Speakers detail WWII's social, economic and demographic impacts on Long Beach

As World War II’s conflicts embroiled the United States into a time of nationwide effort and urgency, the resulting impact of the battle had major influences— both good and bad— socially, economically and demographically for all cities in the country.
In the time leading up to the war and during, Long Beach experienced major population growth and social and economic diversity, which included opportunities for many citizens but also offered aspects of racial and gender discrimination.
“Long Beach during World War II underwent a major transformation,” said Jack Humphrey, a demographer and speaker at the Historical Society of Long Beach’s (HSLB) “World War II Brings Social Change to Long Beach” discussion on Aug. 26.
The event was part of the HSLB’s “Long Beach Remembers Pearl Harbor” series. The presentations provided information about the city’s development before, during and after World War II.
The speakers included: Humphrey, who detailed Long Beach’s population growth from 1890 to present day and some of the pivotal developments in the city during that time, such as the advent of the now defunct Red Line rail service; Kaye Briegel, treasurer for the HSLB, who spoke about the racial and gender diversity throughout the war and how social prejudice played a heavy role in the community; and Craig Hendricks, secretary for the HSLB, who discussed policing the city in the time heading into the war, specifically from 1920 to 1940, a period that largely dealt with prohibition crimes.
Humphrey explained in his presentation that Long Beach went through three major changing points that led to significant population booms— in the 1920s because of oil, the 1940s to 1960s because of war and the 1980s to the early 2000s because of immigration.
Beginning in 1890, Long Beach’s population was barely reaching the 600 mark. More than a century later, the city now has about half a million people.
In the early 1920s, locals discovered oil around Signal Hill and Long Beach. As a result, the region flourished with the newfound resource at its disposal and business became abundant for both cities.
During wartime in 1939, the U.S. Navy made Long Beach an official operating city, where it recreated its facilities into a shipyard and fuel depot to accommodate large vessels.
Humphrey said that Navy sailors encompassed a significant sum of the city population because of the military operations in the area.
By 1960, the city had close to 350,000 people, all of whom were more diverse and better educated because of the events during the war years, Humphrey said. The city was now a major metropolitan area.
Humphrey didn’t get too specific about the immigration growth in the late 20th century— mostly because the focus of his presentation was to discuss the World War II era— but he said the city continued to grow and become more vibrant and diverse with the integration of different ethnicities in the ’90s.
“These were three different periods of major growth in the city,” he said, referring to oil, war and immigration. “And, between them, we find periods of growth are much slower […] This has been a relatively big amount of change in a short span of years.”
Humphrey also detailed the significance of the G.I. Bill, established and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. The bill provided benefits for World War II veterans, including low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans, unemployment compensation and payments of tuition.
On the law front, Hendricks explained that, during the early 1920s to 1940s, the police faced many challenges, especially with prohibition crimes.
He said prohibition really led to organized crime and actually accomplished the opposite of its intent, which was to limit the possession of alcohol.
In his chart, Hendricks showed that 271, 879 and 927 arrests were made in 1923, 1924 and 1925 in Long Beach, respectively. The fines totaled $30,670 in 1923, $57,580 in 1924 and $60,885 in 1925.
Roughly 3,359 gallons of liquor were seized in 1923, 1,280 gallons— 22 stills of alcohol— in 1924 and 6,978 gallons— 14 stills of alcohol— in 1925.
Prohibition ended in 1933.
Gambling was also a large issue in the city, as well.

As the population in the city grew, it became increasingly difficult for police to address crime. In the 1940s, the police department underwent its largest growth, almost tripling its size.
Briegel, a child during the war, said one of the focal points of the era was that the United States had never faced a war in the Pacific before.
The 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese military airstrike assault on a Navy base in Hawaii and the catalyst of the U.S.’s involvement in World War II, made it apparent that the upcoming conflict would rely on a different level of strategy.
From a societal perspective, the attack opened up a whole new level of racism to people of Japanese descent in the United States.
“This was a much more racist country than it is now,” Briegel said. “Right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese-Americans were incarcerated. And I think people believed that no matter how long people of Japanese descent lived in the United States or how much we had seen over several generations for them to have become part of our country and society, that they still couldn’t be trusted. And they were suspected of treason with no other proof than the nationality of their ancestors.”
Segregation existed in the military, as well, Briegel said. During the war, people were placed in groups based on race and skin color. African-American soldiers would often maintain vehicles and perform other miscellaneous tasks, but they later served in combative roles.
Other groups experienced levels of discrimination, such as Chinese-Americans and Mexican-Americans.
The discrimination also spread to gender, as Briegel explained that women were largely seen as second-class citizens. Employers mostly targeted white men for industrial work that involved making war material. She said hirers assumed women and people of other races, such as African-Americans and Mexican-Americans, lacked the skills to learn to build airplanes and other equipment.
When work wasn’t efficient enough, she said employers began to reconsider.
Eventually, women proved themselves to be competent to take jobs to aid in the war effort. In Long Beach, women were taking all kinds of jobs, and their leadership role was embodied through the Rosie the Riveter promotional figure.
For more information about World War II and more archived history of Long Beach, visit HSLB.org.