● WWII: four freedoms
○ Freedom of speech ○ Freedom of worship ○ Freedom from want ○ Freedom from fear ○ Crucial for language of liberty ● Energized economy ○ Gross national product more than doubled and unemployment disappeared as war production conquered depression ○ Demand for labor drew women into workforce ○ Sent a tide of migrants from rural America to the industrial cities of the North and West, permanently altering nation’s social geography. 30 million americans moved during war, half going into military service and half taking up new jobs ■ Economic development of South and West, laying foundation for rise of modern Sunbelt ■ War created close link between big business and militarized federal government, a military-industrial complex that survived after fighting ● Redrew boundaries of American nationality ○ Gov recognized new immigrants of early 20th century and their children as loyal Americans ○ Black Americans for first time since Reconstruction had prominent place on nation’s political agenda ○ However not a good time for Japanese americans, who were put in internment camps ● Some looked towards new deal while others envisioned free enterprise replacing gov intervention in economy ● War gave birth to modern civil rights movement but strengthened commitments of many whites to maintain racial order ● Movement of women in labor clashed with traditional gender roles ● Emphasis on freedom as an element of private life would become more prominent ● Spread of pacifism, especially on college campuses ● Belief US should intervene to promote democracy and intervene for rising facism in Europe ● War uniting in sense that it brought together people of all economic and racial backgrounds ● Transformed role of national government ● Business and industry booming from production ● Rationing- led to thought that postwar would be filled with consumer goods, with freedom of choice, among abundant possibilities assured if only private enterprise were liberated from government controls ○ Walk into any store and buy anything you want ○ Looked forward to material abundance ● American mission to spread democracy which goes back to Revolution ○ Shifting from serving an example to global agent
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