The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 7, Issue 1, Winter 2018 | Page 22

Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego experienced spectacular population growth
rates of 30.5, 39.9, 17.8 and 110.5 percent respectively, as a result of the
prominence of military installations, shipbuilding, and aircraft production facilities
located there. 5 The 1948 Census observed that “Probably never before in the
history of the United States has there been internal population movement of such
magnitude as in the past seven eventful years.” 6
Between 1940 and 1944, approximately 1.5 million people migrated to
California’s Pacific coast. 7 This influx of people in search of industrial jobs had
many similarities to the “Okie Migration” that occurred in California less than a
decade earlier as fictionalized by John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Farmers
residing in the agricultural center of California made up uncounted thousands of
the early migrants, but the demand for labor was much higher.
The War Manpower Commission and private defense contractors
established a network of recruiters that targeted midwestern and southern cities,
with excess steel-industry labor, like Detroit, Michigan; Gary, Indiana; and
Mobile, Alabama for work in their East Bay shipyards and factories. 8 Government
and industry recruiters supplied train tickets and promised jobs. They obscured the
myriad of problems with an idyllic view of California living. By war’s end,
Kaiser’s ventures alone had brought 37,852 workers to the East Bay, while another
60,000 came at the invitation of government and other private industry recruiters. 9
Bay area host communities universally despised these war migrants as
they overwhelmed civil services, transportation, and medical care. The housing
shortage was particularly acute. Despite the construction of barracks-type company
dormitories and federal government housing projects, supply did not satisfy
demand. According to the National Parks Service, who maintains the Rosie the
Riveter/WWII Home Front Memorial Park, “Workers arriving in these rapidly
expanding urban centers were forced to find what [housing] they could. They slept
in all night movie houses, shared ‘hotbeds’ [where three people used one bed, each
getting an eight-hour stretch], or just camped out.” 10
Thousands of war migrants returned to their homes after the jobs
recruiters promised them did not live up to recruiters’ promises. Men from the
South complained that the shipyards employed minorities, and this forced them to
mingle with “all races, creeds, and colors.” 11 Amendments to the Selective
Training and Service Act of 1940, which allowed for agricultural draft deferments,
prompted thousands more war migrants to return to their Midwest farms and
families. 12
Despite the exodus, the San Francisco Bay Area became the second
fastest growing urban center on the West Coast. War migration permanently
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