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Student
Papers

Nash, Gerald D. World War II and the West: Reshaping the Economy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.

The standard account of the western economy during World War II.

Lotchin, Roger W. Fortress California, 1910-1961: From Warfare to Welfare. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992

A study of the rise of the defense industry and the military in California.

Taylor, Quintard. In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1998.

Definitive history of  the African American experience in the West, with a section on the WWII homefront and its aftermath.

Kesselman, Amy.  Fleeting Opportunities: Women Shipyard Workers in Portland and Vancouver during World War II and Reconversion.  Albany: SUNY Press, 1990.

A study of women workers in Portland's Kaiser shipyards and their search for jobs after the war ended.

Ruiz, Vicki.  Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950.  Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997.

A study of Mexican women who built an interracial union during the Depression and the gains they made during World War II.

Reed, Merl E. Seedtime for the Modern Civil Rights Movement: The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice, 1941-1946. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991.

A study of the FEPC.

Daniel, Clete. Chicano Workers and the Politics of Fairness: The FEPC in the Southwest,1941-1945. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.

A study of the braceros and their relation to the FEPC.

Gamboa, Erasmo.  Mexican Workers and World War II: Braceros in the Pacific Northwest, 1942-1947.  Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.

Study of the structure of agriculture and the impact of the Bracero program in the Northwest.

More Books of Interest

O'Brien, Kenneth Paul and Lynn Hudson Parsons, eds. The Home-Front War: World War II and American Society. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1995.

A collection of essays.

Foster, Mark S. Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.

A biography.

Finkle, Lee. Forum for Protest: The Black Press During World War II. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975.

Chronicles the increasing calls for racial equality via WWII newspapers.

Film

The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter. Produced and directed by Connie Field. 60m. 1980.

Several women, who worked in the shipyards and defense plants during World War II, recount their experiences at work and offer comments on society's expectations of them during the war effort and after the war. Their narratives are interspersed with sequences from war department films, newsreels, and Hollywood movies made during that time which concerned women working outside the home.

Web Pages

Homefront Magazine

"This non-profit endeavor carried news, pictures, and letters from the folks at home to their men and women in the service also featuring messages of inspiration and the ever popular ‘Fairest of the Month.’" http://www.homefrontmag.org/

Put Yourself There: 
      Debates, Documents, and First Person Accounts

Terkel, Studs. "The Good War:" An Oral History of World War Two. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.

Interviews on World War II from a variety of different perspectives.

U.S. Department of State. Executive Agreements Series, 351. 1943.

Contains the text of the "bracero" program. Ask for help at the Government Documents desk.

U.S. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau. Women’s Bureau Pamphlets. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1940-1946. [HD6093 .A35]

328 pamphlets printed between 1919 and 1967 describing different aspects of women’s work in the United States – those printed between 1940 and 1946 focus on the war industries.

Foner, Philip S. and Roland L. Lewis. Black Workers: A Documentary History from Colonial Times to the Present. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989