Chapter in Perspective

World War II was like no other event in American history. It involved more people and resources from more places around the world than the United States had ever been called upon to organize before. Still, those who managed and fought the war could draw on the experience of World War I. In the 1920s, American industry improved products like the automobile and also techniques for manufacturing them. Despite the Great Depression, Americans had the most productive industrial plant in the world at the time Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. And the New Deal had created a variety of agencies that helped the government face the huge task of organizing the war's truly global crusade. The combination of fighting a depression and a war made the government much more a part of every level of American life, and much more active throughout the world.