Sacrificing, Hard- Working America

Sacrificing, Hard- Working America

The fight for World War II was not only fought in the battles, but also at home in the United States. All patriotic Americans did what they could to play a small part in the effort to keep the troops and the country running, even if it was something as simple as learning to ration. Parents sacrificed their sons, children sacrificed their fathers, everyone had to sacrifice something. Women sacrificed their jobs as housewives and took the workforce by storm. They even started working dirty jobs and learned how to ration which was never done in the U.S. before World War II. The government rationed meat, sugar, oils and almost all other items throughout the country in efforts to support troops. In addition, workers and business executives, whom had so many conflicts before, joined together and compromised to make an effort for the war and produce as much as possible. Production during the war was booming; nobody could stop the United States of America. As the war went on, men, women and children all became more and more accepting of changes going on around them. Conditions during World War II forced all Americans to sacrifice and adapt, and as nationalism spread throughout the nation the citizens took the challenge of adjusting their lives for the good of the United States.

Women in the United States took charge during World War II. They took the initiative to run the country and while the men were fighting in the war, women were fighting on the homefront. Women may not have been allowed to fight in the war but they were assigned the responsibility for managing the nation's homefront consumption. Consumption and production roles blurred as women took war jobs, tended Victory Gardens, and learned the almost-forgotten tradition of home canning (Rosie). Home canning was when women persevered their foods by packing them in glass jars to keep them from spoiling (Great). In this time women left the norm of the Cult of Domesticity behind and went to work. Some women even went to jobs in factories that were strenuous and dirty. When the United States entered the war, twelve million women were already working and by the end of the war, the number was up to 18 million, which was one third of the workforce at the time (Block). After being in the workforce, women felt good about themselves. They proved that they could do the work that men could do and they did not want to give up their independence; they wanted to stay in the working field. But this was not the only way that women fought on the home front. Women had to learn about the rationing that the government had put into place. Women needed to understand rationing programs and how to manage with the restrictions they had. They had to shop in a number of different stores in search of scarce supplies that were almost impossible to find. Women also had to prepare meals with shortages of meat, sugar, and butter, which had been main ingredients in recipes before and they had to recycle tin, rubber, and kitchen fat in efforts for the war (Good). What the strong women of the United States did during the war helped an appreciable amount. But they were not the only ones who helped the war. Labor and production was booming during World War II; companies and workers finally joined together as one and produced as much as they could for the good of their country.

Labor and Production during World War II increased a massive amount. All corporations and workers such as the Ford Company, came to compromises in hopes to assist in the war effort. Ford Motor Company produced three things that benefitted World War II an immense amount; Jeeps, tanks, and aircraft engine. These new inventions contributed to the war in so many ways. Tanks, Jeeps and aircrafts changed the way of fighting as it was used to break enemy lines more effectively through overwhelming force and speed (Aluminum). These three pieces of machinery changed wars forever. During the course of World War II, the United States of America became a metal-turning, engine-building, multi-year conflict that required an enormous amount of manual labor. Because of this, unemployment, which was still at 15 percent in 1940's, virtually disappeared by early 1943; everybody was doing something to help out (American). Along with all of the new machinery and technology, on January 12, 1942, the National