WWII & America's rise

The Retreat from Internationalism

After rejecting the Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations membership (Senate, 19 March 1920), the United States in the 1930s codified isolationism through the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937, which barred arms sales and loans to belligerents. The 1937 Act introduced a 'cash-and-carry' provision for non-military goods. Public opinion, shaped by the Nye Committee hearings (1934-36) alleging that arms manufacturers had dragged America into WWI, ran strongly against intervention; the America First Committee, founded September 1940, claimed roughly 800,000 members.

FDR Tilts Toward the Allies

Franklin D. Roosevelt incrementally dismantled neutrality. The Neutrality Act of November 1939 extended cash-and-carry to arms. The Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement (2 September 1940) transferred 50 aging destroyers to Britain for leases on Atlantic bases. The Selective Training and Service Act (16 September 1940) imposed the first peacetime draft. The decisive measure was the Lend-Lease Act (11 March 1941, Public Law 77-11), which empowered the president to lend or lease war materiel to any nation whose defense he deemed vital to US security; ultimately some $50 billion flowed to the Allies, including the USSR. In August 1941 Roosevelt and Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, outlining war aims that prefigured the United Nations.

Pearl Harbor and Total War

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 killed 2,403 Americans and destroyed or damaged 19 ships. Roosevelt's 'date which will live in infamy' address secured a war declaration on 8 December (one dissent: Jeannette Rankin). Germany and Italy declared war on the US on 11 December, resolving the question of European involvement.

The home front mobilized completely. The War Production Board (created January 1942) converted industry; GDP roughly doubled between 1939 and 1945, ending the Depression. Some 16 million Americans served in uniform. Women entered war work en masse ('Rosie the Riveter'), and the Double V campaign linked the war against fascism to civil rights at home. Yet Executive Order 9066 (19 February 1942) authorized the internment of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans, upheld in Korematsu v. United States (1944) and formally repudiated by the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.

Victory and the New Order

Key turning points included Midway (June 1942), the North African and Italian campaigns, D-Day (6 June 1944), and the island-hopping Pacific campaign. Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945 (V-E Day). After Roosevelt's death (12 April 1945), Harry Truman authorized atomic bombings of Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August); Japan surrendered 15 August 1945. The war left the US economically dominant and militarily preeminent, with the only intact major industrial base.

Why This Matters for the Exam

The WWII section of the FSOT's US History/Society/Culture component is high-yield because the war is the hinge on which the entire 20th-century narrative turns: it ends the Depression, terminates isolationism, and launches the American Century. FSOT items test this transformation through cause-and-effect framing—how a nation that rejected the League in 1920 came to architect the United Nations in 1945. Expect multiple-choice questions that ask you to sequence the steps of intervention (Neutrality Acts, cash-and-carry, Destroyers-for-Bases, Lend-Lease, Pearl Harbor) and to attach legislation to dates.

High-Yield Facts to Retain

Memorize the Lend-Lease Act (March 1941) as the formal end of meaningful neutrality, and Executive Order 9066 (February 1942) with Korematsu v. United States (1944) and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (which granted $20,000 reparations and a formal apology) as the civil-liberties counterpoint—a frequent essay and ethics hook. Know the Bretton Woods Conference (July 1944), which created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and made the dollar the anchor of the postwar monetary system, convertible to gold at $35 per ounce. Retain the Dumbarton Oaks (1944) and Yalta (February 1945) conferences as the diplomatic scaffolding for the UN Charter, signed 26 June 1945 in San Francisco.

The Exam Angle on Diplomacy

For Foreign Service candidates specifically, the war's diplomatic legacy is the core: the US emerged as the indispensable power that designed the postwar institutional order—the UN, IMF, World Bank, and (soon) the GATT and NATO. The wartime conferences (Atlantic Charter 1941, Casablanca 1943 with its 'unconditional surrender' doctrine, Tehran 1943, Yalta and Potsdam 1945) are testable for who attended, what was decided, and how decisions seeded the Cold War. A strong candidate can articulate the through-line: WWII manufacturing capacity plus the atomic monopoly plus institution-building equals American hegemony. PYQ-style prompts often ask you to assess whether the US 'won the peace' as decisively as it won the war, inviting discussion of Yalta's concessions on Eastern Europe and the seeds of bipolar confrontation. Frame answers around concrete instruments and dates, never vague generalities.