How did the United States mobilize for war?

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Figure false: African American Machine Gunners
Figure false: These African American soldiers prepare their machine gun for action on the side of a road near Pisa, Italy, in September 1944. They and other black soldiers who served in combat in segregated units repeatedly earned praise from their commanders for gallantry and courage under fire. © Bettmann/Corbis.

THE TIME HAD COME, Roosevelt announced, for the prescriptions of “Dr. New Deal” to be replaced by the stronger medicines of “Dr. Win-the-War.” Military and civilian leaders rushed to secure the nation against possible attacks, causing Americans of Japanese descent to be stigmatized and sent to internment camps. Roosevelt and his advisers lost no time enlisting millions of Americans in the armed forces to bring the isolationist-era military to fighting strength for a two-front war. The war emergency also required economic mobilization unparalleled in the nation’s history. As Dr. Win-the-War, Roosevelt set aside the New Deal goal of reform and plunged headlong into transforming the American economy into the world’s greatest military machine, thereby achieving full employment and economic recovery, goals that had eluded the New Deal.

CHRONOLOGY

1940

  • Congress passes the Selective Service Act.

1942

  • Internment of Japanese Americans.