American Society:

the 1940s

Timeline of Important Events

1940- Franklin D.
Roosevelt
Elected to a Third
Term as
U.S. President.
1941- Cheerios,
Captain America
Comics, and
M&Ms were
created.
The Japanese
attack Pearl
Harbor.

1942- Anne Frank

goes into hiding.
The Manhattan
Project began.
1943- Italy joins
the Allies
Warsaw Ghetto
uprising.

1944- D- Day
Ballpoint pens
went on sale.
Hitler escapes an
assassination
attempt.

1946- Winston
Churchill gives his
Iron Curtain
speech in Missouri.
Bikinis were
invented.

1945- The US
drops an atomic
bomb on
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
The microwave
oven and slinky
were invented.

1948- Gandhi was

assassinated.
Dewey Defeats
Truman is in the
newspaper.

1947- Jewish
refugees aboard
Exodus and were
turned back by
Britain.
Jackie Robinson
joins The Dodgers.

1949- Soviet
Union obtains an
atomic bomb.
George Orwell
publishes Nineteen
Eighty-Four.

1940s

Demographics

Today

Population was 132,122,000

Population is 320,090,857

Unemployment was 8,120,000

Unemployment is 7,904,000

National Debt was $43,000,000,000

National debt is $18,000,000,000

Average Salary was $1299

Average Salary is $35,804

Minimum Wage was $.43 per hour

Minimum wage is $9.00 per hour

55% of US homes had indoor plumbing

99% of US homes have indoor plumbing

Life expectancy for women was 68 years

Life expectancy for women is 81 years

Life expectancy for men was 61 years

Life expectancy for men is 76 years

The Changing Role of Women

When the men were sent off to war,
women took over many of the jobs that
were left open. It was still common belief
that women should stay at home but that
idea was changing quickly.

Woman's Work Before the War

Their stereotype and their jobs

Women before World War II had very

little say in society. They were
commonly stereotyped as stay at home
mothers who cooked, cleaned the
house, and take care of the children
when the man of the house was away.
When men were drafted into the war,
all of this changed.

Womans Work During the War

and After
Taking on the mens jobs

With the men away at war, the women

stepped up to fill their roles. They did
labor intensive jobs such as working in
factories, steel yards, lumber mills, and
shipyards. The amount of women in the
workforce increased by 25- 35% in the
1940s. The war was so big that the
Womens Army Course and Women
Accepted for Volunteer Services were
founded, forcing the US Congress to
allow women to serve in the US Navy.

Female firefighters during the Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th,
1941

A member of Americas Women Air Corps

A member of the U.S. Navys WAVES

Other Achievements Made by Women

The All-American Girls Professional

Baseball League was founded in 1943
Anne Curtis won the prestigious Sullivan
Award and multiple Olympic medals in
1944
Eleanor Roosevelt became a US delegate
for the newly founded United Nations in
1945
Barbara Washburn climbed Mount
McKinley in 1947
Mildred Babe Didrikson and other
women created the Ladies Professional
Golf Tour in 1949, and she was an Olympic
athlete

Racial Injustice

Timeline of Racial Discrimination

JUNE 20TH, 1940
NAACP leader
Elbert Williams
lynched in
Brownsville,
Tennessee
JUNE 21st, 1940
Black Man
lynched in
Alabama for
failing to address
a white man as
Mr.

FEBRUARY 19th, MAY 30th, 1943

1942
White sailors and
President Franklin D.soldiers attack
Roosevelt orders
Latino Youth in
internment of
Los Angeles Zoot
Japanese Americans Suit riots
FEBRUARY
28th, 1942
White mobs riot
in Detroit

JUNE 3rd, 1943

White factory
workers in Detroit
strike to protest the
promotion of black
workers

JANUARY 2nd,
1944
15-Year-Old Boy
lynched in Florida
for sending love
note
MARCH 26th,
1944
Mississippi: Six
white men
murder black
minister, Steal
Land

DECEMBER 16th, 1945

Black family killed in
Southern California
house fire after refusing
to move from white
neighborhood
OCTOBER 22nd,
1946
Despite confession,
five white men freed
in Mississippi for
lynching

1940s
Although it was a time of great unrest, much progress was made during
the 1940s. It was a decade of invention, war, labor, and injustice, and
ultimately contributed to making America the way it is today.

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