The Impact of the Second World War Flashcards
All 12 cards in this deck
What was Lend Lease?
A programme by which America supplied war materials to its allies, creating demand for American armament industries.
What was the Cash and Carry plan?
A 1939 policy letting Britain and France buy American weapons if they paid cash and carried them in their own ships – a first step away from isolationism.
What did the War Production Board do after Pearl Harbor?
Converted peacetime industries to war work, creating jobs for men and women in weapons factories.
Give one reason unemployment fell in America during the Second World War.
Men joined the armed forces, while new industries and war contracts created jobs in factories making weapons.
How did the Second World War affect American farmers?
It brought them prosperity, as America exported food to its allies.
What was the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC)?
A wartime body that brought attention to racial discrimination in employment, contributing to the growth of the Civil Rights movement in later decades.
True or false? American women took on traditional male roles during the Second World War.
True. Women worked in jobs such as weapons factories that men had previously done.
What was isolationism?
The US policy, strong between the world wars, of avoiding alliances and involvement in other countries' conflicts, especially in Europe.
What brought the USA into the Second World War?
Japan's surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941. The USA declared war on Japan, and Germany and Italy then declared war on the USA.
How far did US unemployment fall during the Second World War?
From about 9.5 million in 1939 to about 670,000 by 1944.
How did the number of women working change during the Second World War?
It rose by over 6 million, from about 12 million in 1940 to around 18–19 million by 1945, when women held roughly a third of all jobs.
How were African Americans treated in the US armed forces in the Second World War?
About a million served, but in segregated units, often in support roles. Black pilots such as the Tuskegee Airmen proved themselves in combat, but still flew in all-black squadrons.