Question

what the US did on the homefront.

Answer 1

Answer:

The United States home front during World War II supported the war effort in many ways, including a wide range of volunteer efforts and submitting to government-managed rationing and price controls. ... Gasoline, meat, and clothing were tightly rationed.

Answer 2

Answer:

The World War II Home Front

The World War II Home FrontSoldiers without Guns poster, Office of War Information, ca. 1944. (National Archives)Soldiers without Guns poster, Office of War Information, ca. 1944. (National Archives)World War II had a profound impact on the United States. Although no battles occurred on the American mainland, the war affected all phases of American life. It required unprecedented efforts to coordinate strategy and tactics with other members of the Grand Alliance and then to plunge into battle against the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan. At the same time, it demanded a monumental production effort to provide the materials necessary to fight. As the United States produced the weapons of war and became, in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s phrase, the “arsenal of democracy,” the country experienced a fundamental reorientation of economic and social patterns at home that provided the template for the postwar years.

The World War II Home FrontSoldiers without Guns poster, Office of War Information, ca. 1944. (National Archives)Soldiers without Guns poster, Office of War Information, ca. 1944. (National Archives)World War II had a profound impact on the United States. Although no battles occurred on the American mainland, the war affected all phases of American life. It required unprecedented efforts to coordinate strategy and tactics with other members of the Grand Alliance and then to plunge into battle against the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan. At the same time, it demanded a monumental production effort to provide the materials necessary to fight. As the United States produced the weapons of war and became, in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s phrase, the “arsenal of democracy,” the country experienced a fundamental reorientation of economic and social patterns at home that provided the template for the postwar years.In the economic arena, the war ended the Great Depression. Military spending that began in 1940 to bolster the defense effort gave the nation’s economy the boost it needed, and millions of unemployed Americans returned to work to make the weapons of war needed to protect the United States. The renewed prosperity vindicated the theory of English economist John Maynard Keynes, who had earlier argued that sizable government spending could end a depression if the private sector was unable or unwilling to engage in such spending itself.

The World War II Home FrontSoldiers without Guns poster, Office of War Information, ca. 1944. (National Archives)Soldiers without Guns poster, Office of War Information, ca. 1944. (National Archives)World War II had a profound impact on the United States. Although no battles occurred on the American mainland, the war affected all phases of American life. It required unprecedented efforts to coordinate strategy and tactics with other members of the Grand Alliance and then to plunge into battle against the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan. At the same time, it demanded a monumental production effort to provide the materials necessary to fight. As the United States produced the weapons of war and became, in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s phrase, the “arsenal of democracy,” the country experienced a fundamental reorientation of economic and social patterns at home that provided the template for the postwar years.In the economic arena, the war ended the Great Depression. Military spending that began in 1940 to bolster the defense effort gave the nation’s economy the boost it needed, and millions of unemployed Americans returned to work to make the weapons of war needed to protect the United States. The renewed prosperity vindicated the theory of English economist John Maynard Keynes, who had earlier argued that sizable government spending could end a depression if the private sector was unable or unwilling to engage in such spending itself.Mobilization required enormous organizational adjustments. The nation worked closely with businessmen, for, as Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson observed, “If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won’t work.” Business leaders who had incurred the wrath of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, when they balked at fully supporting New Deal programs, now found themselves invited to Washington, DC, to run the agencies that coordinated production. Paid a dollar a year for their services, they remained on company payrolls, still cognizant of the interests of the corporations they ran. A common pattern, which provided an incentive to business to cooperate, was the cost-plus-a-fixed-fee system, whereby the government guaranteed all development and production costs and then paid a percentage profit on the goods produced.