalienable right to the best jobs. From this perspective, even a single black employee was seen as dangerous, threatening to bring racial democracy and equality to the factory floor.

close quote. For some white Americans, World War II is a fight to preserve a certain way of life, one that black Americans are not allowed to share. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP observes in 1942, quote, white folks would rather lose the war than give up the luxury of race prejudice, close quote.

A sweeping statement, perhaps, but not without its merit. One Detroit factory worker, striking in response to three black men moving to the aircraft assembly line says, I'd rather see Hitler and Hero Hito win the war and work beside it on the assembly line. Up until now, 1942, the U.S. has been in what most historians would classify

as a state of total war only twice previously. First, the Civil War, and second, World War I. But FDR knows that in order to have any chance of beating the Axis powers, America has to transform itself. The whole of the nation's wealth, national resources, manpower have to mobilize for victory. And for many, the mobilized part is entirely literal. Upwards of 20 million Americans, over 15% of the population, move across the country for work, swelling formerly small towns far beyond their pre-war capacity. William Pethley, a young machinist

in Portsmouth, Virginia's Navy Yard, will later recall, somebody would say, where are you from? I'd say Pennsylvania. Oh, heck, I'm from South Carolina. Somebody else would say Ohio or Kansas. They were coming in there from everywhere. And that 15% of the population doesn't include those who immigrate from other countries. In August, 1942, the U.S. and of Mexico began the wartime emergency Bracero program. Bracero, meaning arm man or laborer who works with his arms, which allows Mexican guest workers to come to the United States for agricultural and, by 1943, railroad jobs.

The Bracero program capitalizes on American officials' long-held belief that Mexico is a source for cheap labor. In theory, the program is enacted to fix the worsening farm labor shortage, as well as provide legal safeguards against low wages and other types of ill-treatment. In practice, workers are met with discrimination and abuse, including long hours, surcharges for room and board, and unsafe work practices. Remember, even after all those New Deal progressive programs, we're still in a pre-Oshah era. And even though there's legislation supposedly guaranteeing Bracero's adequate living conditions and 30 cents an hour, the equivalent of about $6 an hour in the early 21st century, reality is that, well, to quote, Professor Kitty Calavita, quote, employers often simply ignored contract provisions they found inconvenient.

Close quote. The nation's sorely needs workers. Boys are being drafted left and right. By July 1942, two million men have left their farms. And as we'll learn about in a future episode, California farmers who rely heavily on laborers of Japanese descent are losing them to internment camps. To be blunt, America quite simply cannot function

without the food produced by farms, and the war effort requires more food than ever to feed GIs and supply Britain and the Soviet Union. So, in addition to the Braceros, in April, 1943, Congress Reservoirs, directs the World War I era Women's Land Army, turning well over a million women into, quote-unquote, farmer rats. When POWs begin arriving in the U.S., they're put to work on farms too. Some of this strain is alleviated by a push for citizens to grow their own food.

Adapted from the war gardens of the Great War, but now branded with the inescapable V, victory gardens are a way to free up food for the boys over there. Rural and suburban Americans grow food in their own back. And in space scarce urban environments, parks and school grounds are converted into these new Victory Gardens. As 7-year-old Cheryl Jankowski will later recall of her community Victory Garden in Long Beach, California, we had the most miserable, hard-of-seement, three-by-five-foot plot of ground. Our carrots never got bigger than an inch.

But there was a huge neighborhood law on our block where there were a dozen different kinds of squash, corn everywhere, beans growing on poles taller than my hair. head. As a child, it seemed like the Garden of Eden. One Victory Garden advertisement poster shows a family of three harvesting their plot. The text reads, Our food is fighting. A garden will make your rations go further. Ah, yes, rations. See, by 1942, most Americans have little coupon books decorated with images of planes, tanks, guns, and ships, lest the rationer forget what it's all for. Young though she is, these rations. Rations will leave a deep impression on Cheryl 2.

To quote the 7-year-old Southern California's later record once more, all the neighborhood women would sit around the kitchen table, pooling, and trading ration coupons. It was like watching a big monopoly game, close quote. But you know, these Depression-era mothers are undoubtedly already accustomed to this sort of resource pooling. Ironically, most Americans eat better on World War II rationing than they did during the Great Depression.

as January, 1942, the Office of Price Administration, or the OPA, establishes temporary limits on purchasing some highly sought-after items. That list gradually grows. Tires, gas, razors, meat, dairy, sugar, cooking oils, coffee, shoes. You get the picture. Citizens generally accept this curtailing of consumer power, but if you need something badly enough, well, there's always the black market. To discourage hoarding, some stores require people to return their used-up items. like metal tubes of toothpaste or shaving cream before purchasing a new one. This practice also has the added benefit of conserving materials that are in short supply. Scrap metal and rubber are at the top of that list.

Scrap drives continuously sweep the country, collecting metal by the ton and sending it away to smelt and to steel. One accusatory news advertisement reads, Helping Hitler? That scrap metal in your yard hinders our war effort. Americans combed their homes for anything that might fit the bill, tin cans, keys, scissors, and knives. Even an old shovel could be refashioned into four hand grenades. In November, 1943, the Tennessee State Guard

parades a hanging scrap metal effigy of Adolf Hitler through the streets of Chattanooga to publicize the one-day scrap blitz coordinated metal collection effort. It seems the public gets especially enthusiastic about the idea of hurting the fewer. Another popular slogan for aluminum drives is Throw your pots and pans at Hitler.

Even Hollywood gets in on it. Rita Hayworth, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, poses atop her personal 1941 Lincoln Continental. Bumpers removed, with a sign reading, Please drive carefully. My bumpers are on the scrap heap. But sometimes, the metal offerings are a little more dear. It's Saturday evening, October 10, 1942.

We're in the small town of Holton, Maine, just about as far northeast in the states as you can go. At the behest of the local chapter of the Dars of the American Revolution, or the Dhar, Hultonites are gathered for an appropriate program in the city center of Market Square. The respectful ceremony will include music from the brown captain members of the newly formed Holtan Air Base Air Force Band, and of course, group singing.

Three enormous guns from the Block Away Monument Park sits smack in the middle of the square. One is a German howitzer from the World War, as the Portland Press Herald calls what we will later know as World War I. Another is a rapid-firing, multi-barreled gatling gun from the Spanish-American War. And last is an ancient piece of American artillery, a Civil War cannon. Each is adorned with red streamers, and tonight's solemn gathering is a farewell to these arms. All three guns, and their corresponding piles of Canada, are being sent back to war.

Well, back to the smelter anyway. Holton is answering the call for scrap metal by sacrificing their town's history. Following the singing, the white-haired, bespectacled, 73-year-old former Maine Supreme Court Chief Justice, and Holton native, Charles P. Barnes, rises. He has a few words to share,

summarizing the sentiments of the day. We are glad to surrender to the government these medals. so necessary in winning this struggle, and to furnish the boys whom we send away to war at the railroad stations with a God bless you, these materials which they need at the fronts. And with that, these three guns from three wars are laid on the metaphorical scrap metal altar. One main paper patriotically claims that their dearly departed union ancestors in blue, quote, would want to take part in our big national scrap drive to, close quote. They're probably right. The Holton donation, totally nearly 600 tons,

is part of a larger impulse towards sacrificing Civil War relics to the current war effort. Cities nationwide send their cannons. The Smithsonian even hands over a couple hundred tons worth of World War I cannons, half of them German. Their representative says that he, quote, hopes they'll be fired back at the Germans,

close quote. Here's to hoisting Germany by their own Hallitzer. President Franklin Roosevelt continues to ask Americans to donate whatever they can. Concurrent with the scrap drives is the need for rubber, which is critical for tanks, tires, gas masks, and more. FDR makes the ask over the radio on June 12, 1942. You and I want the finest and most efficient army and navy that the world has ever seen, an army and navy with the greatest and swiftest striking power.

That means rubber, huge quantities of, of it. We're setting aside the two weeks period to get that old rubber in. I know that I don't need to urge you to take part in this collection drive. All you need to know is the place to take your rubber too and the time to take it there. And you need to know the fact that your country needs your rubber. This pick-up the rubber campaign produces 450,000 tons of scrap rubber nationwide. But all this rationing, gardening, and scrap piling isn't enough. The U.S. government needs money, funds they cannot get without raising a victory income tax

and asking citizens to invest in defense bonds. Basically, a bond is a long-term investment in the government. You buy debt securities at a discount, say 75% of their face value, so a 25% dollar bond would be 1875. And in X amount of years, 10 years in this case, the government pays you back the full amount. It's sort of like gambling on winning the war, and coming out on top economically. The $25 bond is the most popular option, but for many still strapped for cash Americans, even 1875 is steep. More accessible, war savings stamps are issued in cent rather than dollar increments. By the war's end, bonds will generate $185 billion for the U.S.

government. Everyone buys in. Rosie the Riveter spends her paycheck on defense bonds, and Bean Crosby does the promo singing, buy, buy, buy, buy a bond. And buy and buy, the bonds you buy will bring you victory. Ah, I trust you caught the wordplay on those two different buys. And I promise it lands far smoother when delivered by the one and only being. Anyhow, buying bonds is seen as one of the most patriotic things a civilian can do. Even advertisers get in on the hype. To quote one wartime ad, if you want cameras for Christmas, Ritz has them. But buy defense bonds first. Advertisers are totally shameless about using the war to promote their own products. Ads show air crews relaxing with a Coca-Cola post-bombing run and associate weapons with household

products. Despite the context of the war, the messaging remains upbeat, encouraging people to spend their money. Of these ads, Anne-Marot Lindberg, the wife of that most famous of isolationist aviators, Charles Lindbergh says, quote, what appalled me was the insincere attempt to gild the materialism with patriotic motives, close quote. But that positive patriotic spin is inescapable. One might even say propagandistic. More on that in a future episode. But for now, it's time to turn our attention to another aspect of the home front, to those Americans fighting to protect a country that doesn't always protect them back. Back in episode 189, we saw FDR Black Cabinet member, Mary McLeod Bethune, and President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, A. Philip Randolph,

engaging with President Franklin Roosevelt to fight against the era's quote-unquote separate by equal racism, an engagement that led to FDR's June 25th, 1941 executive order, 8,000,000, 8802, banning discrimination on the basis of, quote, race, religion, or national origin, close quote, in industries that receive government contracts. At the time, I said take note, because we'd hear more about that later. Well, this is later. Executive Order AAO2 seeks to end racial and religious discrimination among employers

with government contracts by establishing the Fair Employment Practice Committee, or the FEPC. Though it has a tiny initial staff, 11, a mountain of cases, 1,6003 months, and downright negligible power to enforce its findings, the FEPC's mere creation is encouraging to black Americans. After all, it's an FDR creation, and shortcomings notwithstanding, his new deal delivered well enough to minorities to shift black voters' former allegiance to the Republican Party to the Democrats, or at least to this Democratic president. To quote one young woman in Pittsburgh in 1942, I am Gladys Crawley, a Negro girl employed by the city of Pittsburgh. I feel, Mr. President, that it is largely due to the position you have taken in seeing that the Negro citizens and other members of minority groups are accorded equal opportunities,

that the members of my race are more hopeful than ever before. We do feel that Negroes have not been given equal opportunities, for service in the camps and defense industries. But our faith in you is such that we know that you will do everything that can be done to remedy this condition and at the earliest possible time. But the Fair Employment Practice Committee quickly becomes less effective that same year, as it's placed under the War Manpower Board. The intent here is to align minority hiring with war production needs.

The outcome, however, is that Congress, now holding power over the FEPC, slashes its budget, thereby rendering it even less able. In A. Philip Randolph's eyes, this decline of the already almost clawless FEPC proves that FDR was only seeking to appease him, just enough to get Philip to call off the march on Washington that would have asked for far more, like a desegregated military. And that's a fair take. Weak as the FEPC already was, southern Democrats are furious that it even exists. But the determined president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Carporters doesn't roll over. Philip keeps the pressure on with his February, 1943, save the FEPC, Washington, D.C.

Conference. And in May, 1943, FDR signs Executive Order 9346, which brings the FEPC back into the executive branch, and therefore out of Congress's reach. Its new life allows for a broader jurisdiction to, quote, take appropriate steps to obtain elimination of such discrimination, close quote. A win, but also only a start. After all, let's not forget that Philip Randolph still dreams of a desegregated military. Currently, the segregated service largely means that black soldiers are relegated to non-combat

roles, like transport, kitchen, or sanitation work, and unable to advance up the ranks. Ah, we saw this back in episode 194. I trust you recall when the black Texan football player turned sailor, Doris Miller found himself in the odd position of having to choose between following Navy regulations and manning a gun to defend his country. And to his everlasting credit, the daring USS West Virginia seamen bravely chose the latter. Indeed, the military is starkly segregated, right down to blood and plasma donations. You heard that right. Blood donations, which are just becoming a dependable and a large-scale miracle of modern medicine, thanks to the pioneering work of a

black physician, Dr. Charles R. Drew, are separated by race. The Red Cross's relatively newly founded donor program enacted this policy in early 1942. This blood segregation policy effectively the same as Nazi Germany's, which insists on quote-unquote pure Aryan blood for wounded soldiers, will continue even after the war for a few years. As with other aspects of segregation, there's no scientific or strategic basis for separating blood donations by race. And naturally, Dr. Drew finds it abhorrent. These ongoing Jim Crow realities in the midst of being asked to serve the nation inspire a black 26-year-old Kansen named James G. Thompson to write to the Pittsburgh Courier in January 1942. His words are published under the headline,

Should I sacrifice to live half American? To quote him, like all true Americans, my greatest desire at this time, this crucial point of our history is a desire for a complete victory over the forces of evil, which threaten our existence today. I suggest that while we keep defense and victory in the forefront, that we don't lose sight of our fight for true democracy at home. The V for victory sign is being displayed prominently in all so-called democratic countries which are fighting for victory over aggression, slavery, and tyranny. Let we colored Americans adopt the double V for a double victory. The first V for victory over our enemies from without. The second V for victory over our enemies from within.

For surely, those who perpetrate these ugly prejudices here are seeking to destroy our democratic form of government just as surely as the Axis forces. Close quote. James's idea spreads, becoming known as the double V campaign. Now, victory at home and abroad isn't a new idea. Think of Frederick Douglas' assertion that black soldiers in the Civil War were fighting, quote, a double battle against slavery at the South and against prejudice and prescription at the North, close quote. Think of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, effectively echoing Frederick's words amid the call to arms of World War I in episode 138. And now, during World War II, black Americans are once again

unsure if they should answer the call. Do they serve the nation wear lynchings? Like the one that leaves Cleo Wright, a charred corpse in January 19. and is commemorated with postcards continue to exist? Do they serve a government that lets Black enlisted men? Like the nine Black soldiers who are sent to Pittsburgh on a 22-hour trip without being allowed to eat, continue to be treated as lesser? Black-owned and operated newspapers report on these injustices with precision that alarms FBI head, J. Edgar Hoover.

The federal Bigwig believes that the Double V Crusade is at best unpatriotic, at worst, seditious, and in any case, harmful to the war effort. But that doesn't mean the reporting on these horrific acts will cease. And one man hopes to build a bridge of understanding. It's an unspecified day, mid-June, 1942. We're walking through the halls of Washington, D.C.'s Department of Justice, with the neatly dressed 29-year-old publisher of the Chicago Defender and president of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, John Sendsdack.

John is here for rather high-stakes meetings. meeting with Attorney General Francis Beverly Biddle, one that, if it goes the wrong way, could lead to his and other black newspapers getting shut down. Now, the AG has opposed the recent internment of Japanese Americans. He has also ordered the FBI to investigate the recent lynching of Cleo Wright in Sykston, Missouri. That's a solid track record. Nonetheless, John can only hope for the best and steal himself for the worst as he enters the conference room.

Stepping inside, John finds Francis behind a long table with copies of the Courier, the Afro-American, and John's own newspaper, The Defender. And there are still others, at least a dozen FBI gathered copies of black newspapers. John takes his seat. They begin to talk, and it doesn't take long for A.G. Francis Biddle, to make it clear that he isn't in a friendly mood. He gestures to the papers, one of which reads in large print, unrest grows in army camps. The AG then states, matter-factly, These types of articles are a disservice to the war effort.

He then turns to one of John's own papers from last month to a prominent story entitled, Nine Soldiers Go Hungry 22 Hours on Train only because of Color, and tells John, It would have been better if such an article had never appeared. A number of the other articles come very close to sedition, and the Justice Department is watching closely for seditious matter. Looking Francis right in the eye,

the defender's publisher sits up straight. Attorney General, I can understand what you're saying. But that isn't true. John also gestures at the papers before them on the table, as he points out that the black press has been writing against racial discrimination since long before the war, for generations, and they aren't about to stop now. After a pause, he adds solemnly,

You have the power to close us down. So if you want to close us, go ahead and attempt it. But then, a finally. appeal. John wants Francis to know that black newspaper men do want to do right by all, even the government. But no one in the government will have a conversation with them. I've been trying to get an appointment to see Stimson. I've been trying to get in touch with everybody else. Nobody will talk to us. So what do we expect us to publish? We don't want to publish the wrong information. We want to cooperate with the war effort. Seemingly surprised, Francis replies, well, I didn't know that.

The AG doesn't waste a moment. Right then and there, he picks up the phone and calls Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, making an appointment for John to see him. John Sinsdack and Attorney General Francis Biddle talk for over an hour. By the end, the AG agrees not to pursue sedition charges if the papers don't release anything more critical than what's already out there. And John confirms that he and other publishers will back the war effort as long as they can interview government officials.

Nonetheless, racial discrimination continues, particularly as the ongoing war pumps added pressure into the social sphere. One such example of this is the rapidly growing city of Detroit, as hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly from the south, moved to the city, swelling its population to 2 million by June in 1943. Rumors fly, and racial tensions rise, then turn deadly. Disputes over federal housing projects and promotions lead to three days of blood. bloody riots in which 34 people are killed, 25 of whom are black.

Hundreds are injured, and again, they're mostly black. And as for the arrests? Well, as black journalists and activist, P. L. Prattis asks, what were the police doing when Negroes were being beaten in the Negro district? They were arresting Negroes. It's not just Detroit, Mobile, Alabama, Beaumont, Texas, New York City, and Los Angeles all boil over. Nor is the racial violence limited to black Americans. That same month, June, 1943, in Los Angeles, white sailors and Marines literally hunt down

young Hispanics for the better part of a week. Known as zoot suitors for the loose yet carefully tailored clothes they wear, these young men are seen as unpatriotic for indulgently using or wasting so much fabric during a time of rationing. There's also an ugly, untrue rumor that they're not doing their fair share of military service. The violence on the West Coast is astounding. To quote 16-year-old witness, Don McFadden, servicemen would go into theaters and make the projectionist shut off the movie. They'd go down both aisles.

Any zoot suitors they saw, they drag him right out of his seat and beat him, tear his clothes up. I saw a group of servicemen to stop a streetcar. They spotted one zoot-suter on it. They got on. He couldn't get off. They carried him off unconscious. Here's a guy riding a streetcar, and he gets beat up because he happens to be Mexican. Sometimes they didn't even have zootsuits on. If they happened to be Mexican,

that was enough. Close quote. The summer of violence of 1943 prompts the poet laureate of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, to pin the poem, Beaumont to Detroit, 1943. In it, he pointedly holds America accountable for racial thinking, that he can't help but compare to the very axis powers the nation is now fighting. It reads in part, Everything that Hitler and Mussolini do, Negroes get the same treatment from you. Yet you say we're fighting for democracy. Then why don't democracy include me?

I ask you this question, because I want to know, how long I got to fight both Hitler and Jim Crow. And yet, even as black Americans and other minorities feel and express their valid sorrow at living under Jim Crow, while being asked to sacrifice for those most cherished American promises that segregation continues to keep from beyond their reach. Americans of all colors nonetheless work in defense plants and serve in the military, giving their best, and even performing honest-to-god heroics on the home front.

It's just before 12.30 p.m., February 18, 1943. Eight Army boxers are currently driving north through Seattle's industrial district, just between downtown and the Boeing Airport. They're headed to a pre-competition. weigh in at the Civic Auditorium. Among them is the 205-pound Florida heavyweight, Private Sam Morris. Sam is looking forward to the Pacific Northwest Service Boxing Championship. After all, this tall, black, anti-aircraft man has a winning streak of 12 fights. Sounds like it's time to make that string of victories at Baker's dozen. But suddenly, all the levity and joy of the ride

comes to a hard stop as a gigantic firewall plunges into a brick industrial building to the left of their vehicle. The all-but instantaneous explosive sounds and flames are horrific. Sam and the other servicemen tumble out of the car and set off at a sprint, but not away from the sea of flames and explosions to ensure their own safety. No, they charged straight at the roaring inferno that's taken over the five-story fry packing plant. Approaching the burning building, the men realize what caused the massive explosion. That fireball falling from the sky is a prototype, for the new Super Fortress Boeing Bomber B-29, and it crashed into the upper stories of the meatpacking plant.

As the first to arrive on the scene, the Army boxers charge into the building. Shouting, fire, fire! They heard employees out the door. The commanding officer snatches up the phone and calls the police and the fire department, as Sam and the others dash even deeper into the burning building. People and livestock are caught in the blaze.

Sam spots two Frye employees behind the wall of flame, The Florida heavyweight jumps through it, burning his clothes and singeing on his eyebrows, but reaching the two men in the process. He dragged both of them out at the building. Sam then convinces two more to jump to safety before retreating himself. 32 died in this tragic accident. 11 on board the bomber prototype, 20 factory workers, and one firefighter. But that total would have been four more, if not for Sam Morris.

Next month, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt awards the box. or a soldier's medal for his bravery. While he didn't save lives for the award, it's an honor, one that reflects that Sam is a champion both in and out of the ring. Well, my friends, we've come to the end of today's story,

a story that reminds us that as 16 million Americans served in uniform, total war asked millions more to serve in a lower-case-s sort of way, in the form of up-ended lives. Millions of civilians flooded into factory towns that barely existed five years earlier, traded classrooms for cornfields or cosmetic counters for rivet guns. The figurative pots and pans were thrown as paychecks turned into bonds and city

parks became victory vegetable gardens. Yes, the American Homefront showed up. But what we can't do and won't do is mistake unity of effort for unity of experience. The men and women who built the bombs and grew the food and bought the bonds did not all do so from the same America. Some worked beside people would rather have lost the war than see them promoted. Some bled for a country that wouldn't even keep their blood in the same bottle. Indeed, while a future generation of Americans will, with very good cause, later label Uncle Sam's fight against the Axis' powers combined imperialism, fascism, and genocide as the good war. A term the great oral historian Studs Terkel will

immortalize with his landmark 1984 book of the same name. The fact is that the second V and that double victory will yet remain to be achieved. But those are stories for a much later day. Next time, we turn our attention to another side of the home front of this war. One fought not with melted-down cannons or ration books, but with cartoons, posters, and movie reels. Yes, Bud's bunnies pushing war bonds. Donald Duck, his pain, his taxes, and still other iconic characters are getting their start

as the most powerful propaganda machine in American history. Fires up. History That Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson. Episode researched and written by Greg Jackson and Ella Hennrickson. Executive editor, Riley Newbauer. Production by Airship. Audio editing by Muhammad Chazade. Sound design by Molly Bach.

Theme music composed by Greg Jackson. Arrangement and additional composition by Lindsay Graham of Ayrshire. For bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulted in writing this episode, visit htbspodcast.com. HTVS is supported by fans at HTVSpodcast.com slash membership. My gratitude to you kind souls providing funding to help us continue. Thank you. And a special thanks to our patrons whose monthly gift puts them at producer status.

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