Liberty Ships, Closed Doors · Episode 2 of 13 · 39 min
The Arsenal Calls: How War Factories Remade the American Map
The episode explains what pulled millions of workers to new places: the industrial mobilization that began with Roosevelt's December 1940 promise of an arsenal of democracy. Federal money and cost-plus contracts produced about two-thirds of Allied weaponry, including some 2,700 Liberty ships, and unemployment fell from about 14 percent to 1.2 percent by 1944.
Who's who
- Franklin D. Roosevelt+28 more episodesPresident who promised the 'arsenal of democracy' in 1940
- Donald NelsonChairman of the War Production Board
Where it happens
- United States+16 more episodesSite of the mobilization of war factories and shipyards
Timeline
- December 29, 1940Roosevelt's 'Arsenal of Democracy' fireside chat
- 1941Emergency Shipbuilding Program ramps up; Liberty ship production begins
- January 1942War Production Board created
- 1942-1945About $183 billion in war production overseen
- 1944Unemployment hits about 1.2 percent
Still debated
Production totals differ slightly by tally. Credit is shared among government direction, federal money, private industry and labor, and economists still debate the longer-run picture of the war's effect on the Depression.
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