World War II

Women working in turbine factory during WWII

Hoosiers were not eager to join in the troubles of other nations. They remembered the costs of the Great War, now known as World War I, but with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they rushed to the battlefields and turned their factories and fields towards the war effort. This new war required the economy to marshal all its resources to manufacture maximum numbers of planes, tanks, army uniforms, food and medicine. Indiana was an integral part in “the arsenal of democracy,” and so the daily lives of most Hoosiers on the home front were altered.

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Suggested search terms

• World War II History
• World War II Indiana –
• World War II Military
• World War II Propaganda
• World War II Production
• World War II Food
• World War II Women
• World War II Home Front
• World War II African Americans
• World War II Civil Rights
• insulin
• Eli Lilly and Company
• Kurt Vonnegut
• FDR
• Henry F. Schricker
• Eva Kor

Additional Books

• The Soldier’s Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle (Youth Biography)
• Fighter Pilot: The WWII Career of Alex Vraciu (Youth Biography)
• An Army in Skirts: The WWII Letters of Frances DeBra
• Ernie Pyle’s War (DVD)
• Surviving the Angel of Death 
• Forgiveness: The Story of Eva Kor, Survivor of the Auschwitz Twin Experiments (Graphic Novel)

Additional Resources 

• Educator Resources from the National WWII Museum 
• Student Resources from the National WWII Museum
• Peal Harbor: Analyzing FDR’s Pearl Harbor Address (Lesson Plan 7-12)
• Women and the War: Supporting Historical Interpretations (Lesson Plan 7-12)
• Japanese American Internment Primary Source Set (Library of Congress)
• Indiana Historical Society Collection- WWII Materials 
• Japanese American Internment- IHS Collection
• A Moment in Time- Destination Indiana
• USS Indianapolis- Destination Indiana
• World War II: Hoosiers in Europe- Destination Indiana
• World War II: Hoosiers in the Pacific- Destination Indiana
• World War II: Home Front- Destination Indiana
• James E. O’Donnell Hoosier Hero- Destination Indiana
• History as it Unfolds: Hoosiers and the Holocaust (video)
• The Story of Eva (WFYI)
• Eva Kor Educator Resource Guide

Download related curriculum

Two Wartime Letters
Vandivier Learns to Fly
Vandivier Aboard the USS Enterprise
Edging Toward War
Mobilization on the Home Front
Vandivier’s Last Letter
Vandivier Is Missing in Action
Letters Home
Propaganda and Morale in World War II

Strangers in a New Land 

Asian American Voices in Indiana

Read about this subject in Hoosiers and the American Story

Chapter 9: The Great Depression and World War II

Related Indiana Academic Standards for Social Studies (2014)

Grade 4: 1.10, 1.11, 1.17, 2.7
USH: 5.7, 5.8