Oregon’s Transformation throughout the World War II Era
Ingrained in Oregon culture prior, during and after World War II has changed the identity of Oregon numerous times. Unfortunately, many people endured the back-lashing fear of racism against African-Americans, Chinese and Japanese-Americans and women. Several movements happened to advocate for their rights before the war and the progress to ensure their rights from the constitution came to no avail, even after the war. In some ways, unfortunately, there were others who had equally powerful voices who intended to do harm and revoke the rights of others. Those behind these powerful voices led groups and organizations to influence the political arena to their liking, even if modern day citizens view them of not being favorable. Some of these include women’s rights, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Exclusion Act, land fraud, wealth inequality and prejudice against multiple races and women.
The pre-World War II industrial revolution and the formation of the railroads leading to Oregon led to a massive influx of people moving from the Eastern States, bringing along with them, large equipment for construction and technology (Robbins, “Transforming through Steel Rails”). The acquiring of this capital to build these railroads was invested by many from the timber industry and required a great deal of labor. Some of this labor came from Chinese Americans, that proved a valuable role in the making of the migration westward (Robbins, “Importing Asian Labor”). This pre-war influx of foreign labor also was a determining factor of racism against the Chinese Americans, including provisions and laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act. The belief that the Chinese and their fairly cheap labor caused reduction in employment for European Americans was reactionary at best. This time of the railroads bringing diversity and racism along with it, was not only subjected to the Chinese but Japanese as well.
While there was racism against the numerous ethnic groups, there were several other changes prior to the war. During the time of immense European immigration, many of them found their separate niches within the Oregon economy, before the early 1900’s (Robbins, “European Immigrants”). Those among them include of those from Scandinavian-descent, Germany and Great Britain. The railroads certainly helped bring a lot of these citizens from the East coast. This helped move people from the rural areas into the urban landscape and it was as if where ever the railroads laid their tracks, people would too. This influx of new population of people was coming at a time right after slavery was abolished and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution was in place, ensuring citizenship if you were born in the States (Robbins, “Oregon’s Political Landscape”). During this era, from the 1870’s through to the 1920’s, Oregon voter would tend to vote per the issues and focused less are partisan (political party associated) politics.
With the economic recessions and depression through the late 1800’s and along with the political turmoil that followed them, strong voices emerged from the political landscape. These people were considered the voices of dissent from the long-held status quo against people’s rights. These rights included the Women’s Suffrage movement for several decades, led by a tenacious voice of from Abigail Duniway (Robbins, “Protestors and Reformers”). Other ideas emerged the notion of Populism and Progressivism which were firmly against land fraud from very large businesses, minimum wage standards, child labor laws, workmen’s compensation and politician/business fraud reduction.
While the reformers tried busily to stop some of these social ills, several industries thrived in Oregon. The constant demand for timber left some parts of industry striving for other parts of Oregon to harvest. This increased production but also gave some incentives to investors from the railroads not only to speculate into the timber industry, but to help transport much of these goods. Those involved in the mining industry also found many aspects of this profitable and thrived along with the other markets (Edwards). The new salmon markets flourished and shipped many of their goods nationwide, especially with the new technology produced for their canneries. This also allowed a modest working class that included over 50 canneries in the lower Columbia River (Robbins, “New Salmon Markets”).
While some people in these industries certainly prospered, the nature of this duality is represented by how unfairly the natives were treated during this time. Before World War II, the natives had multiple parts of their lands and hunting rights taken away, even going so far as President Grant’s “Peace Policy” that promoted Christianization and assimilation of the Natives, even by the use of boarding schools. By the early 1900’s, the “kicking” out of these natives helped paved a way to use this land for irrigation projects for later wheat farming throughout area (Robbins, “Against Indian Cultures” & “Reclaiming the Land”). These main ideas for this pre-depression era were meant for future farmers, even if some of the local would-be farmers left the area entirely.
Even with these issues occurring, there was a technological revolution in several industries. This included the conversion to steam-powered vehicles from animal-power. This revolution also brought in other forms of energy, including gasoline-powered engines which with all of these combined, might have caused a reduction in manual labor jobs available. Prior to this happening, much of the labor industry constituted of young, single men, working in these numerous industries. This allowed a great deal of the reallocation of wealth amongst the workers, giving them fairly decent wages. A large part of these reasons for decent compensation were the result of the several unions, advocating for them (Robbins, “A Work Force of Young Single Men”).
This was a prominent time for Oregon as many men were earning a great deal of money but many of the industries were mostly seasonal, leaving some unemployment in the off-season. For women, on the other hand, were barely making it into the workforce. During the suffrage movement, some women found fairly decent occupation. Some of these include jobs in nursing, school teachers and telephone operators (Robbins, “Women in the Work Force”). This pre-war era, where women predominantly worked less than men, changed with the war build up and the military production that was needed.
While women advocated for themselves, there were other organizations that would seek the means to prevent the rights of others. For women, their later success came fairly slowly even as the first of the Suffrage movements had trouble gaining traction (Jensen). Other examples include that of the inherently racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which not sought the means to end many people’s rights but actively achieved many of these goals. Not only did they disregard the rights of any other race than a “white” race, they also shown anti-Catholicism and had several politicians’ votes bought and paid for (Horowitz). Like many organizations, the KKK also appealed to some people and even adopted the ideas of progressivism but in very different ways. In the context of this time, progressivism appealed to many people that even included those groups of people we would never categorize them into such ideals in modern times.
These movements would have not happened without another case of suffering. On a nationwide level, the Great Depression started. With several of Oregon’s industries already on the decline, the Federal government stepped in and helped produce some government jobs for (mostly) single men. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) were large, government-funded programs to help alleviate the poverty in the nation (Robbins, “Hard Times” & “The CCC Experiment”). With mostly white, single men benefiting from such programs, the Natives had glimmer of hope for themselves, which many people actively sought the means to help the tribes in Oregon. This is an example of this back and forth, love and hate relationship people had with many races, including the Native Americans.
The turning point for Oregon resulted from the start of World War II. This caused a major change in the demographics, economy, culture and utilization of its resources. This required a great deal of Oregon’s natural resources to be used and to extract such resources required a massive influx of labor from all over the United States. With the start of the war effort, and military production jobs in enormous demand, it caused a shift of the population from the Eastern states into the Western states. From this point, the government had to help with housing infrastructure to accommodate the immense needs (Robbins, “War Production”). One historian noted this shift was similar to tilting a board game full of people from the one side to the other.
This influx of people also brought those from afar and minorities within the states, that led to several examples of people being prejudice towards these other races. There are several examples of citizens becoming increasingly harsh towards this influx of people that include many Japanese Americans and African Americans. Even though African Americans were declared as free citizens several decades before this, numerous people involved with the shipyard unions discriminated against them and would hardly allow them into one of their unions.
For the Japanese-Americans, it was even worse: they were forced into internment camps. These reasons were thought to stem from the politician’s standpoint which was due to security reasons when most historians realize it was due to sheer racism against the Japanese. Even before the camps were started under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, there was already a premise of racism towards their ethnic group. There are several examples in which Japanese Americans were discriminated against, even if they were extremely valuable to the economy. These examples were as if people were blinded by this idea of patriotism for the war when many didn’t realize they weren’t being patriotic for people’s civil liberties (Robbins, “Anti-Japanese Sentiment”).
Though the African American community was not forced into internment camps, their demise was still dreadful because racism was still running rampant against them. There was such hostility against them and even to the horrible point that some Caucasian Americans had signs posting awful terms like, “We cater to whites only,” which can sum up this racism perfectly (Pearson). There are those that could justify, in the context of that era, holding the Japanese Americans in camps for security reasons. However, this was not true by any means because many Americans were also racist against the Japanese and these camps were a simple “solution” to keeping them away. As for the racism against the African American community, it just proved that many Americans were hardly ready for change.
During the war, the Native Americans, once again, suffered from their lands being taken away for the building of dams. Full employment had its benefits for some but it left Oregon’s natives and its natural resources in turmoil from the war production. The natives’ homelands were partly destroyed to later build such infrastructure and for the returning veterans of the war (Robbins, “Reconversion”). We can see here where a possible turning could have been made in their favor but once again, the Native Americans were pushed aside. This reconversion was not meant for the natives but for the housing boom for everyone else.
Even with all of this horrible news against minorities, women gained a foothold in the American war production effort with many of them earning decent wages. Of course, much of these wages were from the Federal government’s effort to increase the power and size of its military, but it proved a turning point for women to realize how important they truly are in society and the economy. This turning point has been ingrained into the American culture and provided an ample example that women are to be respected and to longer be “forced” into the older social norms. It also proved that women can work just as hard, if not harder than men. These examples of women in the war effort and other industries, with all of the strenuous work, allowed women to earn wages they have never earned before (Robbins, “Women in the Work Force, 1925-1945”).
After World War II was over, many people started to return home and some went back into their typical social niches as before but some things did change. There were other drastic changes that included the major increases in technological advancements and these helped build immense dams and waterways for future farm usage (Robbins, “The Onset of the Modern Age”). Several parts of the timber industry and agriculture flourished but slowly dwindled over time from the over-utilization of Oregon’s resources. These changes and use of technology also helped the Oregon economy shift from the heavy resource-based economy into something of a technological forte (Mayer). During part of this transition, Hood River County became a tourist attraction and became known for its excellent water-based recreational activities.
During this time, numerous tribes in Oregon were set to be completely abolished. The main term used by politicians was “termination” and its main ideas were to assimilate the Native American culture by first not recognizing them as a tribe (Robbins, “Termination”). Some of the reasoning behind this included to get rid of their lands for the agricultural sector (“agri-business”) and for the returning veterans in need of homes and land. The building of these dams would also prove to be a large dispute against numerous tribes as these were their fishing locations and where many of them earned fairly decent wages fishing. Eventually, several decades after the post-war era, some tribes were fully recognized during the Reagan Administration.
The pre-war movements also have paved a way into the American culture adopting more women and African Americans into the work force. Although this was incredibly slow, and numerous problems still existed, this turning point in history proved that Oregon’s racism was slowly drawing to an end. An excellent example of this social tyranny slowing down was when women were starting to be employed in politics and the school systems. For African Americans however, it was a lot a longer: the first Oregon state official, Treasurer Jim Hill, was elected in 1993. For Oregon have such a harsh nature towards the African American community, the election of this man proved to be a turning point for the entire state. This would still take time for Oregon to adopt some of these ideals to accommodate people of different races.
As the culture changes throughout the 1950’s, so do the numerous variations of the politicians. From the strict culture of Oregonians voting for Republicans, the post-war politics changed into voting for largely the Democratic Party. With a mentality for progressive ideology and new culture, some Republican politicians would fit into the Oregon political culture. Senator Tom McCall is an excellent example of the unusual voting characteristics of the voters in Oregon: he was fairly “liberal” compared to a lot of other Republican politicians. This is true even for Senator Morse that was known for his political independence compared to much of the rest of the political parties. This post-war transition of politics is only one of several examples about the atypical behavior of its political arena.
Moving from the 1960’s and through the modern era, Oregon changed a great deal. Now largely labeled as “liberal” within its Portland borders, much of the rest of Oregon remains fairly conservative compared to the big cities. There was a large transition from a resource-extractive economy into a technological & service economy but there are still some of these large timber companies left in Oregon. The suffrage movements proved to make their mark and pave the way for the rights of others and a good example of this is the acceptance of homosexuality in Oregon. Though slowly moving forward to the advancement of the legalization of same-sex marriage, it continues to have such ideas on its local ballots within the major cities.
With all of these examples of changes for Oregon before, during and after the war, it is no wonder how confused a newcomer to Oregon history could be when noticing its past, mainly because of its had numerous transitions. During the context of the pre-war era, there are several examples of movements for civil rights and equality while most coming to no avail. During the war, there is a massive transition in all parts of Oregon and the entire nation. As the demographics changed, so did the influx of new ideas, races and culture get thrown into Oregon’s “melting pot.” After the war, some of the movements for civil rights came to benefit many women and African-Americans but hardly any justice was served for the Native Americans until much later. From these powerful voices against the status quo, advocating for their rights and the transitions they faced during the war, some of the rights and footing in the economy were answered. The call to advocate for the minorities is proven to take time, decades even, in order to change the minds and influence others. Oregon, like much of the nation and rest of the world, proves how long these transitions can take.
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