World War II: Home Front Primary Sources

World War II: Home Front Primary Sources

Historical documents. What clues can you gather about the time, place, players, and culture?

A Call For Sacrifice

President Roosevelt announces his plans for rationing and profit limits in the domestic economy in a radio address to the American people, April 1942.

Executive Order 8802

President Roosevelt's 1941 decree that "there shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin" was a major landmark in American civil-rights history.

Executive Order 9066

In one of his most controversial acts as president, FDR orders that all Japanese and Japanese-American residents on the Pacific coast must be relocated to internment camps the interest of national security.

Korematsu v. United States

This controversial, landmark 1944 Supreme Court decision upheld the constitutionality of Japanese internment during World War II. Plaintiff Fred Korematsu eventually won an appeal of the case...in 1983.

GI Bill

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill, transformed postwar American society by offering millions of returning soldiers generous new benefits in education and housing.