Journal of Policy History

Douglass, John Aubrey.
Earl Warren's "New Deal": Economic Transition, Postwar Planning, and Higher Education in California
Journal of Policy History - Volume 12, Number 4, 2000, pp. 473-512

Penn State University Press

John Aubrey Douglass - Earl Warren's "New Deal": Economic Transition, Postwar Planning, and Higher Education in California - Journal of Policy History 12:4 Journal of Policy History 12.4 (2000) 473-512 Earl Warren's New Deal: Economic Transition, Postwar Planning, and Higher Education in California John Aubrey Douglass [Figures] World War II was a time of unprecedented industrial growth and urban and suburban expansion in California. War mobilization ushered in new types of postindustrial and technology-based industries. Military bases were established up and down the Pacific Coast. Factories suddenly materialized, supplying military hardware, jobs, and, in turn, attracting a new wave of migrants. Reflecting on the surge of federal money and economic activity in 1944, Governor Earl Warren observed that "our Western pattern of employment has not only been changed in line with the national conversion, but our change has been three or four times as drastic as the national average." While total civilian employment in the nation was up 14 percent since 1941, California's was up 40 percent; manufacturing employment rose 51 percent in the nation, while California's was up a spectacular 201 percent; total civilian population had dropped 3 percent throughout the country, but in California it had risen 15 percent. "We have been changing at a speed with which nothing in our past can logically be compared," declared the governor: "neither the colorful gold rush...