DAVIS, BENJAMIN OLIVER, JR. (1912–2002). Born the son of the U.S. Army’s first black general, Benjamin O. Davis Jr. attended the University of Chicago before he became the first African American in the 20th century to graduate from West Point Military Academy in 1936. He was only the second black officer at the time, his father, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., being the other. Although he wanted to serve in the Army Air Corps, Davis was excluded on grounds of color. He was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. However, he was subsequently posted to Tuskegee Institute, where he was among the first black pilots to get their wings in 1942. In 1943, as lieutenant colonel, he was given command of the all-black 99th Pursuit Squadron and posted to North Africa. He subsequently went to Italy in command of the 332nd Fighter Group. He flew more than 60 missions and in 1944 was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
After World War II, Davis was involved in devising plans for the integration of the air force, and he commanded a fighter group during the Korean War. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1965, and in 1967 he became chief of staff of U.S. forces in Korea. Davis retired from the army in 1970 and in 1971 was assistant secretary of transportation. He retired in 1975. In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded him a fourth star to make him a full general.
DAVIS, BENJAMIN OLIVER, SR. (1880–1970). The first African American general in the U.S. Army, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was born in Washington, D.C., where he attended high school and took part-time classes at Howard University. In 1898, he joined the 8th Volunteer Infantry and served for a year in Georgia before mustering out. He rejoined the 9th Cavalry (one of four black regular regiments established by Congress after the Civil War). He rose through the ranks and became a first lieutenant in 1905. After a posting in the Philippines from 1901 to 1905, Davis took a position as professor of military science at Wilberforce University in Ohio. He was posted as the U.S. military attaché to Liberia from 1909 to 1912. He was posted back to the Philippines in 1917 and returned to the United States in 1920 as a lieutenant colonel. During the 1920s, Davis held different teaching positions at Tuskegee Institute and Wilberforce University. He made brigadier general in 1940 and retired in 1941 but was recalled following U.S. entry into World War II. During the war, he toured U.S. bases and the European Theater of Operations as an “adviser on Negro Problems.” He reported on conditions and the morale of African American servicemen, but most of his recommendations were ignored. His primary role was to act as a morale-boosting model for black Americans. He retired in 1948. Davis was awarded the Bronze Star and the Distinguished Service Medal. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
DAVIS, BETTE (1908–1989). Future movie star Bette Davis was born Ruth Elizabeth Davis in Lowell, Massachusetts. She worked as a secretary before turning to acting in the late 1920s. Her first Broadway role was in 1929. She joined Universal Studios in 1930 and appeared in The Bad Sister in 1931. She moved to Warner Studios and achieved a breakthrough with The Man Who Played God, followed by Of Human Bondage, both in 1934. Davis won an Academy Award for her role in Dangerous (1935) and appeared with Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest (1936). Her second Academy Award came for her acting in Jezebel (1938). Not a conventional star, Davis appeared onscreen and offscreen as a liberated, independent woman. This involved her in some conflict with the studio, and her contract ended in 1949. Nonetheless, she made a number of successful film appearances, including Dark Victory (1939), Watch on the Rhine (1943), and Mr. Skeffington (1944).
During World War II, Davis made several public appearances to raise war bonds, and in 1942 she was one of several Hollywood stars to established the Hollywood Canteen to cater for servicemen in Los Angeles, California. She was awarded the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal in 1980 for her war work. Although her career faltered in the late 1940s, Davis received Academy nominations for her role in All About Eve (1950) and The Star (1952). A major success came later with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1977, she made her last film appearance in 1987. See also CINEMA.
DAVIS, CHESTER CHARLES (1887–1975). Born in Iowa, Chester Davis graduated from Grinnell College in 1911. After working as a journalist, he became editor of The Montana Farmer in 1917. In 1921, he became the state commissioner of agriculture and labor for Montana, and in 1925 he was appointed director of grain marketing for the Illinois Agricultural Association. Davis was an outspoken supporter of the McNary-Haugen Plan to maintain farm prices by government purchase of surpluses for export, and in 1928 he helped persuade the Democratic Party convention to adopt the proposal.
In 1933, George N. Peek appointed Davis as director of the division of production within the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). When Peek resigned later that year, Davis succeeded him as head of the AAA. Internal differences within the AAA, particularly over the issue of protection for tenant farmers, eventually led Davis to resign in 1936. He joined the board of governors of the Federal Reserve Board, a position he held until 1941 when he became president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Davis was an associate director of the Ford Foundation in the early 1950s.
DAVIS, ELMER HOLMES (1890–1958). Author, journalist, and radio broadcaster Elmer Davis was born in Aurora, Indiana. He graduated from Franklin College in 1910 and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. Davis returned to the United States in 1913 and began working as a journalist in New York City. In 1914, he was hired as a reporter for the New York Times. He became a freelance reporter in 1923, and he published fiction and nonfiction articles in a number of well-known journals. He also published popular novels. In 1939, he was appointed as a news analyst at CBS, and his subsequent wartime reports were heard by millions and made him as famous as his colleague, Edward R. Murrow.
In June 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Davis head of the newly created Office of War Information (OWI). His aim was to let the people have as much information about the war as possible, but this proved difficult given the reluctance of the military to release details. Davis was also accused of running a propaganda agency for the president. He continued as director of the OWI until it ceased operation in September 1945. In the postwar years, Davis was a critic of Joseph McCarthy in both his radio broadcasts and his writing.
DAVIS, JOHN WILLIAM (1873–1955). Born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, John Davis qualified in law in 1895 and went into practice with his father. Although a conservative on issues like women’s suffrage, he supported Woodrow Wilson and was appointed solicitor general in 1913. He held the position until 1918, when he became ambassador to Great Britain. He returned to legal practice on Wall Street in 1921.
In 1924, because of the deadlock between Senator William McAdoo and Governor Alfred E. Smith, Davis was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate on the 103rd ballot. In the election, Davis received less than 8 million votes, while the Republican Calvin Coolidge won 16 million. In 1928, Davis supported Smith’s campaign, and in 1932 he backed Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, he opposed much of the New Deal and joined Smith and other conservatives in forming the American Liberty League. After the war, he also opposed Harry S. Truman’s Fair Deal program. A successful appellate lawyer, he argued 141 cases before the Supreme Court, most notably in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer in 1952, when he argued against President Truman’s takeover of the steel industry. He also served as counsel to J. Robert Oppenheimer when he was accused of being a security risk in 1954.
DAWSON, WILLIAM LEVI (1886–1970). African American politician William Dawson was born in Albany, Georgia. He graduated from Fisk University in Nashville in 1909, and in 1912 he moved to Chicago. In 1917, he joined the infantry and served as a first lieutenant in France during World War I. After the war, he went to Northwestern University Law School and was admitted to the bar in Chicago. A Republican, Dawson was elected to Chicago City Council. He unsuccessfully challenged Arthur W. Mitchell in 1938 and switched to the Democratic Party in 1939. He succeeded Mitchell when Mitchell was elected to the House of Representatives in 1942. At the time, he was the only African American in the House. In 1949, Dawson became the first African American to chair a congressional committee when he headed the Committee on Government Operations. He was a staunch party member, mobilizing black support for both city and national administrations, even during the Vietnam War. In 1966, when Martin Luther King came to Chicago to protest black poverty and poor housing, Dawson criticized him as an outsider. He remained in office until his death.
D-DAY, 1944. D-Day was the name given to the start of the Allied invasion of Normandy (code named “Overlord”) in World War II. Initially planned for 5 June 1944, it was delayed by bad weather and finally took place on 6 June. It involved the successful landing of 130,000 troops on five beaches—Gold, Juno, and Sword (British and French) and Utah and Omaha (American).
DEMOCRATIC PARTY. The Democratic Party is one of the two major political parties in the United States, the other being the Republican Party. After a number of years in the 1890s as the second party, the Democrats gained control first of Congress and then of the White House with the election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912. They held a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives from 1913 to 1917 and maintained a majority in the Senate from 1917 to 1919. However, after 1919 the Democrats were divided on the issues of prohibition, the League of Nations, and ethnic and racial issues and lost the presidency in 1920, 1924, and 1928 to overwhelming defeats. The divisions between rural and urban areas and the South and North persisted throughout much of the 1920s, and the party was not able to unite again until the election of 1932 when, in the face of the Great Depression, they unified behind Franklin D. Roosevelt and recaptured control of both the House with 310 seats and the Senate with 60. Their control of Congress increased with larger majorities in both houses in 1934, and again in 1936 (331 in the House, 76 in the Senate).
Under Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Democratic Party moved away from its traditional laissez faire position and notions of limited federal intervention to one of support for economic regulation and federal provision of social welfare for the unemployed and elderly. The party was increasingly identified with the urban, ethnic, and immigrant population; African Americans; women; and trade unions. It also continued to be the party of the South, and with this combined strength it was able to dominate both houses in Congress until the election of the postwar 80th Congress in 1946, and again with the 83rd Congress in 1952. However, following the “court packing” attempt in 1937 and the further recession that year, from 1938 the southern element often combined with Republicans to form a “conservative coalition” and block reforms, and the divisions became increasingly strained on issues of civil rights. In a foretaste of things to come in the 1960s, in 1948 the Dixiecrats bolted from the party because of Harry S. Truman’s creation of a Committee on Civil Rights and his subsequent order to begin the desegregation the armed forces. Although they returned to the fold after the election, the fragile structure disintegrated in the 1970s and 1990s with further political realignments along regional and ideological lines.
DENNIS V. UNITED STATES (341 U.S. 494 1951). Eugene Dennis was general secretary of the Communist Party of the United States of America and was one of 11 communists convicted under the Smith Act in 1949. The Supreme Court upheld the charges in this decision.
DESTROYERS-FOR-BASES AGREEMENT, 1940. The Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement was an agreement signed in September 1940 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill granting the United States 99-year rent free leases on naval and air bases on British possessions in the Caribbean in return for 50 out-of-service destroyers. The agreement indicated the growing support for Britain by the Roosevelt administration and angered some isolationists. It was justified on the grounds that it strengthened U.S. security.
DETROIT RACE RIOT, 1943. One of the major centers of war production during World War II, Detroit, Michigan, attracted an influx of more than 500,000 people, of whom some 60,000 were African American. This rapid increase in population put a huge strain on housing and transportation. For African Americans, the situation was particularly acute as they tended to be restricted to existing black areas. The attempt to provide public housing with the Sojourner Truth Project led to violent confrontations in 1942. There were strikes in automobile plants when black workers were promoted. On 20 June 1943, a confrontation between blacks and whites in the amusement park on Belle Isle quickly escalated into a full riot. As mobs of white people hunted down black workers and pulled them from trams and buses, African Americans responded by attacking white-owned property. The riot was finally brought under control after three days with the arrival of 6,000 federal troops. By then, 34 people were dead, 25 of them black. More than 1,000 people were injured, and almost 2,000 were arrested. See also HARLEM RACE RIOT, 1935; HARLEM RACE RIOT, 1945; LOS ANGELES RIOT.
DEWEY, THOMAS EDMUND (1902–1971). Born in Owosso, Michigan, Thomas E. Dewey studied music and law at the University of Michigan and graduated in 1923. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1925 and began working on Wall Street. He also became active in the Republican Party. In 1931, Dewey was appointed assistant U.S. district attorney for New York’s Southern District, and in 1933 he became district attorney. He was appointed special prosecutor to deal with organized crime and in 1936 secured the conviction of the New York Mafia leader Charles (“Lucky”) Luciano. His success led him to become the first Republican to be elected district attorney for New York County (Manhattan) in 1937. He narrowly lost the election for state governor in 1938, losing to Herbert Lehman. However, he won the election in 1942 and was reelected in 1946 and 1950. As governor he introduced antidiscrimination laws in 1945, established New York’s state university system in 1947, approved the building of the New York State Thruway, developed public health programs, and balanced the state’s budget.
Dewey’s undoubted achievements led to his nomination as the Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948. Although he was quite easily defeated by the incumbent, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1944, in 1948 he was regarded as the favorite against Harry S. Truman and a divided Democratic Party. Dewey did not campaign very effectively, and Truman pulled out a famous upset. Dewey did not stand again in 1952, but he supported the nomination of Dwight D. Eisenhower for the presidency and Richard M. Nixon for the vice presidency. He retired from the governorship of New York in 1955 and took up private law practice in New York City.
DEWITT, JOHN LESESNE (1880–1962). Born in Nebraska, John DeWitt entered the U.S. infantry in 1898. He served in France during World War I and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. After the war, he served in the War Department with the General Staff as quartermaster general, and he served briefly in the Philippines. DeWitt was attached to the U.S. Army War College from 1937 to 1938 and in 1939 was made head of the West Defense Command. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, DeWitt strongly advocated the relocation of Japanese Americans on the grounds that they posed a threat of subversion and sabotage. He argued that the fact that no such acts had been carried out only indicated that they were likely in the future. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt had approved the relocation in 1942, DeWitt had charge of the exclusion of Japanese Americans from West Coast areas and their removal to relocation camps. He became commandant of the Army and Navy College in 1943 and remained there until he retired in 1947. In 1954, Congress made DeWitt a general.
DEWSON, MARGARET WILLIAMS (“MOLLY”) (1874–1962). Born in Quincy, Massachusetts, Molly Dewson graduated from Wellesley College in 1897 and joined the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. She became an active campaigner to establish a minimum wage for women in Boston. From 1919 until 1924 Dewson was the research secretary for the National Consumers’ League and worked with Felix Frankfurter in preparing arguments in favor of minimum wages for women in the 1920s. From 1924 until 1931 she was president of the New York Consumers’ League, and through her activities she befriended Eleanor Roosevelt. She supported Alfred E. Smith’s campaign in 1928 and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. As head of the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee from 1933 until 1937, Dewson worked to increase the representation of women in the Democratic Party and did much to mobilize support among female voters. She also supported the appointment of Frances Perkins as secretary of labor and was involved in drafting the Social Security Act. In 1937, Dewson became a member of the Social Security Board but retired in 1938 due to ill-health.
DIETRICH, MARLENE (1901–1992). The German-born actress and singer was born Maria Magdalena Dietrich in Berlin, Germany, but she adopted Marlene as her stage name. She made a number of successful films in Germany before moving to Hollywood in 1930. There she made Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Scarlet Empress (1934), and The Devil Is a Woman (1935) and became one of the highest-paid actors. After a lull, her career picked up in 1939 with the Western Destry Rides Again. Having refused to return to Germany, Dietrich became a U.S. citizen in 1939, and during the war she worked tirelessly in bond drives and in 1943 gave up making films to work with the United Service Organizations to entertain troops in the United States and Europe. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honor for her war services.
Dietrich returned to her film career after the war and made several films in the late 1940s and 1950s. She also developed a singing career. In the late 1950s, she appeared in Witness for the Prosecution (1958), Touch of Evil (1958), and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Her last film appearance was in Just a Gigolo (1978). See also CINEMA.
DILLINGER, JOHN HERBERT (1903–1934). Notorious bank robber John Dillinger was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1923 but deserted, received a dishonorable discharge, and returned to Indiana. In 1924, he was jailed for robbery. He was released in 1933 and jailed again shortly afterward in Lima, Ohio, but escaped. Captured again in Tucson, Arizona, Dillinger was in Crown Point jail in Indiana when he escaped in March 1934, and he began robbing banks in the Midwest while on the run. His gang, including “Baby Face” Nelson, was responsible for 10 deaths during robberies and encounters with the law. Despite this, Dillinger was regarded as a “Robin Hood” character by some people for his attack on banks and several jailbreaks. Having crossed state lines, he became “Public Enemy Number One” for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In April, surrounded after a tip-off, Dillinger and his gang made yet another escape, killing an FBI agent in the process. On 22 July 1934, Dillinger was finally cornered coming out of a movie theater in Chicago and was shot dead. After his death, some doubt was cast on whether it was in fact Dillinger who had been killed, but fingerprints and other evidence pointed to him. See also HOOVER, JOHN (J.) EDGAR.
DIMAGGIO, JOSEPH (JOE) PAUL (1914–1899). The son of Sicilian immigrants, Joe DiMaggio was born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio in California. He dropped out of high school and in 1932 joined the San Francisco Seals minor league baseball team rather than fish with his father. In 1934, he was sold for $25,000 and five players to the New York Yankees, although he played the 1935 season with the Seals because of a knee injury. The Yankees won the World Series in each of his first four seasons. DiMaggio played for the Yankees until his retirement in 1951 and was one of the outstanding baseball players of the century. Known for his grace both on and off the field, he was a stylish player renowned for his fielding and hitting. He hit 28 home runs in his first season, and upon retirement he had the fifth most career home runs, with a total of 361. In 1941, his 56-gamehitting streak gripped the nation, and he became known as “Joltin’ Joe” and the “Yankee Clipper.” In February 1942, asking for no special treatment, DiMaggio enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force and served as a physical education instructor and played exhibition games for the troops through World War II. He resumed his baseball career in 1946 and led the Yankees to four more victories in the World Series.
Although he won his third title as most valuable player in 1947 and was the first player to earn $100,000 in 1949, DiMaggio retired when he felt his game begin to decline. In 1954, he married movie star Marilyn Monroe, but they were divorced after less than a year. It seemed that they were planning to reconcile just before her suicide in 1962. DiMaggio was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955 and in 1969 was named the greatest living baseball player. He is remembered in several songs, most notably Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.” His brothers Vince and Dominic were also successful baseball players, Vince with the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates and Dom with the Boston Red Sox. See also SPORT.
DIXIECRATS. The Dixiecrats were members of the States’ Rights Party formed by southerners who bolted from the Democratic Party convention in 1948 due to the adoption of a strong civil rights plank and following Harry S. Truman’s call for the beginning of desegregation in the U.S. armed forces. With the slogan “Segregation Forever,” they nominated Strom Thurmond, governor of South Carolina, as their presidential candidate. In the election, they carried Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, and won 39 Electoral College votes. Despite this and defections to the liberal Progressive Party, Truman won the election. The Dixiecrats reappeared as the American Independent Party behind the candidacy of Governor George Wallace of Alabama in 1968 in what led to a realignment of political party structures in the United States.
DONOVAN, WILLIAM (BILL) JOSEPH (1883–1959). William (Bill) Donovan was born in Buffalo, New York. He attended St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, Niagara University, and Columbia University, where he graduated with an A.B. in 1905 and an LL.B. in 1907. He initially worked as a lawyer in Buffalo. In 1912, he formed and led a cavalry unit that served in the border action in Mexico in 1916, and during World War I he served with the 69th Infantry and was wounded several times and awarded the Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery.
After the war, Donovan resumed his legal practice but in 1922 was appointed U.S. attorney general for New York’s Western District. He campaigned unsuccessfully as the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of the state. He was also unsuccessful when he ran for the governorship in 1932. In 1924, Donovan was appointed assistant attorney general, a post he held until 1929 when he began to practice law in New York City. In 1940, he was sent to England by Frank Knox to report on Great Britain’s ability to continue to fight against Nazi Germany in World War II. In July 1941, he was appointed as coordinator of information to gather intelligence, and on 13 June 1942 this became the Office of Strategic Services with Donovan as its head. Donovan was influential in the decision to establish the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. In 1953, Donovan was appointed as ambassador to Thailand, but he was forced to resign due to poor health in 1954.
DOOLITTLE RAID. On 18 April 1942, 16 twin-engine B-25 bombers led by Colonel James H. Doolittle took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet in the Pacific and flew some 600 miles to bomb Tokyo, Japan. Although the physical damage to Japan was slight, the attack had great psychological significance, boosting morale in the United States and embarrassing the Japanese naval command. Their determination to keep the U.S. Navy from mounting further attacks led to the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and a major Japanese defeat.
Fifteen of the U.S. bombers involved in the raid made it to China, and most of the crew survived. However, eight were captured by the Japanese, three were executed, one died, and four were freed at the end of the war. See also WORLD WAR II.
DOUGLAS, HELEN GAHAGAN (1900–1980). Born Helen Gahagan in New Jersey, Helen Douglas (she married actor Melvyn Douglas in 1931) attended Barnard College before starting an acting career in 1922. She was well-known for theater and opera performances on Broadway, including Fashions for Men (1922), Chains (1923), and Young Woodley (1925); made several tours of Europe; and appeared in one film, She, in 1935. Having moved to California, Douglas became involved in Democratic Party politics. She served on the National Advisory Committee to the Works Progress Administration and also with the National Youth Administration and was a Democratic National Committee member from 1940 to 1944. She was elected to the House of Representatives in 1944 and served until 1951. In 1950, she stood for election to the Senate but was defeated by Republican Richard M. Nixon, who accused her of being “pink down to her underwear.” She continued to be active in politics speaking and giving lectures and in 1952 appeared again on Broadway in First Lady. She also authored a book, The Eleanor Roosevelt We Remember (1963).
DOUGLAS, WILLIAM ORVILLE (1898–1981). The longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court, William Douglas was born in Maine, Minnesota, but his family moved to Washington, where he attended Whitman College. After briefly teaching in high school, he went to Columbia Law School, where he graduated in 1925. Douglas practiced law for a short time before accepting a teaching position at Yale law school. In 1934, he joined the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and became chairman in 1937. In 1939, he succeeded Louis D. Brandeis on the Supreme Court, where he became a strong defender of First Amendment rights of free speech. With Hugo Black, he opposed several decisions upholding convictions against left-wing groups during the McCarthy period. In 1953, he granted a stay of execution for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg on a technicality relating to their sentence. However, his decision was overruled by Frederick Vinson, and there was a short-lived attempt to impeach Douglas for his action.
Douglas did not have the impact on the court that he might have because, with Black, he was generally in the minority, and his dissenting opinions were often too hastily written to be memorable. In the 1960s, he found more liberal support in the court, but his colorful personal life (he was divorced three times), support for radical causes, and involvement in a private foundation led to a further but unsuccessful attempt to impeach him in 1970. He was a strong supporter of environmental causes, and in one case he held that inanimate objects such as trees had rights. He retired in 1975.
DUBINSKY, DAVID (1892–1982). Born David Dobnievski in Poland, Dubinsky was imprisoned in Siberia for his early trade union activities. He immigrated to the United States in 1911, found work as a cutter in the garment industry, and joined the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and the Socialist Party of America. He became secretary-treasurer of the union in 1929 and president in 1932. He held the position until 1966. In 1934, he became vice president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) but left to help form the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1936. He was one of the leading trade union supporters of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, and in 1936 he left the Socialist Party to help found the American Labor Party (ALP). He left the CIO in 1938, and the ILGWU was independent until 1945 when it rejoined the AFL. Dubinsky left the ALP in 1944 and was one of the founders of the Liberal Party. He was also active in Americans for Democratic Action, formed in 1947 to oppose communism. After the war, Dubinsky was involved in combating racketeering in the unions and was a member of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations Committee on Ethical Practices.
DUMBARTON OAKS CONFERENCE, 1944. Dumbarton Oaks is a residence in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., that was the location of the meeting between representatives of the United States, Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union between 21 August and 7 October 1944 that established the principles on which to create a United Nations (UN) organization. It led to the calling of a further conference of all Allied nations at the San Francisco Conference in April 1946 to establish the UN.
DUST BOWL. The Dust Bowl was the title given to an area of the United States plagued first by drought in 1930 through 1933 and then hit by a series of high winds that swept away the topsoil from 1933 through 1937 and exacerbated the plight of many Midwestern farmers during the Great Depression. Although it covered a huge area across the Great Plains, from the Canadian border southward, its worst effects were concentrated in Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Texas, and the circumstances led to the displacement of thousands of migrants, often referred to as “Okies.” Government soil conservation and reforestation schemes under the New Deal were implemented to tackle the problems of soil erosion that caused the Dust Bowl. See also AGRICULTURE; STEINBECK, JOHN ERNST.