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Committed to Victory: The Kentucky Home Front During World War II

Online ISBN:
9780813166674
Print ISBN:
9780813165639
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky
Book

Committed to Victory: The Kentucky Home Front During World War II

Richard E. Holl
Richard E. Holl
Hazard Community and Technical College
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Published:
19 October 2015
Online ISBN:
9780813166674
Print ISBN:
9780813165639
Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky

Abstract

Manufacture of arms and munitions for the American military became a high priority for Kentucky companies after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Supervised by federal agencies such as the Office of Production Management and the War Production Board, Kentucky firms produced jeeps, cargo planes, machine guns, components for atomic bombs, and much more in the great effort to defeat the Axis. Management, labor, farmers, and other groups throughout the commonwealth joined together to aid the cause of freedom against totalitarianism. Governors Keen Johnson and Simeon Willis urged Kentuckians to do all they could to help win the war. Along the path toward ultimate triumph, Kentucky experienced massive out-migration to other states with even more vigorous wartime economies than its own, job gains for women and African Americans, and a growing need for entertainment to escape the hardships imposed by wartime work and worries. World War II left Kentucky a profoundly different place than it had been before the conflict. Prosperity reigned, not depression. Women, African Americans, and a part of the working class gained ground. Faith in the federal government had reached a new high. Hopes for an even better future were great despite a growing divide between white and black Kentuckians over the racial status quo and emerging concerns about the Soviet Union.

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