A World In Conflict
By the time World War I concluded in November 1918, much of Europe was torn to shreds. The Netherlands remained neutral throughout the conflict, given its proximity in between the main belligerents of the Central Powers (including the German Empire to the east) and the Allied Powers (primarily France and the British Empire to the south and west, respectively). A badly wounded continent sat in shock as they reviewed the destruction of the Great War.
As reconstruction began, a good-natured couple who now were eclipsing mid-age welcomed their first grandchildren into the world. Henry and Hannah’s children would give birth to 18 kids over the next two decades. Two generations removed from the motherland, the Loomans family grew drastically in arguably one of the most trying periods of modern world history.
A breakdown of peace and worsening economic conditions preceded a second outbreak of a catastrophic war in 1939 with the Nazi invasion of Poland and the subsequent attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. What ensued was an era that largely defined the early lives of their grandchildren and would set the foundation for a gradual push to the present.
An Unprecedented Era of Expansion, 1850 to 1910
While the preceding 300 years were undoubtedly more progressive than much of human history, the few decades that surround the turn of the century saw some of the most robust social, political, and economic changes in world history.
By many accounts, the period from 1890 to 1950, while only six decades, was a period of incredible expansion and experimentation for a maturing people. The United States, now out of its initial infancy, was being consistently positioned as one of the foremost powers on the global stage; a hallmark for the global adoption of democratic forms of government.
Since completing the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the west’s settlement and expansion accelerated at an unprecedented rate. The growth of new markets fed the development of the American economy, encouraged by the fast-paced innovation across numerous new and changing industries.
Within a 30-year span ending around 1910, electricity and the radio were popularized, moving pictures became a curiosity, and Henry Ford founded his motor company. Oil fields were drilled, the rough riders from San Juan Hill drove Teddy Roosevelt’s ride to the White House, and telephones were installed across millions of American homes. Historic and devastating fires in cities like Chicago created a clear cause to rebuild and expand the urban environment, events that undoubtedly shaped the future course of these world-renowned destinations.
As the economy evolved, so did people. Progressives, mostly in urban hotbeds that could initiate larger-scale societal change, introduced some of the most profound transitions in political priorities since the American Revolution. Those who gained influence experimented with ambitious reforms such as women’s rights, minimum wage, and labor laws. They sought additional civil rights and freedoms for underprivileged segments of the population who were often short-changed in the twists and turns of societal development.
While Loomans family ancestors arrived more than a half-century before, immigration to the United States was more popular than ever, especially as increasing competitiveness and strained relations between countries were quickly laying the groundwork for a new wartime crisis.
World War I & the Great Depression
The assassination of Austro-Hungary heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 by a Bosnian nationalist triggered a war footing between the two countries. A complex set of interlocking alliances escalated the tension to involve most of Europe and by the end of August the “War to End All Wars” had broken out.
The United States pursued a policy of non-intervention in the early years of the conflict, only to join as an associated force of the Allied Powers in the spring of 1917 after Germany sunk several U.S. merchant ships without cause. The U.S. eventually sent nearly five million men overseas to fight the war, which ended with the signing of an armistice on November 11, 1918.
Despite their best efforts to negotiate agreeable terms with the Central Powers, the victors would be unable to heal the wounds of the defeated, a precipitator to another global conflict just 20 years later. In the meantime, however, the wartime effort electrified the American economy further and led to the innovations of several new products and technologies that ultimately drove the conclusion of the Second Industrial Revolution.
As a direct result, the 1920s became a decade of significant financial growth and industrial diversification across the United States with the growth of major cities, a vast transportation network, and the implementation of reforms that pushed the economy to its highest measures in history.
In Wisconsin, agricultural production remained the primary contributor to the economy, with prices steadily increasing and new forms of interconnectivity encouraging a robust supply chain from the Midwest to the country’s other major regions.
While industrialized factories of the Northeast continued to take production levels higher (partially as a result of the need to supply Postwar Europe with necessities lost during the war), farmlands of states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Iowa shipped crops and dairy products to feed their expanding populations.
The intoxication of prosperity throughout the 1920s ultimately became a short-lived affair. In October 1929, the Stock Market Crash paralyzed the global economy and triggered the most significant bout of unemployment in decades. The Great Depression left a nation, once at the edge of invincibility, in dark and cold shadows as millions of people lost their jobs and their families were thrust below the poverty line.
Between 1929 and 1933, Milwaukee suffered a 75 percent increase in unemployment. Factory workers struggled for food and shelter. And farmers, including those in the Alto area, coped with significant reductions in income and property value.
The land that the Loomans family once purchased and cultured likely became a substantial liability as New Deal programs, such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), encouraged farmers to destroy their crops in an effort to reduce national supply. Economists, including some from the University of Wisconsin Madison who were brought into the [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt Administration, advocated the policy changes in an effort to rebalance the economic scales and reach equilibrium [between supply and demand].
The request, as one may reasonably expect, was met with plenty of upset voices from across Wisconsin. In the Fox Valley, farmers went on strike in spring 1933, withholding dairy products, shutting down factories, and barricading roads with an eye on raising prices.
Earlier in the economic crisis, prior to President Roosevelt’s release of the New Deal, the Wisconsin legislature led the way nationally toward reforms such as the enactment of unemployment compensation. The law, advocated for decades by University of Wisconsin economist John R. Commons, and drafted by Harold Groves, was passed in early 1932. It quickly became a model for other states and for the federal government’s drafts of New Deal legislation which was passed later.
Entrance Into World War II
While governmental efforts to pull the United States out of the Great Depression proved successful in many instances, the most outstanding change came upon the country’s entrance in World War II.
Practically overnight the new wartime effort activated the American economy, resuscitating it back to life after a decade of dormancy. Wisconsinites working in factories and on its vast farmlands were sent back to a bustling workforce that now demanded a significant increase in production to feed the war machine.
“We were sitting in church early that Sunday afternoon and someone in the congregation had gotten word that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We sat confused and there was no doubt that we would be moving off to the war.”
Richard Carl Loomans remembers his father, Richard Henry, listening every morning to the news on the family’s radio. At the time, they lived on the Loomans homestead, built 40 years earlier by his grandfather. “It was a time of great fear…because nobody was quite sure what was going to happen,” Richard Carl recalls.
The Loomans family’s contributions to the war effort were similar to those of their neighbors—focused on output and inspired by the cause of fighting for democracy, even on the home front. Meanwhile, the battles that devastated the rolling hills and cities of Western Europe (near the lands of Loomans ancestors) would be forever scarred and drenched with the blood of the millions who perished defending the rights of their compatriots.
Unlike the wars of centuries past, World War II was fought on an unthinkable scale, becoming the first conflict in history to see the use of aircrafts, paratroopers, and nuclear weapons. Despite its devastating effects on human life, the Second World War also ushered in the most prosperous economic, social, and political environment in American history.
The resulting Baby Boom and rapid growth of the economy solidified the United States as a global superpower and ultimately set the stage for a clash of ideologies that would define much of the next half century.
LEARN MORE:
The World War II Military and Home Fronts, Compiled by Wisconsin Historical Society: Link Here
Depression and Unemployment: Hard Times in Wisconsin Historical Essay, by Wisconsin Historical Society: Link Here
Seventy Years Ago, Wisconsinites Celebrated End of World War II by Erika Janik (WPR), 2015: Link Here