American Involvement in WWII

Isolationist Sentiments Americans flocked to popular movies and plays and read books that depicted the horrors of war. Margaret Mitchell's Civil War-era novel, Gone with the Wind was a national bestseller, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1936, and became a hit movie in 1939.

Isolationist Sentiments The "Senate Investigation of the Munitions Industries," a report produced by the Nye Committee between 1934 and 1936, contended that greedy industrialists and munitions manufacturers had provoked the United States to enter WWI. FDR recognizes Soviet Union.

Keep America Out of War 1. The Neutrality Act of 1935 prohibited shipment of American weapons to any nation at war without distinguishing between aggressors and victims.

Keep America Out of War 2. The Second Neutrality Act of 1936 forbade American loans to any belligerent nation without distinguishing between aggressors and victims.

Keep America Out of War 3. The Third Neutrality Act of 1937 made the two previous laws a permanent part of American national policy and forbade United States citizens from traveling on the ocean-going vessels of warring nations. Congress passed this legislation to prevent another incident like the sinking of the Lusitania, a British passenger ship with Americans aboard that Germany torpedoed during WWI. The act also allowed the President to draw up a list of non-military goods, such as grain, which the United States could sell to warring nations, but strictly on a "cash and carry" basis. The law decreed that warring nations would have to pay the United States up front and would have to transport any purchased goods on their own ships.

September 1, 1939 World War II officially begins when Adolf Hitler invades neighboring Poland. Russia, in secret compliance with the Nazis, annexed eastern Poland. In what was called “Operation Barbarossa” the Nazis turned around and surprise-attacked the Soviets.

"Your boys are not going to be sent to any foreign war.“ "I hate war now more than ever. I have one supreme determination: to do all that I can to keep war away from these shores for all time."

FDR admitted privately that United States involvement in the World War II was inevitable. Already in 1938 and 1939, the United States began to gear up its industrial might and military power.

Japanese Attack Pearl Harbor December 7th, 1941 “A day that will live in infamy.”

War! After, the United States declared war on Japan. Germany recognized its alliance with Japan and declared war on the United States. Suddenly, isolationist America found itself fighting a world war on two fronts. Participation in the war brought about profound changes for the United States and the American people in the 1940s.