Depression and the War

Washington's increased level of commitment began with the Great Depression and the national appeal for emergency federal relief measures. In his famous social commentary, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck proclaimed U.S. Highway 66 the "Mother Road." Steinbeck's classic 1939 novel, combined with the 1940 film recreation of the epic odyssey, served to immortalize Route 66 in the American consciousness. An estimated 210,000 people migrated to California to escape the despair of the Dust Bowl. Certainly in the minds of those who endured that particularly painful experience, and in the view of generations of children to whom they recounted their story, Route 66 symbolized the "road to opportunity." Contemporary writers have reexamined the Great Depression years and found that thousands of disillusioned immigrants returned home within months after reaching the Golden State. Of the more than 200,000 refugees who journeyed west to California beginning in the early 1930s "less than 16,000 people from the Dust Bowl proper ended up in California." Despite popular perceptions promoted in Steinbeck's novel, James Gregory argues convincingly that barely 8% of the "dust bowlers" who set out for California remained there (Gregory 1989). In fact, California's total demographic growth between 1930 and 1940 reflected scarcely more than a 22% increase (compared to a 53% growth rate in the following decade).

 

While the importance of Route 66 to emigrating "Dust Bowlers" during the depression years has been widely publicized. less is known about the importance of the highway to those who opted to eke out their living within the devastated economies of Kansas, Oklahoma, West Texas, and New Mexico. During this time, U.S. Highway 66 and other major roads in America were integrally linked to President Roosevelt's revolutionary New Deal program for work relief and economic recovery. Road improvements and maintenance work was a central feature of the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Project Administration (WPA) programs. Erom 1933 to 1938 thousands of unemployed male youths from virtually every state were put to work as laborers on road gangs. As a result of this monumental effort, the Chicago-to-Los Angeles highway was reported as "continuously paved" in 1938. In the final analysis, Route 66 affected more Americans on federal work relief than people who used it during the famous exodus to California.

 

Completion of the highway's all-weather capability on the eve of World War II was particularly significant to the nation's war effort. The experience of a young Army captain, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who found his command bogged down in spring mud near Ft. Riley, Kansas, while on a coast-to-coast maneuver, left an indelible impression. The War Department needed improved highways for rapid mobilization during wartime and to promote national defense during peacetime. At the outset of American involvement in World war II, the war Department singled out the West as ideal for military training bases in part because of its geographic isolation and especially because it offered consistently dry weather for air and field maneuvers. In keeping with this policy, over $230 million was invested in new military bases in Arizona alone. Several military installations Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri, Ft. Wingate Ordnance Depot in New Mexico, Navajo Ordnance Depot in Arizona, and Edwards Air Force Base in California were established on or near Route 66.

 

America's mobilization for war after Pearl Harbor underscored the necessity for a systematic network of roads and highways. The War Department's expropriation of the nation's railways left a transportation vacuum in the West that only the trucking industry could fill. Automobile manufacturers suffered critical shortages of steel, glass, and rubber during the war years, and plants in Detroit converted to the production of tanks, aircraft engines, ordnance, and troop transports. According to one government source, the number of new cars produced dropped from 3.7 million in 1941 to 610 in 1943, all of which were rationed.

 

At the same time trucks capable of hauling loads in excess of 30,000 pounds were produced in sufficient quantity to keep pace with wartime demands. Studies by the Public Roads Administration (PRA) during 1941 to 1943 showed that at least 50% of all defense-related material destined for America's war production plants was transported and delivered by truck rather than by rail. As the shortest corridor between the west coast and the industrial heartland beyond Chicago, it was not uncommon to see mile-long convoys moving troops and supplies from one military reservation to another along U.S. Highway 66.

 

Route 66 helped to facilitate the single greatest wartime manpower mobilization in the history of the nation. Between 1941 and 1945 the government invested approximately $70 billion in capital projects throughout California, a large portion of which were in the Los Angeles-San Diego area. This enormous capital outlay served to underwrite entirely new industries that created thousands of civilian jobs. By 1942, however, available local labor in most areas of the Pacific Coast had been exhausted, which sent war contractors on a frantic search for skilled and unskilled workers from across the United States. Under the provisions of the West Coast Manpower Plan, initiated in September 1943, contractors prepared to offer jobs to 500,000 men and women to meet the production demands of global war. In February 1942 PRA Commissioner Thomas MacDonald announced that only a small fraction of the 10 million workers required to man the defense plants could possibly be accommodated by the existing rail and bus transit facilities. The rest would have to move in private automobiles.

 

They moved in unprecedented numbers. The net result of this mass migration was the loss of more than 1 million people from the metropolitan northeast between 1940 and 1943. Three Pacific Coast states California, Oregon, and Washington increased 38.9% in population (measured against a national average of 8.7%).

 

Text portions courtesy of the National Park Service

More History Links