explain the several reasons for the Economic, Social, & Political impacts of“World War II and The Texas Leaders in Politics!”
Answers
Answer:WORLD WAR II. World War II produced social, political, and economic consequences for Texas. During the Great Depression of the 1930s the New Deal’s programs made the federal government more influential in the state. Responding to the start of the war in Europe in September 1939, the U.S. Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt called for American businesses to produce more military goods. Many Texas companies landed manufacturing contracts, soon creating new jobs of all kinds. To fill those jobs, Texans left farms and small towns and went to cities. When Congress approved funding, the U.S. War and Navy Departments also authorized expanding and adding to Texas military bases, which created more employment for thousands in construction trades. After 1940 the U.S. military services trained thousands of American soldiers, sailors, pilots, and aircrews at Texas bases. This flood of new residents placed demands on city and county services across the state. Results of these activities led to demographic shifts, social changes, and remarkable prosperity by 1945.
On the home front during World War II Texans adjusted their lives and sacrificed in many ways to support "our boys overseas." Federal government rationing requirements became a way of life for the duration of the war. The government issued stamp books to shoppers, who presented stamps when they purchased crucial items such as meat, sugar, coffee, shoes, rubber, and auto parts. Federal limitations required motorists to display windshield stickers that permitted them to buy gasoline only on certain days. At increasingly frequent intervals communities held scrap-metal drives; adults bought war bonds; school children had time allotted during class periods to buy, then paste, war savings stamps in bond books; and many a family, as in World War I, planted "victory gardens" to grow their own food so that food harvested from farms went for the war effort. Farmers, with prices high, cultivated the soil to its maximum, thereby helping the United States become the granary for the Allied nations. During these years most Texans thrived; the Great Depression became only a memory. Along the Gulf Coast from the Beaumont-Port Arthur area southward to Corpus Christi, the greatest petrochemical industry in the world was built to refine fuel for the American and Allied war machine. Wartime industries mushroomed throughout Texas: steel mills in Houston and Daingerfield; the largest tin smelter in the world in Texas City; enormous aircraft factories in Garland, Grand Prairie, and Fort Worth rivaled the giant bomber factory at Willow Run near Detroit, Michigan; extensive shipyards in Beaumont, Port Arthur, Houston, Galveston, and Corpus Christi; a revitalized paper and wood-pulp industry in East Texas; and munitions and synthetic rubber factories in different parts of the state. As a result, manufacturing increased fourfold, from $453,105,423 in 1939 to $1,900,000,000 in 1944. Labor was therefore at a premium, especially with men in the service, with defense contracts readily available, and with wages escalating. Consequently, 500,000 Texans—Anglos, African Americans, and Hispanics—moved from rural areas to job markets in nearby cities, as did thousands of people from other states. Women entered heretofore male occupations and became punch-press operators, assembly-line workers, welders, and riveters—hence a popular wartime song, "Rosie the Riveter." Appearing on posters and magazine covers, the fictional “Rosie” became the symbol of wartime women workers.
Congress passed a national draft law in September 1940, and, whether they were drafted or voluntarily enlisted, Texans flowed into all branches of the U.S. military services throughout the war. Units directly associated with Texas included the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division, the Ninetieth Infantry Division, and 112th Cavalry Regiment, but many others relocated to the state for training. The draft law directed that men inducted must be at least five feet, five inches tall, pass a vision examination (with or without eyeglasses), possess half of their own teeth, and not have a criminal record.
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