The Forties

Abstract

In 1936 President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that Americans had a ‘rendezvous with destiny’. It was the war years that turned that prophecy into a reality as America emerged from its traditional isolationism and became the most powerful country in the world — an imperialist, interventionist nation. Indeed, the energy that had once gone into the struggle against the Depression was now concentrated on the war effort. And that effort granted to many people on the home-front a sense of purpose, exhilaration and community that was rare in American history.¹