On June 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law The Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944, otherwise known as The G.I. Bill. There has never been another piece of legislation as socially and economically transformative. The G.I. Bill literally created the modern American middle class and the lifestyle of a nuclear family - father, mother, children - in a home that they owned, with the father educated for the new economy through the educational benefits offered to anyone who could be admitted to college to obtain a bachelor’s degree. In the ten years following the end of the war, the number of college graduates in teh United States tripled.
The GI Bill sort of supercharged Jim Crow, didn't it? Meanwhile corporations were moving upwardly mobile white daddies here and there all around the country, uprooting families and depriving women of the kinship networks that made child-rearing a lot easier. Fortunately this helped spur the women's movement of the '60s and '70s. Meanwhile, in response to the civil rights movement of the '50s and early '60s -- and the barbaric response of southern whites to it -- we finally got the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-60s. Then of course the White Guys Struck Back with Reagan and Reaganomics, and we're still trying to dig out from the mess that created -- and is still creating, come to think of it.
For anyone interested in further reading on this, I recommend Heather McGhee's THE SUM OF US: What Racism Costs All of Us and How We Can Prosper Together (2021). McGhee talks economics in a way that makes it accessible to non-economists (and people intimidated by economics <g>). Important book.
My pursuit of higher education was interrupted due to being dragooned to work in a large government project that consisted of hot and distracting days and very noisy nights. Once my obligation was fulfilled I utilized the GI Bill to finish up my education and took a number of corses over to improve my grades and increase my chances of gaining employment. (I found studying much easier the second time around.)
My idea worked as I was hired at the job I wanted before I set one foot off campus and ended up working there for 38 years and retiring.
So thank you FDR. I was born the year after you died and the thing still worked just the way you planned it.
When I graduated high school, I had no plans of higher ed. But I discovered in the Navy that those with college degrees were treated much better than we without (they were officers). I got into school through a program in their education dept that wanted to test/study students with low grades and high test scores (me - 125 from the bottom of a graduating class of 825) in high school. Motivated by experience to get through and having learned self-organization in the Navy, I went through school dean's list at the three I attended.
Yes, the 'G.I. Bill" supercharged a trend that started on 12/6/1941 if not before.
Tens of thousands war workers transferred from the aircraft assembly lines in SoCal into the 'Cold War" ... into a different kind of Mobilization to build parts of rockets at "Rocketdyne" & "Atomics International " in the 'Valley', Lockhead had a plant next door & parallel to the Van Nuys Airport runways. Powerful rocket engines were tested on fixed frames in the Santa Susana Mountains that made the far north of the "Valley" rumble & glow. It's Superfund site now," the "SSFL Santa Susana Field Laboratory." Stay away, it ain't a 'Field Lab"
Yes, there were Middle Class developments just for the 'Middle Class", tract homes in Lakewood just north of Long Beach. BUT, There was no lake & no woods, but, heck it was better place to live than the rapidly built tract homes in Lompoc to house workers for Vandenberg Air Force Base. When a missile lifted off the kids would run around yelling "missile, missile, missile" but, the tract 'development' did have 7 pastel colored houses, the same 7 colors repeated over & over again , light orange, light green ....
Yes, there were lots of new Middle Class Products to be bought. Instead of a large piece of Furniture I used to fiddle with to pick up Tijuana rock & roll, there were these new things called "transistors". The Japanese built a small hand held radio that could blast out "I'm a Hog for You" at top volume.
Litton even made use of Microwave Technology, you just put a piece of food in there, press the "on" & its ready in seconds. For that whole era just press "on".
No worries, I was able to leave SoCal in the 1960's headed for Monterey Pop in Monterey CA. Janis (spelled it right the 1st time? was a very hip no BS Texas woman:
Yup, I walked in the front gate; there was a huge cauldron of soup cooking on hot fire with a cop in his civilian clothes a number of not-20's waiting for some free food.
Off to the right a woman was playing a flute with a young dancer in a diaphanous tinker-bell outfit was lost in the notes of the flute. Otis Redding strutting in his Kelly Green suit asking us all to 'try a little tenderness'.
If you watch the movie, there is a quick scene of a guy in the far side of a campfire, with shoulder-length blonde hair. My college roommate, Richard - I am directly across but you can't see me because D.A. Pennebaker and his camera are just to the side of my right shoulder, getting that shot of Richard.
I was at Monterey for the Pop Festival as well, 3 days I think I was there, it all blended with the acid, I didn’t see all of the acts but I saw a lot of them including Janice who I must have seen 20 - 30 times, now that woman could sing the blues. Then came the war which I managed to survive, maybe because I had more to do or maybe because I was just lucky, I know for a fact that it came down to inches. Then the GI Bill sent me to the finest school that would take me and they paid for all of it, I could have been in a bag, instead I graduated with a 3.89, (HS 1.1) it was easy, everything was easy after VN, nobody that was smart was trying to kill me. I would love to see a version of the GI Bill made more available, service changed my life, and my education enriched it and still does to this day.
Thank you for this reminder Tom, My first husband attained a degree in Civil Engineering an we were able to purchase a home in Sacramento County, thanks to the GI Bill and VA loan. And you are right, it gave a huge leg up, Because of the GI Bill admissions to college remained affordable for all through the 60's and 70's. I took advantage of that. I was a high school drop out in Canada where the cost of tuition was so high only the childr3en of the wealthy could afford to go.
FDR was right, the more education we got, the better paid jobs we had and the more taxes we paid. It was a win-win situation in California. Then along came Governor Ronald Reagan (yes he ruined California before he had the chance to begin the destruction of the entire Country) He said college education was a privilege (which I agree) and therefore should be paid by the students because of all the money they would make (with which I disagree) But his ideas appealed to many Californians
The GI Bill was the great leveler. I didn’t know about the rest of FDR’s plan. He was ahead of his time on that part. And apparently would still be, given the state of the GOP today. And he didn’t get how deeply ingrained racism is. But thank God for what he got accomplished.
I agree, Jim, I think he was the best President we ever had. Which is funny, because the Republicans hated him from March 4. 1933 (which was the day FDR was inaugurated and the day I was born) to April 12, 1945 (25 days before the war in Europe ended) The Republicans vowed to revoke every single citizen oriented program FDR created. The Republicans are as blind and disgusting a rabid blind bats
Your knowledge about this period is illuminating and depressing, as I’m sure you feel in your bones. The results of efforts aren’t really known for decades. We come so close to calamity and nirvana. We are so lucky to have had the lives that we have had since the war. Not easy roads, with some having more potholes than others, but paved and leading to possibilities like never before. I worked at NASA during the 60’s and early 70’s. Veterans were everywhere, some with visible scars from combat. You are right, again or still. We all owe so much to the efforts of those who came before, and who saw the possibilities in our government. But the greedy hogs and those who have fought the promise of our democracy (equality), still rise in every generation to squash the promise and assume superiority. Time again to reset, refresh, and recommit to our founding legacy. Imperfect as it was, it was a sea change and needs to lead again. The French have a great motto, liberty, equality, fraternity. Something to aspire to… for all of us
Another clever aspect of the bill was sending a large portion of the 13 million de-mobbed servicemen off to college instead of trying to find jobs in companies reorganizing to make civilian products. For example, International Harvestor took over the Evansville, Ind. plant, built in 1942, that produced six thousand P-47s for Republic. Obviously it took some months to convert from warplanes to farm and construction equipment. The GI Bill not only gave a huge boost to net American technical competence (the war had also done that with hundreds of thousands of men operating some of the most advanced technologies on earth), but bought time to implement it with minimal unemployment. The Depression so many expected after the war never happened. And industrial capacity built for the war helped build the middle class. The Evansville P-47 plant was later taken over by Whirlpool and supplied American kitchens and laundries into the 21st Century.
Note: in 1962, the US had only 11% Bachleor’s degrees. Today it is still less than 40%. Progress, but still a long way to go. We get this to over 50%, and the educated would outnumber the aggrieved.
I suspect the churches were beginning to feel their increasing irrelevance caused by a high volume of fall-aways and the fact that the New Deal and the GI Bill were doing what the churches could not. In order to maintain their status they became intermediaries not just between a person and his God, but between a person and his government, with churches asserting themselves as the new power brokers. Case in point: There was little talk of abortion or any specific social ills until the second half of the last century, the period in which culture wars snowballed. (After the war, the Pope himself was beginning to look fallible because of his failures during the war.)
Likely a big factor, I read that Nixon decided to stir things up about 1971 as a way to politicize the religious aspect. Piss on the medical issues, as well as privacy. Deliberate evil
oh, dear one, what a great post! I only wish people who didn't 'live through' this time would read it and understand what it really says about what made so much possible today, and how far we are from that mind-set now!
Thanks for reminding us that government can do some big things and do them well. FDR knew what needed to be done for the nation to move onward and upward. Stalin did not. FDR was about opportunity and progress. Stalin was about control. This is essentially where the US and Russia are today under Joe and Vlad (darling of the radical right).
Would you please elaborate on this?: "Had the Invasion of North Africa happened on October 31 or November 1, rather than on November 8 - after the mid-term elections - public sentiment would have been transformed and we would have grown up in a very different country, one organized to benefit the majority of people as a social democracy."
The GI Bill sort of supercharged Jim Crow, didn't it? Meanwhile corporations were moving upwardly mobile white daddies here and there all around the country, uprooting families and depriving women of the kinship networks that made child-rearing a lot easier. Fortunately this helped spur the women's movement of the '60s and '70s. Meanwhile, in response to the civil rights movement of the '50s and early '60s -- and the barbaric response of southern whites to it -- we finally got the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the mid-60s. Then of course the White Guys Struck Back with Reagan and Reaganomics, and we're still trying to dig out from the mess that created -- and is still creating, come to think of it.
For anyone interested in further reading on this, I recommend Heather McGhee's THE SUM OF US: What Racism Costs All of Us and How We Can Prosper Together (2021). McGhee talks economics in a way that makes it accessible to non-economists (and people intimidated by economics <g>). Important book.
HCR talks Micro & Macroeconomics in accessible concepts. But, yes on McGhee - 2 Heathers are better than 1.
Also https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits
Thanks! Very useful and accessible account. "Some Southern Democrats" indeed!
Thank You Judith.
My pursuit of higher education was interrupted due to being dragooned to work in a large government project that consisted of hot and distracting days and very noisy nights. Once my obligation was fulfilled I utilized the GI Bill to finish up my education and took a number of corses over to improve my grades and increase my chances of gaining employment. (I found studying much easier the second time around.)
My idea worked as I was hired at the job I wanted before I set one foot off campus and ended up working there for 38 years and retiring.
So thank you FDR. I was born the year after you died and the thing still worked just the way you planned it.
When I graduated high school, I had no plans of higher ed. But I discovered in the Navy that those with college degrees were treated much better than we without (they were officers). I got into school through a program in their education dept that wanted to test/study students with low grades and high test scores (me - 125 from the bottom of a graduating class of 825) in high school. Motivated by experience to get through and having learned self-organization in the Navy, I went through school dean's list at the three I attended.
Yes, the 'G.I. Bill" supercharged a trend that started on 12/6/1941 if not before.
Tens of thousands war workers transferred from the aircraft assembly lines in SoCal into the 'Cold War" ... into a different kind of Mobilization to build parts of rockets at "Rocketdyne" & "Atomics International " in the 'Valley', Lockhead had a plant next door & parallel to the Van Nuys Airport runways. Powerful rocket engines were tested on fixed frames in the Santa Susana Mountains that made the far north of the "Valley" rumble & glow. It's Superfund site now," the "SSFL Santa Susana Field Laboratory." Stay away, it ain't a 'Field Lab"
Yes, there were Middle Class developments just for the 'Middle Class", tract homes in Lakewood just north of Long Beach. BUT, There was no lake & no woods, but, heck it was better place to live than the rapidly built tract homes in Lompoc to house workers for Vandenberg Air Force Base. When a missile lifted off the kids would run around yelling "missile, missile, missile" but, the tract 'development' did have 7 pastel colored houses, the same 7 colors repeated over & over again , light orange, light green ....
Yes, there were lots of new Middle Class Products to be bought. Instead of a large piece of Furniture I used to fiddle with to pick up Tijuana rock & roll, there were these new things called "transistors". The Japanese built a small hand held radio that could blast out "I'm a Hog for You" at top volume.
Litton even made use of Microwave Technology, you just put a piece of food in there, press the "on" & its ready in seconds. For that whole era just press "on".
No worries, I was able to leave SoCal in the 1960's headed for Monterey Pop in Monterey CA. Janis (spelled it right the 1st time? was a very hip no BS Texas woman:
🎶 "Take the love I offer or let me Be.🎶
We were both at Monterey? Wow.
Yup, I walked in the front gate; there was a huge cauldron of soup cooking on hot fire with a cop in his civilian clothes a number of not-20's waiting for some free food.
Off to the right a woman was playing a flute with a young dancer in a diaphanous tinker-bell outfit was lost in the notes of the flute. Otis Redding strutting in his Kelly Green suit asking us all to 'try a little tenderness'.
I knew I wasn't on Santa Monica Blvd anymore.
If you watch the movie, there is a quick scene of a guy in the far side of a campfire, with shoulder-length blonde hair. My college roommate, Richard - I am directly across but you can't see me because D.A. Pennebaker and his camera are just to the side of my right shoulder, getting that shot of Richard.
Pennebaker, yes "Don't Look Back".
I was at Monterey for the Pop Festival as well, 3 days I think I was there, it all blended with the acid, I didn’t see all of the acts but I saw a lot of them including Janice who I must have seen 20 - 30 times, now that woman could sing the blues. Then came the war which I managed to survive, maybe because I had more to do or maybe because I was just lucky, I know for a fact that it came down to inches. Then the GI Bill sent me to the finest school that would take me and they paid for all of it, I could have been in a bag, instead I graduated with a 3.89, (HS 1.1) it was easy, everything was easy after VN, nobody that was smart was trying to kill me. I would love to see a version of the GI Bill made more available, service changed my life, and my education enriched it and still does to this day.
That's for sure, Tom.
Thank you for this reminder Tom, My first husband attained a degree in Civil Engineering an we were able to purchase a home in Sacramento County, thanks to the GI Bill and VA loan. And you are right, it gave a huge leg up, Because of the GI Bill admissions to college remained affordable for all through the 60's and 70's. I took advantage of that. I was a high school drop out in Canada where the cost of tuition was so high only the childr3en of the wealthy could afford to go.
FDR was right, the more education we got, the better paid jobs we had and the more taxes we paid. It was a win-win situation in California. Then along came Governor Ronald Reagan (yes he ruined California before he had the chance to begin the destruction of the entire Country) He said college education was a privilege (which I agree) and therefore should be paid by the students because of all the money they would make (with which I disagree) But his ideas appealed to many Californians
The GI Bill was the great leveler. I didn’t know about the rest of FDR’s plan. He was ahead of his time on that part. And apparently would still be, given the state of the GOP today. And he didn’t get how deeply ingrained racism is. But thank God for what he got accomplished.
I agree, Jim, I think he was the best President we ever had. Which is funny, because the Republicans hated him from March 4. 1933 (which was the day FDR was inaugurated and the day I was born) to April 12, 1945 (25 days before the war in Europe ended) The Republicans vowed to revoke every single citizen oriented program FDR created. The Republicans are as blind and disgusting a rabid blind bats
He fooled the fools and the greedy
Perhaps because he listened to the women around him.
Eleanor was the most human of the bunch, and likely the most influential
Your knowledge about this period is illuminating and depressing, as I’m sure you feel in your bones. The results of efforts aren’t really known for decades. We come so close to calamity and nirvana. We are so lucky to have had the lives that we have had since the war. Not easy roads, with some having more potholes than others, but paved and leading to possibilities like never before. I worked at NASA during the 60’s and early 70’s. Veterans were everywhere, some with visible scars from combat. You are right, again or still. We all owe so much to the efforts of those who came before, and who saw the possibilities in our government. But the greedy hogs and those who have fought the promise of our democracy (equality), still rise in every generation to squash the promise and assume superiority. Time again to reset, refresh, and recommit to our founding legacy. Imperfect as it was, it was a sea change and needs to lead again. The French have a great motto, liberty, equality, fraternity. Something to aspire to… for all of us
Another clever aspect of the bill was sending a large portion of the 13 million de-mobbed servicemen off to college instead of trying to find jobs in companies reorganizing to make civilian products. For example, International Harvestor took over the Evansville, Ind. plant, built in 1942, that produced six thousand P-47s for Republic. Obviously it took some months to convert from warplanes to farm and construction equipment. The GI Bill not only gave a huge boost to net American technical competence (the war had also done that with hundreds of thousands of men operating some of the most advanced technologies on earth), but bought time to implement it with minimal unemployment. The Depression so many expected after the war never happened. And industrial capacity built for the war helped build the middle class. The Evansville P-47 plant was later taken over by Whirlpool and supplied American kitchens and laundries into the 21st Century.
Fabulous point, sir!
Note: in 1962, the US had only 11% Bachleor’s degrees. Today it is still less than 40%. Progress, but still a long way to go. We get this to over 50%, and the educated would outnumber the aggrieved.
https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2021.S1501?t=Educational+Attainment&g=010XX00US,$0400000&y=2021
Ours Was The Shining Future- David Leonhardt
Yep. And then 36 years later, it all began to fall apart.
Chipped away, bit by bit by the robber barons and the racists. Same team as today. Religion signed on later, well, sort of
I suspect the churches were beginning to feel their increasing irrelevance caused by a high volume of fall-aways and the fact that the New Deal and the GI Bill were doing what the churches could not. In order to maintain their status they became intermediaries not just between a person and his God, but between a person and his government, with churches asserting themselves as the new power brokers. Case in point: There was little talk of abortion or any specific social ills until the second half of the last century, the period in which culture wars snowballed. (After the war, the Pope himself was beginning to look fallible because of his failures during the war.)
Likely a big factor, I read that Nixon decided to stir things up about 1971 as a way to politicize the religious aspect. Piss on the medical issues, as well as privacy. Deliberate evil
oh, dear one, what a great post! I only wish people who didn't 'live through' this time would read it and understand what it really says about what made so much possible today, and how far we are from that mind-set now!
Typo: " In the ten years following the end of the war, the number of college graduates in teh United States tripled"
You meant "the" not "teh"
Thanks for reminding us that government can do some big things and do them well. FDR knew what needed to be done for the nation to move onward and upward. Stalin did not. FDR was about opportunity and progress. Stalin was about control. This is essentially where the US and Russia are today under Joe and Vlad (darling of the radical right).
Would you please elaborate on this?: "Had the Invasion of North Africa happened on October 31 or November 1, rather than on November 8 - after the mid-term elections - public sentiment would have been transformed and we would have grown up in a very different country, one organized to benefit the majority of people as a social democracy."