Silver Lining

Asian Immigration ◽

Institute Of Pacific Relations ◽

Silver Lining ◽

The U.S

This chapter focuses on the debate over Asian immigration exclusion between the enactment of Japanese exclusion and World War II. During this time, prominent opponents of Japanese exclusion shifted tactics to clear up racial and international misunderstanding through scholarly research, educational initiatives, and campaigns to repeal Japanese exclusion. They did this mainly through the establishment of two institutions: Survey of Race Relations at Stanford University and the Institute of Pacific Relations, initially based in Hawaii. At the same time, proponents of Japanese exclusion moved on to push for the exclusion of Filipino immigrants and the repatriation of those already in the U.S. This was achieved, but only by Congress granting independence to the U.S. colony of the Philippines. Egalitarian views of Filipinos, Japanese, and other Asian immigrant groups gained support within a new and powerful national labor union, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Despite the continuation of Asian exclusion, the 1930s was a transitional period in which new opportunities and institutions emerged to combat it.

The Roosevelt Era: From the New Deal to D-Day

The Postwar Moment ◽

10.12987/yale/9780300124354.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 86-136

Author(s):

Isser Woloch

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Trade Unions ◽

Recovery Strategies ◽

New Social Movement ◽

Work Relief ◽

The New Deal ◽

Rules Of The Game ◽

The U.S

This chapter looks at the progressive forces in the U.S. In the U.S., Franklin Roosevelt's presidency became the prime force for progressive gains. In the New Deal's ascendant phase from 1932 to 1936, the agricultural and industrial recovery strategies of the “Hundred Days” came first and foundered. Later, Roosevelt's administration enacted social security, inventive new programs for work relief, and the Wagner labor relations act that changed the rules of the game for trade unions. Once the European war began in 1939, the U.S. gradually became “the arsenal of democracy.” However, only on a fraught and twisting path did Roosevelt finally lead America into the crucible of World War II. Meanwhile, a new social movement reinforced the progressive thrust of Roosevelt's presidency—the rise of new trade unions in the mass production industries impelled by the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations), a new labor federation.

U.S. Security Strategy and Southeast Asia

China, The United States, and the Future of Southeast Asia ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479866304.003.0013 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Marvin C. Ott

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Southeast Asia ◽

The United States ◽

The Philippines ◽

Spanish American ◽

Security Strategy ◽

Spanish American War ◽

Spanish Colonial ◽

Manila Bay ◽

The U.S

With the exception of the Philippines, America’s strategic interest in and engagement with Southeast Asia begins with World War II. Prior to that “Monsoon Asia” was remote and exotic—a place of fabled kingdoms, jungle headhunters, and tropical seas. By the end of the nineteenth century European powers had established colonial rule over the entire region except Thailand. Then, as the twentieth century dawned, the Spanish colonial holdings in the Philippines suddenly and unexpectedly became available to the United States as an outcome of the Spanish-American War and Admiral Dewey’s destruction of the decrepit Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. This chapter examines the strategic pivot in Southeast Asia and the role China plays in affecting the U.S. position in this region.

As Furious as the Last Horseman of a Legion of the Bitter-End

Discovering the South ◽

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469630946.003.0009 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jennifer Ritterhouse

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Republican Party ◽

Iron And Steel ◽

Racial Change ◽

White Southerners ◽

United Mine Workers ◽

Interracial Unionism ◽

United Mine

This chapter centers on Daniels's interviews with Birmingham industrialist Charles F. DeBardeleben and labor organizer William Mitch of the United Mine Workers (UMW) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). DeBardeleben's biography begins with his grandfather, Daniel Pratt, and his father, Henry Fairchild DeBardeleben. Both were industrialists whose investments in coal, iron, and steel contributed to the development of Birmingham. Charles F. DeBardeleben followed in his father's footsteps as a staunch antiunionist. He claimed to be a paternalist yet used fences and armed guards to isolate his workers, resulting in a deadly shooting at the Acmar mine of his Alabama Fuel and Iron Company in 1935. Meanwhile, the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) in 1933 facilitated the growth of the CIO, and William Mitch's efforts to cultivate interracial unionism in Birmingham in the 1930s were largely successful. The chapter concludes by noting that DeBardeleben's alleged fascist ties are difficult to document and seem less significant than his anticommunist rhetoric and switch to the Republican Party, both of which provide an early glimpse of tactics recalcitrant white southerners would employ to prevent social and racial change in the post-World War II years.

Passion for Machines (1940–1944)

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow ◽

10.7551/mitpress/9780262037532.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 29-44

Author(s):

Lillian Hoddeson ◽

Peter Garrett

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

World War Ii ◽

Labor Union ◽

Work Experiences ◽

World War ◽

The U.S ◽

Union Activism

This chapter begins with Ovshinsky’s early work experiences as a machinist and toolmaker, at Akron Standard Mold while he finished high school and continued afterwards at Goodrich Rubber. There he continued to master his craft, but his involvement in labor union activism made him the target of violent hostility from the Goodrich management, leading to a series of job changes. With the entrance of the U.S. into World War II, Ovshinsky tried to enlist but was rejected for both health and political reasons. After marrying his high school sweetheart, Norma Rifkin, he moved to Arizona, where while working in a Goodyear aircraft plant he became intent on going into business for himself and began planning an innovative lathe, his first major invention.

Reconversion and the Origin of Bargained Plans

Dismantling Solidarity ◽

10.7591/cornell/9780801454226.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Michael A. McCarthy

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Pension Plans ◽

Occupational Pension ◽

Labor Management ◽

Private Pensions ◽

Policy Interventions ◽

The Social ◽

Pension Benefits

This chapter offers a explanation of the proliferation of occupational pension plans after World War II. Principally, it shows that private pension development was neither the result of policy interventions before the end of the war nor the simple result of union strength in postwar collective bargaining disputes. Instead, the turn to occupational pensions was caused by policymakers intervening in labor-management disputes—not principally to compel businesses to adopt occupational pension plans, but rather to establish labor peace in order to capture capitalist growth opportunities abroad. The chapter begins by considering why the Congress of Industrial Organizations was unable to expand the pension benefits offered by the Social Security program after the New Deal, roughly between 1939 and 1968, before turning to the expansion of private pensions.

Chaining Communists

Constructing Allied Cooperation ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501739699.003.0004 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 66-94

Author(s):

Marina E. Henke

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

South Africa ◽

World War Ii ◽

Korean War ◽

The United States ◽

The Philippines ◽

Coalition Building ◽

Direct Role ◽

The Korean War ◽

The U.S

This chapter focuses on the Korean War, which constituted the first instance of multilateral military coalition building in the post-World War II era. The U.S. government served as the pivotal state in this coalition-building effort. The chapter then looks at the deployment decisions of the three largest troop-contributing countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, and Turkey; the Philippines, a deeply embedded state with the United States in 1950; and South Africa, a weakly embedded state with the United States in 1950. The deployment decisions of the U.K. and Canada were the result of intense U.S. prodding involving a mixture of personal appeals, incentives, and threats. In this process, the U.S. government instrumentalized diplomatic networks to the greatest extent possible. Meanwhile, the Philippines was lured into the coalition via U.S. diplomatic embeddedness. Finally, in the case of South Africa, diplomatic embeddedness played no direct role. Rather, South Africa perceived the Korean War as an opportunity to gain from the U.S. long-desired military equipment, in particular military aircraft.

Liberalism Transformed

Racial Realignment ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691153872.003.0004 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Eric Schickler

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

World War Ii ◽

Civil Rights ◽

Political Agenda ◽

The Political ◽

Political Work ◽

Fair Employment ◽

The Military

This chapter explores the deepening and consolidation of ideological changes as support for civil rights became a defining commitment of a more robust liberal coalition in the 1940s. African American movement activists capitalized on the World War II crisis to force new civil rights issues onto the political agenda—such as fair employment practices and discrimination in the military—and to forge a much broader civil rights coalition. After the war, continued movement activism laid the groundwork for the dramatic fight over the Democratic platform at the convention in 1948. Ultimately, the political work by African American groups, in cooperation with the Congress of Industrial Organizations and other urban liberals, fostered a new understanding of “liberalism” in which support for civil rights was a key marker of one's identity as a liberal.

Opening the Gates to Asia

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469653365.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Jane H. Hong

Keyword(s):

Civil Rights ◽

The United States ◽

The Philippines ◽

Empire Building ◽

Asian Immigration ◽

The World ◽

History Of ◽

Dramatic Shift ◽

Comprehensive History ◽

The U.S

Over the course of less than a century, the U.S. transformed from a nation that excluded Asians from immigration and citizenship to one that receives more immigrants from Asia than from anywhere else in the world. Yet questions of how that dramatic shift took place have long gone unanswered. In this first comprehensive history of Asian exclusion repeal, Jane H. Hong unearths the transpacific movement that successfully ended restrictions on Asian immigration. The mid-twentieth century repeal of Asian exclusion, Hong shows, was part of the price of America’s postwar empire in Asia. The demands of U.S. empire-building during an era of decolonization created new opportunities for advocates from both the U.S. and Asia to lobby U.S. Congress for repeal. Drawing from sources in the United States, India, and the Philippines, Opening the Gates to Asia charts a movement more than twenty years in the making. Positioning repeal at the intersection of U.S. civil rights struggles and Asian decolonization, Hong raises thorny questions about the meanings of nation, independence, and citizenship on the global stage.

“Like a Scab over an Infected Sore”

10.5406/illinois/9780252037320.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Lisa Phillips

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

World War Ii ◽

York City ◽

World War ◽

Labor Legislation ◽

National Congress

This chapter explores the challenges Local 65 faced during World War II and in the immediate postwar months. The union lost thousands of members as well as its catch-all focus during the war. Jack Paley, Esther Letz, and the “65ers” who led the union in their absence gained valuable experience working with the National War Labor Board (NWLB) and campaigning for pro-labor legislation, but freely admitted that they failed to continue to organize as effectively. Furthermore, because of the “pro-Soviet” positions it had taken during the war, the union had begun to lose credibility with other New York City locals and the national Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

The Failure of Labor Unionism in the US South

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.777 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Cody R. Melcher ◽

Michael Goldfield

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Civil Rights ◽

Civil Rights Movement ◽

White Supremacy ◽

The South ◽

Us South ◽

The American South ◽

White Workers

The failure of labor unions to succeed in the American South, largely because national unions proved unable or unwilling to confront white supremacy head on, offers an important key to understanding post–World War II American politics, especially the rise of the civil rights movement. Looking at the 1930s and 1940s, it is clear that the failure was not the result of a cultural aversion to collective action on the part of white workers in the South, as several histories have suggested, but rather stemmed from the refusal of the conservative leadership in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to organize an otherwise militant southern workforce composed of both whites and Blacks. These lost opportunities, especially among southern woodworkers and textile workers, contrasts sharply with successful interracial union drives among southern coal miners and steelworkers, especially in Alabama. Counterfactual examples of potentially durable civil rights unionism illustrate how the labor movement could have affected the civil rights movement and transformed politics had the South been unionized.