A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II by Maury Klein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Maury Klein’s A Call to Arms is an intricately researched and incredibly detailed account of the mobilization of the United States to meet to challenge of providing weapons and machinery to the Allied powers in WW2.
While the reader may already be aware of the extent of changes to large companies such as Ford Motors and the giant steel plants to meet unprecedented production goals, Klein delves even deeper into the lesser known, but no less important, contributions – the “mom & pop” manufacturing shop, the machinist who was able to rejig his machine to make airplane parts or bullets instead of tools. In short Klein shows how every single American with a machine and the ability to in any way produce war materiel was called upon to create the cumulative mass output during the war years.
The spirit of American innovation and optimism shines through as Klein details a variety of ingenious ways in which not only production but the relationship between employer and employee was changed. Many businesses saw women and African-Americans brought into the industrial workforce in great numbers for the first time causing desegregation on the shop floor as well as prompting employers to experiment with providing childcare. As workers became more and more needed – most able bodied men were overseas – some employers increased employee salaries and benefits to unprecedented levels to maintain employee loyalty.
Even so, for the most part the interests of business and labor remained diametrically opposed. It is clear that it took tremendous skill, and at times sheer luck, for FDR’s administration to maneuver these competing interests. Even though there was some collaboration as evidenced by the new joint employee-management committees, overall production still occurred in the midst of wildcat strikes and an anti-union sentiment of employers that threatened to bring key war industries to a standstill at the most crucial moments.
The contribution of US production to eventual allied victory in the war is undisputed. Klein’s book is an excellent, detailed overview of precisely how the US was able to overcome serious divisions and challenges to make that production occur and is an essential book for anyone interested in the US home front in WW2.