Veterans' Welfare,the GI Bill and American Demobilization

This essay is indebted to a growing body of scholarly literature on the GI Bill, which examines a wide range of issues, from its educational provisions to its legislative politics to its racial meanings. One of the earliest and best historical treatments comes from Ross D. R. B. , Preparing for Ulysses: Politics and Veterans during World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969). More recent works include: Bennett M. J. , When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America (Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, Inc., 1996); Altschuler G. C. Blumin S. M. , The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Frydl K. J. , The GI Bill (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Mettler S. , Soldiers to Citizens: The GI Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). On the bill's educational provisions, see Olson K. W. , The GI Bill, the Veterans, and the Colleges (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1974). On the GI Bill as a part of the history of the American welfare state, see Skocpol T. , “Delivering for Young Families: The Resonance of the GI Bill,” The American Prospect 7, no. 28 (1996): 66–73; and Skocpol , Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1992); Keene J. D. , Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Ortiz S. , Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill: How Veteran Politics Shaped the New Deal Era (New York: New York University Press, 2010). On the GI Bill's racial politics and impact, see Brooks J. E. , Defining the Peace: World War II Veterans, Race, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Katznelson I. , When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth Century America (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2005): Chapters 4-5; Onkst D. H. , “‘First a Negro…Incidentally a Veteran’: Black World War Two Veterans and the GI Bill of Rights in the Deep South, 1944-1948,” Journal of Social History 31, no. 3 (1998): 517–543.

Elsewhere, I have developed these ideas looking at apartment dwellers and single women. See McEnaney L. , “Nightmares on Elm Street: Demobilizing in Chicago, 1945–1953,” Journal of American History 92, no. 4 (2006): 1265–1291; “A Women's Peace Dividend: Working-Class Women, Demobilization, and Cold War Liberalism,” in Donohue K. G. , ed., Liberty and Justice for All?: Rethinking Politics in Cold War America, 1945–1965 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, forthcoming, 2011). My manuscript in progress on this topic is entitled World War II's “Postwar”: A Social and Policy History of Peace, 1944–1953.

Women comprised 2% of those in the armed forces – about 350,000. The issues involved in their access to the GI Bill's benefits are covered nicely in Mettler, supra note 1, at chap. 9, and Gambone M. D. , The Greatest Generation Comes Home: The Veterans in American Society (College Station, Tex.: Texas A & M University Press, 2005). Few works on the GI Bill analyze deeply its gendered dimensions, but L. Cohen's work is suggestive here. See Cohen , A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003): At 137–144. I posit the GI Bill as the first male breadwinner movement of the postwar era. See McEnaney , supra note 2.

Works on veterans' reintegration include Gambone, id; Huebner A. J. , The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to the Vietnam Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008): Chapters 1–3; Rose K. D. , Myth and the Greatest Generation: A Social History of Americans in World War II (New York: Routledge, 2008); Francis Saxe R. , Settling Down: World War II Veterans' Challenge to the Postwar Consensus (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007); Van Ells M. D. , To Hear Only Thunder Again: America's World War II Veterans Come Home (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001). Also, Waller W. , The Veteran Comes Back (New York: The Dryden Press, 1944): At 13–15, 298–299. Many of the scholarly works just mentioned quote Waller and note this fear of the demobilized soldier. On this, see also David Gerber's work on disabled veterans, which finds in American film a “sharply divided consciousness that both honored the veteran and feared his potential to disrupt society.” See Gerber D. , “Heroes and Misfits: The Troubled Social Reintegration of Disabled Veterans in ‘The Best Years of Our Lives,’” American Quarterly 46, no. 4 (1994): 545–574, at 545.

Mauldin B. , Back Home (New York: William Sloane Associates, 1947): 40–41. Notably, one of the contributors to this “trash” was none other than the American Historical Association, whose 1943–1945 G.I. pamphlet series addressed veterans' postwar concerns on topics ranging from foreign relations (Can We Prevent Future Wars?), to economic affairs (Will There Be Work for All?), to family matters (Can War Marriages Be Made to Work?). Historians, too, it appears, wanted to be part of the urgent national conversation about war's economic and psychic toll. See American Historical Association, “Constructing a Postwar World: The G.I. Roundtable Series in Context,” available at <http://www.historians.org/Projects/GIroundtable/index.html> (last visited December 7, 2010).

Of course, not all workers received social security as it was first designed and implemented. See, for example, Kessler-Harris A. , In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th-century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Katznelson , supra note 1, at chapter 2.

The Chicago's Travelers Aid Society (TAS) estimated that between Pearl Harbor and the end of 1945, almost 9 million people had passed through the city's six train terminals. Information on wartime Chicago taken from Duis P. LaFrance S. , We've Got a Job to Do: Chicagoans and World War II (Chicago, Sewall Co., 1992): At 3, 97, 103. On train station traffic, see Mrs. A. L. Tidball to Statistical Department, 12 April 1946, Folder 15, Travelers Aid Society of Chicago Papers, University of Illinois at Chicago, The University Library, Department of Special Collections, Chicago, Illinois.

Trend Report, May 23, 1945, folder 406-3, box 406, TAS, 1939–1949, TAS-Welfare Council of Metropolitan Chicago Papers (hereafter WCMC Papers), Chicago History Museum (hereafter CHM), Chicago, Illinois.

Minutes of the meeting of Executive Committee, Division III, December 19, 1946, folder: 416-1, Veterans Administration, 1946–1965, box 416, Records of the Veterans Administration, in WCMC Papers, CHM.

Hines Frank T. to Lawrence Colonel Paul S. , September 10, 1945, attached report “Veterans' Services in the Community,” July 26, 1945, folder: Veterans' Relations Inter-Office, box 1, entry 66, Records of the Office of the Veterans' Relations Adviser, Records of the Office of Price Administration, RG 188 (hereafter Records of the OPA), National Archives and Records Administration—College Park, Maryland (hereafter NARA-CP).

City of Chicago Welfare Administration to Bureaus and Divisions, March 9, 1944, Official Bulletin No. 1868, Report from Family Welfare Committee of Council of Social Agencies, “Division of the Family Field in Relation to Problems of Discharged Veterans,” July 17, 1944, City of Chicago Welfare Administration to Bureaus and Divisions, November 13, 1944, Official Bulletin No. 1946, all in folder: Veterans' Relief, 1944–1947, Section 2, Veterans' Relief, 1934-1966, Papers of Raymond Marcellus Hilliard (hereafter Hilliard Papers), and Joseph L. Moss to President William N. Erickson, May 5, 1954, folder: Veterans' Relief, 1948–1956, in Hilliard Papers, CHM.

Veterans Information Center and Community Referral Service of Metropolitan Chicago, Report of Activities, September 1946, folder: 787-12, box 787, Records of the Veterans Information Center, WCMC Papers, CHM.

Scholars are beginning to question the two-track thesis about the American welfare state. See, for example, Willrich M. , “Home Slackers: Men, the State, and Welfare in Modern America,” Journal of American History 87, no. 2 (2000): 460–489. His work suggests a “third track” and argues that the Progressive Era welfare state heavily regulated men, as well. For now, the best analysis of the two-track and gendered design of early welfare is found in Gordon L. , Pitied but not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare (New York: The Free Press, 1994). Frydl analyzes expertly the issues of federalism and the GI Bill's design in her GI Bill, supra note 1. 14. Frydl , supra note 1, at 14; Altschuler Blumin , supra note 1, at 42–43, 78–79;, Van Ells , supra note 4, at 7–8.

Knight M. Özerdem A. , “Guns, Camps and Cash: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reinsertion of Former Combatants in Transitions from War to Peace,” Journal of Peace Research 41, no. 4 (2004): 499–516, at 506.

Quote taken from Ortiz S. R. , “The ‘New Deal’ for Veterans: The Economy Act, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of New Deal Dissent,” Journal of Military History 70, no. 2 (2006): 415–438, at 433. See also his Beyond the Bonus March and GI Bill. Ortiz smartly argues that this veteran opposition must be viewed as part of the early New Deal dissent. See also Altschuler Blumin , supra note 1, at 31–33, and Mettler , supra note 1, at chapter 1. Bill Mauldin describes similar sentiments from General Omar N. Bradley, who became the head of the VA after the war. He argued that veteran leaders from the American Legion, in particular, were selfishly putting their own “special interests before the welfare of this nation,” when they argued for “special privilege” versus “honest opportunity.” See Mauldin , supra note 5, at 95–98.

Statistics on war injuries from “Work Injuries in the United States During 1944,” Monthly Labor Review 61 (1945): 638–643.

Journal of the Proceedings of the City Council of the City of Chicago, Illinois, April 3, 1945, 3189, Harold Washington Library, Chicago, Illinois. However, this statement was made in reference to sustaining production after the war had ended—indeed, during celebrations for VE or VJ Day, not as a proposal for postwar welfare policy. Frydl offers an excellent analysis of President Roosevelt's deliberations on such matters. See Frydl , supra note 1, at chapter 1.

Memorandum for Honorable James F. Byrnes, April 19, 1944, box 127, folder: Postwar and War Adjustment 4 – Retraining and Reemployment Administration, entry 14, Records of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, RG 250, NARA-CP (hereafter Records of the OWMR).

War Production Board, reprint of “War Progress,” “When G.I. Joe Puts on His Civvies,” August 12, 1944, folder: Demobilization, Box 1, entry 133, Records of the Information Service, Records of the News Division, Office Files of Eileen P. O'Rourke, 1944–1945, Records of the War Manpower Commission, RG 211, NARA-CP (hereafter records of the WMC).

American Council on Race Relations, “Summary: Survey of Community Veteran Information Centers,” March 29, 1946, folder: Veterans, box 67, entry 8, Office Files of Malcolm Ross, Records of the FEPC. See also Onkst , supra note 1; Jennifer E. Brooks covers nicely the racial dynamics for veterans in the postwar South. See Brooks J. E. , Defining the Peace: World War II Veterans, Race, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). For a fascinating parallel between African ex-servicemen in Kenya to African-American veterans in the American South, see Brands H. , “Wartime Recruiting Practices, Martial Identity and Post-World War II Demobilization in Colonial Kenya,” Journal of African History 46, no. 1 (2005): 103–25.

The report noted that this same practice was done to Japanese-American veterans. See American Council on Race Relations, “Summary,” Records of the FEPC. See Id.

“Stay at homes” as a term comes from World War I veteran and public policy scholar Peel R. V. , “The ‘Separateness’ of the Veteran,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science: Postwar Jobs for Veterans Issue 238 (1945): 167–173, at 167.

Kingsley Donald to Steelman John R. Dr. , September 27, 1946, folder: Retraining and Reemployment, box 173, entry 16, Records of the OWMR.

Donald Kingsley J. to Snyder John W. Mr. , January 22, 1946, folder: Retraining and Reemployment, box 173, Records of the OWMR.

Altschuler Blumin , supra note 1, at 2. It is debatable, however, how strong this sentiment of antistatism was among working-class citizens. See McEnaney , “Nightmares on Elm Street,” supra note 2.

For analysis of how women used the Freedmen's Bureau to make postwar claims on the state, see, for example, Schwelm L. A. , A Hard Fight for We: Women's Transition from Slavery to Freedom in South Carolina (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997); Keene makes this point, as well, connecting World War I veterans' demands with the struggle for mothers' pensions in the Progressive era. See Keene , supra note 1.

On the contradictions and complexities of a postwar but still Cold War statism, see Hogan M. J. , A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945–1954 (Cambridge, Mass.; Cambridge University Press, 2000).

The citizen-worker formulation is from Mettler , supra note 1, at 19.

On the American Veterans Committee, see Francis Saxe R. , Settling Down: World War II Veterans' Challenge to the Postwar Consensus (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): Chapter 5; Tyler R. L. , “The American Veterans Committee: Out of a Hot War and Into the Cold,” American Quarterly 18, no. 3 (1966): 419–436.