Savannah and Brunswick Shipyards

Savannah was a site chosen to build liberty ships. They build 36 ships. Both shipyards hired many women because most of the men were over seas. Large amount of African Americans were also hired.

Savannah shipyard
 

 Decades before the war, Brunswick was used for trading purposes. It used three rivers and traded things like cotton and rice. On January of 1941 Emergency Shipbuilding Program was announced by President Franklin Roosevelt. Brunswick was chosen to construct cargo vessels that would aid Allied forces in Europe. After America declared war the cargo vessels were called ‘Liberty Ships”, they went at amazing speed. 16,000 workers built 99 ships and could haul thousand tons across the Atlantic Ocean.

It took 89 day to finish one liberty ship. It would attract politicians and other well-known personalities from around Georgia.

Brunswick shipyard

 

Richard Russell and Carl Vinson

Richard Russell

Richard Russell was a politician from Georgia. He was a Democrat. He was also the governor for Georgia in 1931-1933 before he served in the US Senate for 40 years (until his death). He was a candidate for president in 1948-1952. He supported the New Deal in 1936. He defeated Eugene Talmadge by saying the New Deal was good for Georgia. During WWII he held that Japan shouldn’t be treated with more lenience than Germany. He said also the United States should not encourage Japan to sue for peace. Richard Russell supported Roosevelt’s military preparedness.

Carl Vinson served 25 terms in the U.S House of Representatives. He was in the U.S congress more than anyone in history. He chaired the House Naval Affairs Committee for sixteen years. He had the most powerful voice in U.S congress which got his name as the Admiral. In 1934 Roosevelt signed the Vinson-Trammell Act, which would bring the navy to the strength permitted by the treaties of 1922 and 1930. 20 months before Pearl Harbor happened Vinson steered two bills though congress. Vinson helped expand the military larger. People said, “if it had not had the ships and the know-how to build more ships fast, for which one Vinson bill after another was responsible." He never really went on an airplane or ship and never learned to drive a car.

Carl Vinson

Impact of the Holocaust and Georgia's Response

Harold Hirsch

People in Atlanta were just getting over the Leo Frank case. Atlanta was the center of Jewish culture. When the war ended in 1945, the Jewish community in Atlanta wished they could have done more to help. Some people and organizations did help and could feel proud for helping. The Atlanta Section of the National Council of Jewish Women and the Hebrew Orphans Home tried to help the minors who immigrated to Georgia by themselves. Individuals like Harold Hirsch tried to raise money to help the European Jews who had been reduced to penury by the Nazi regime. After WWII refugees came from the Holocaust came to the US. American Jews including Georgians came to Israel in 1948 to support their homeland.

Anti-Nazi propaganda video made by Walt Disney

during WWII

President Roosevelt's Connection to Georgia

In 1921, Roosevelt developed polio. His friend, George Peabody, suggested for him to go to a place called Warm Springs, Georgia. There, he lived in an inn called the Meriwether where he swam in the pools to lift the burden and pains of the disease he had. Two years later, he bought the inn and the land surrounding it.

Around the time of World War II, Roosevelt returned to Warm Springs where he met with important people to continue his work.

Meriwether Inn