| Previews | The Journal of American History, 92.4

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| Previews | The Journal of American History, 92.4 | The History Cooperative

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The events of the 1940s produced sweeping changes in every aspect of American life. One of the principal changes was the dramatic growth of government involvement in the economic and social life of the country caused by World War II. Considering the efforts of ordinary people in Texas, New York, and Illinois to turn the power of the government to their own advantage, the three articles in our round table, "A Critical Moment: World War II and Its Aftermath at Home," provide local histories set in an era of global war. In his commentary, Gary Gerstle places these articles in the evolving historiography on the establishment of the modern liberal order.
In 1943 the Texas legislature unanimously passed a wartime resolution guaranteeing "Caucasians" equal access to public accommodations. Since the state of Texas had, at various points, officially accepted people of Latin American descent as Caucasian, the resolution was aimed at them. Drawing on little-used State Department records, Thomas A. Guglielmo shows that the 1943 resolution and similar bills that failed to pass the legislature throughout the 1940s were important parts of a transnational civil rights struggle that included activists, organizations, and government officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Guglielmo probes the reasons for—and the costs of—that struggle's commitment to Caucasian rights for some rather than equal rights for all.
The denunciation of racial "quotas" began decades before the late-1960s backlash against affirmative action and civil rights. This resistance first emerged during World War II when New York State contemplated the passage of a "fair employment practices" law to outlaw discrimination in employment. . . .

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