home life
In the late twenties and early thirties, the United States fell into The Great Depression, which is widely considered to be the worst economic downturn in the history of the country. At least in part due to the economic policies of President Franklin Roosevelt, the country had begun to emerge from The Depression before tensions in Europe rose to war levels. We will never know whether or not the U.S. would have continued to rise, because the country’s economic fortunes jumped up sharply with the beginning of World War II.
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Everything changed with the onset of the second world war. More than ten million men, the primary breadwinners of the era, were drafted into the armed forces, leaving families at home scrambling for jobs. Women took jobs at factories that had either had not existed before the war or were left vacant when the men went overseas. Rationing systems were set in place that limited everything from butter and sugar to winter clothes and gasoline so that troops overseas would have enough. In one of the darkest parts of the time, American citizens of Japanese descent were removed from their homes, had their businesses shuttered, and moved to internment camps. The home front is such a large topic, however, that an entire project could be made about it. Mine will focus on the experiences of soldiers in the war.
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