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“How winning World War II depends on successful labor-management collaboration.”
NEW VERSION with improved video & sound:
US Army film WF-25-59
Originally a public domain film from the Prelinger Archive, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
Wikipedia license:
The War Production Board (WPB) was established as a government agency on January 16, 1942, by executive order of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The purpose of the board was to regulate the production of materials and fuel during World War II in the United States. The WPB converted and expanded peacetime industries to meet war needs, allocated scarce materials vital to war production, established priorities in the distribution of materials and services, and prohibited nonessential production. It rationed such things as gasoline, heating oil, metals, rubber, paper and plastics. It was dissolved shortly after the defeat of Japan in 1945, and was replaced by the Civilian Production Administration in late 1945.
The first chairman of the Board was Donald M. Nelson from 1942 to 1944 followed by Julius A. Krug from 1944 until the Board was dissolved.
Established by Executive Order 9024 on January 16, 1942, the WPB replaced the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board as well as the Office of Production Management. The national WPB constituted the chair, the secretaries of war, navy, and agriculture, the federal loan administrator, lieutenant general in charge of war department production, administrator of the Office of Price Administration, chair of the board of economic warfare, and special assistant to the president who supervised the defense aid program. The board created advisory, policy-making, and progress-reporting divisions.
The WPB managed twelve regional offices, and operated one hundred twenty field offices throughout the nation. They worked alongside state war production boards, which maintained records on state war production facilities as well as helped state businesses obtain war contracts and loans.
The national WPB’s primary task was converting civilian industry to war production. The board assigned priorities and allocated scarce materials such as steel, aluminum, and rubber, prohibited nonessential industrial activities such as producing nylons and refrigerators, controlled wages and prices, and mobilized the people through patriotic propaganda such as “give your scrap metal and help Oklahoma boys save our way of life.” It initiated events such as scrap metal drives, which were carried out locally to great success. For example, a national scrap metal drive in October 1942 resulted in an average of almost eighty-two pounds of scrap per American…
The WPB and the nation’s factories effected a great turnaround. Military aircraft production which totaled 6,000 in 1940 jumped to 85,000 in 1943. Factories that made silk ribbons now produced parachutes, automobile factories built tanks, typewriter companies converted to machine guns, undergarment manufacturers sewed mosquito netting, and a roller coaster manufacturer converted to the production of bomber repair platforms.[5] The WPB ensured that each factory received materials it needed to operate, in order to produce the most war goods in the shortest time.
From 1942 to 1945 the WPB directed a total production of $185 billion worth of armament and supplies. At war’s end, most production restrictions were quickly lifted, and the WPB was abolished on November 3, 1945, with its remaining functions transferred to the Civilian Production Administration.
The WPB, along with other wartime committees which regulated spending and production, helped to reduce the potential for economic catastrophe after the close of World War II.
In 1943, the WPB hired Harvard Business School Professor Thomas North Whitehead to tour the nation and find out how Americans were reacting to rationing and controls. Whitehead reported that “the good temper and common sense of most people under restrictions and vexations was really impressive… My own observation is that most people are behaving like patriotic, loyal citizens…”
