GABLE, (WILLIAM) CLARK (1901–1960). Actor Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio. He left home to tour with an acting troupe in 1917 and then worked as a lumberjack and a telephone lineman before returning to theater in 1924. After several minor parts on Broadway, he made his first appearances in movies as an extra. After some success on the stage in The Last Mile in 1930, he signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After appearing in a number of films with leading female stars, including Strange Interlude (1932), Polly of the Circus (1932), Hold Your Man (1933), and Dancing Lady (1933), he won an Oscar for his role in It Happened One Night (1934) and was the star in such films as Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), China Seas (1935), San Francisco (1936), and several others. His standing as one of the world’s leading actors was confirmed in his iconic performance as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939) and the immortal line, “Quite frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”
Following the outbreak of World War II, Gable enlisted in the army air corps and won the Distinguished Flying Cross for his bravery in combat. He returned to Hollywood after the war and successfully resumed his career making several more films, his last being The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe in 1960. See also CINEMA.
GARBO, GRETA (1905–1990). Movie star Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden. Her work as an advertising model in a department store led to a career in film beginning with Peter the Tramp (1920). From 1922 to 1924, Garbo studied at the Royal Swedish Dramatic Theater, and she acquired her stage name and reputation as an actress in The Story of Gosta Berling (1924). Following her success in Sweden, she moved to Hollywood in 1925, where her beauty and husky voice enabled her to play roles of sexual passion. Garbo made a total of 24 films in Hollywood. Her films, in which she often played the tragic heroine, included Flesh and the Devil (1927), Love (1927), The Kiss (1929), Anna Christie (1930), Romance, (1930), Mata Hari (1932), Grand Hotel (1932), Anna Karenina (1935), Camille (1936), and Ninotchka (1939). The attempt to change her screen image in Two-Faced Woman in 1941 was not a success, and Garbo did not make another movie. She retired aged 36 and moved to New York City to live a secluded life. During her career, she received four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for Anna Christie, Romance, Camille, and Ninotchka. Famous for the “Garbo mystique” that she deliberately fostered, she was given a special Oscar in 1954 for her unforgettable performances. See also CINEMA.
GARLAND, JUDY (1922–1969). Film star and singer Judy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, to a theater family. In 1926, the family moved to California, where Frances appeared with her sisters in a theater managed by their father. In 1934, they performed in Chicago as the Garlands, and in 1935 Frances was given a contract and a further name change by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Judy Garland’s first film was Every Sunday (1936). She made several more films and sang the hit song, “You Made Me Love You” in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937), before achieving her major breakthrough in The Wizard of Oz (1939), particularly with the hit song “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” Further hits followed when she paired with Mickey Rooney in Babes in Arms (1939), Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), and Ziegfeld Girl (1941), and with Gene Kelly in For Me and My Gal (1942). However, none of these matched Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Her film performances varied, often due to her addiction to barbiturates and troubled personal life. However, Garland had another major success with Fred Astaire in Easter Parade and the song “We’re a Couple of Swells” (1948). Although she made a considerable number of other films of varying quality, MGM fired her in 1950. In 1951, she was greeted with great acclaim following a series of performances at the London Palladium in England, and she had further film success in A Star is Born (1954).
Although she made several more films, Garland concentrated on her stage shows. After a physical collapse in 1959, she made another comeback in 1960 achieving an enormous hit with her performance at the Carnegie Hall in April 1961. Her final film was I Could Go on Singing in 1963. An unsuccessful television series in 1963, The Judy Garland Show, was followed by an overseas tour in 1969. She died in London after an overdose of barbiturates. See also CINEMA.
GARNER, JOHN NANCE (1868–1967). 30th vice president of the United States. John Nance Garner was born in a log cabin in Texas and after limited schooling he briefly attended Vanderbilt University, studied law, and qualified for the bar in 1890. Garner practiced law in Uvalde, Texas, where he became county judge from 1893 to 1896. He was elected as a Democrat to the state house of representatives in 1898 and to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1903. Garner served until 1933. He was not a conspicuous legislator. It was eight years before he made his first speech, but he gained power by virtue of seniority. Garner eventually became Speaker of the House from 1931 until 1933, when he was elected vice president to Franklin D. Roosevelt. His experience gave him a crucial role as liaison with Congress, and the Texas connection gave him influence with a number of key figures, and he was reelected in 1936. He has been described as the “most powerful vice president in history.” Initially a supporter of the New Deal, Garner was increasingly unhappy with the social welfare and prolabor aspects of Roosevelt’s program. He became openly hostile when Roosevelt attempted to alter the composition of the Supreme Court in 1937 and stood against FDR for the nomination in 1940. When he was unsuccessful, Garner left politics and retired to his ranch in Uvalde.
GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE (GATT). The GATT was signed by 23 countries on 1 January 1948 following the preliminary agreement reached in Havana, Cuba, the previous year. Intended to prevent the economic competition that had contributed to the Great Depression in the 1930s, the agreement was an attempt to reduce international trade barriers by removing tariffs and established “favored nation” status between participating nations. Further reductions in tariff barriers were reached in 1949, 1951, and 1955.
GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (GDR). On 7 October 1949, Soviet occupation forces in East Germany established the GDR in response to the earlier creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in West Germany. It was governed by the communist Socialist Unity Party and joined the Soviet-led economic bloc, COMECON, in 1950 and the Warsaw Pact in 1955. The imposition of Soviet-style institutions and a police state led many people to flee West until the border was closed in 1952. A workers’ uprising in East Berlin was brutally suppressed in 1953, and the continued flow of refugees through West Berlin led to the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Improved relations with the FRG led to mutual recognition in 1972 and the inclusion of both states in the United Nations in 1973. Popular unrest continued, however, and in 1989 mass demonstrations brought about the collapse of the communist regime, the disassembling of the Berlin Wall, and paved the way to reunification in 1990.
GERMAN-AMERICAN BUND. An organization of German Americans sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, the German-American Bund had its origins in the Friends of New Germany and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1933. A German naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1924, Fritz Kuhn took over its leadership in 1936. At most, the Bund attracted approximately 25,000 members but also had supporters in William Dudley Pelley’s Silver Shirts. Some 20,000 supporters gathered at a rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City on 19 February 1939 and heard Kuhn attack Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal as a Jewish conspiracy. The Bund was outlawed once the United States entered World War II, and many of its members, including Kuhn, were interned. Kuhn was deported to Germany after the war.
GERMANY. Following the defeat in World War I and the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in November 1918, a new German Federal Republic, the Weimar Republic was established. The war officially ended with the signing of the Versailles Treaty in June 1919. However, because the treaty provided for the establishment of a League of Nations, it was rejected by the U.S. Congress. Formal hostilities between Germany and the United States were ended by a two-nation agreement in 1921. The Versailles Treaty also imposed huge reparation payments on Germany that, combined with the economic disruption brought about by the war, caused considerable instability in the German economy. Economic collapse in 1922 and 1923 led to a renegotiation of reparations under the Dawes Plan (1924) and again in 1929 under the Young Plan. Having survived the economic crises and an attempted putsch led by Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1923, the Weimar Republic appeared to have achieved some stability until it was hit by the effects of the Great Depression. By 1931, 6 million workers—30 percent of the labor force—were unemployed, and the country was plunged into economic and political chaos. Hitler and the Nazi (National Socialist) Party capitalized on this crisis and made major gains in the elections of September 1930. In the July 1932 elections, the Nazis emerged as the largest single party and were able to capture power by forming a coalition with conservative groups. On 30 January 1933, Hitler became chancellor and was granted virtually unlimited power in March. Following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler became the Reich’s führer.
Under Hitler’s leadership, Germany embarked on a program to restore the economy through a program of public works and rearmament and to restore national pride by overturning the Versailles Treaty and regaining lost territory. At the same time, the anti-Semitic and anticommunist policies of the Nazis were implemented, and Jews and political opponents were placed in labor and concentration camps or executed. The attacks on Jews came to a climax in November 1938 when in “Kristallnacht” (Night of Broken Glass), homes, shops, and businesses were attacked and looted. Many Jews sought to flee the persecution, and some 60,000 found refuge in the United States between 1933 and 1938. However, members of the Evian Conference failed to agree on a response to the deepening refugee crisis among other nations, and many were unable to escape.
In 1936, German troops reoccupied the Rhineland, and the search for lebensraum in the east led to the Anschluss with Austria in 1938 and the annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938 and of Czechoslovakia itself in March 1939. Finally, on 1 September 1939 German armies invaded Poland. As Great Britain and France had guaranteed Polish sovereignty, this attack led to the outbreak of World War II. The attack on Poland was preceded by the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact with the Soviet Union on 28 August 1939 that guaranteed the neutrality of either party in the event of war. It also included agreed spheres of influence that led to the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland as well as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Germany had also concluded agreements with fascist Italy and Japan in 1936, and these were further strengthened in the Tripartite Agreement of September 1940.
After their speedy occupation of Poland, in April 1940 the German armies turned to Western Europe, quickly overrunning Denmark and Norway and then invading Belgium and the Netherlands in May. French and British forces were defeated, and the remnants of the British armies were forced to withdraw at Dunkirk. France surrendered on 22 June 1940. The German air force launched bombing raids on Britain but was halted in the “Battle of Britain.” German U-boats began to attack U.S. ships, providing Lend-Lease supplies to the British, but Hitler did not declare war on the United States until after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. However, the British and Americans were not able to launch their invasion of Europe until D-Day 1944, and it was in the east that Germany first faced defeat. Ignoring the nonaggression pact, on 22 June 1941 Hitler launched an invasion of Soviet Russia to garner oil and food supplies, overthrow communism, and gain more living space. Initially successful, German armies became bogged down in the Russian winter and were halted at Moscow in 1942 and Stalingrad in 1943. They were forced to retreat, and faced with the combined Allied forces on two fronts, were forced to surrender on 8 May 1945.
As agreed at the Potsdam Conference, following its defeat, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, with the Soviet Union in the East and Britain, France, and the United States in the West. Berlin was also divided between the four victorious powers. Mounting disagreement between the former Allies led the United States, Britain, and France to agree to the creation of a West German state on 31 May 1948, complete with a new currency. The USSR responded by imposing a blockade on Berlin. On 21 September 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany came into being, with its capital in Bonn. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic was established in the east under Soviet control, with its capital in East Berlin. The state of war with Germany was ended by the Western Allies in 1951, and complete sovereignty was granted to West Germany in May 1955. German membership to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization enabled British and U.S. troops to remain present in the country. Economic assistance through the Marshall Plan contributed to the “German economic miracle,” which saw West Germany become an increasingly powerful economy in the 1950s. Germany continued to be a source of tension between the East and West until the end of the Cold War and the reunification of the country in 1990. See also BERLIN, BERLIN AIRLIFT.
GERMANY, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF (FRG). Established on 23 May 1949 and known as West Germany, the FRG consisted of the nine regions or states occupied by British, French, and U.S. forces after World War II. This was a consequence of economic unification to facilitate administration of the Marshall Plan. The move to statehood accelerated following the Berlin Airlift. In 1949, parliamentary elections were held and a new federal government under Konrad Adenauer established. In response to the creation of the FRG, Soviet forces of occupation in the east established the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in October 1949, and the divided Germany remained at the center of the Cold War. In 1954, the FRG joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Improved relations with the Soviet Union and more especially with the GDR in the 1960s led to mutual recognition of the two states in 1972 and their admission to the United Nations in 1973. The collapse of the GDR led to reunification in 1990.
GERSHWIN, GEORGE (1898–1937). Born Jacob Gershvin, George Gershwin became one of America’s most famous composers of orchestral works, popular songs, jazz, and musical comedies. He worked as a pianist for a music publisher from 1914 to 1917, when he became a theater pianist. In 1919, he achieved his first hit with “Swanee,” later recorded by Al Jolson. From 1920 on, Gershwin composed musical reviews, Broadway plays, and orchestral pieces. His best-known works were Rhapsody in Blue (1923), Piano Concerto in F (1925), An American in Paris (1928), and the opera written with Ira and based on the novel by DuBose Heyward, Porgy and Bess (1935), all notable for their combination of jazz and orchestral music.
Together with his brother Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin composed many hit songs for musicals. Among the best-known songs in these were “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch over Me,” “ ’S Wonderful,” “Embraceable You,” and “I got Rhythm.” In 1936, the Gershwins went to Hollywood, where they wrote the music for Shall We Dance? (1937). Starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the movie included such hits as “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” The Gershwins provided the music for two more movies, A Damsel in Distress (1937) and The Goldwyn Follies (1938), before George’s death. Gershwin’s music was incorporated into a number of films after his death, most notably Rhapsody in Blue (1945), An American in Paris (1951), and Manhattan (1979). In 1998, Gershwin was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer prize for his contributions to musical writing. See also CINEMA.
GERSHWIN, IRA (1896–1983). Born Israel Gershvin, Ira was the brother of George Gershwin. Ira provided the lyrics for many of George’s compositions including the songs for the musicals Lady Be Good (1924), Tip-toes (1925), Oh Kay! (1926), Funny Face (1927), Strike Up the Band (1927), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Of Thee I Sing (1931). From 1936 Ira provided the lyrics for George’s music in a number of Hollywood movies. Following George’s death, Ira wrote the lyrics for composer Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark (1940), and Jerome Kern’s Cover Girl (1944), as well as The Firebrand of Florence (1945), Park Avenue (1946), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), A Star is Born (1954), and The Country Girl (1954). In addition to further collaboration with Weill, Ira also completed film scores based on George’s notebooks for The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1946) and Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). He was involved in the making of An American in Paris (1951) which incorporated some of his and George’s earlier work and which won an Academy Award. His annotated collection of more than 100 lyrics, Lyrics on Several Occasions (1959) was widely acclaimed. See also CINEMA; HARBURG, EDGAR YIPSEL.
G.I. BILL OF RIGHTS. See SELECTIVE SERVICEMEN’S READJUSTMENT ACT.
GLASS, CARTER (1858–1946). Carter Glass left school at the age of 14 and held various types of employment before becoming a reporter in Virginia in 1880. He eventually became a newspaper editor and owner. He served in the state senate from 1899 to 1903 as a Democrat and then represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1902 to 1919 and in the U.S. Senate from 1920 until his death. An advocate of banking reform, he sponsored the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 and was secretary of the Treasury between 1918 and 1920. Glass was a member of the Democratic National Committee from 1916 to 1928 and, unusual for a southerner, he supported Alfred E. Smith in 1928. In 1932, with Representative Henry Steagall, he cosponsored the act that kept the United States on the gold standard. In 1933 he cosponsored the Glass-Steagall Act that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Increasingly, however, as an advocate of states’ rights, Glass opposed the New Deal. He did support President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s foreign policy and opposed isolationism.
GLASS-STEAGALL ACT. See BANKING ACT, 1933.
GOLD RESERVE ACT, 1934. Intended as an inflationary policy, the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 enabled the president to authorize the purchase of U.S. minted gold at prices to be determined by him and to establish it as a reserve for paper currency. Gold was to be impounded in the Treasury. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the price of gold at $35 per ounce, 59 percent of its pre-1933 level.
“GOOD NEIGHBOR” POLICY. In his inaugural address on 4 March 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that in foreign affairs, the United States should be committed to “the policy of the good neighbor.” This was confirmed by Cordell Hull at the meeting of American states in Montevideo in December 1933, when he declared that “no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another.” While to some extent this was a continuation of the policy initiated by Herbert Hoover, it officially was only ratified in the Senate in 1934. In 1934 a treaty was also signed with Cuba abrogating the amendments to the Cuban constitution imposed under the Platt Amendment of 1902. The U.S. marines were withdrawn from Haiti, and in 1936 the United States abandoned the right to intervene in Panama. Reciprocal trade agreements were also reached with a number of Latin American countries. See also CHAPULTEPEC AGREEMENT; ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES (OAS); RIO PACT.
GOODMAN, BENNY (1909–1986). The man who was to become “the King of Swing” was born Benjamin David Goodman to Jewish immigrant parents in Chicago, Illinois. Goodman began studying the clarinet at the age of 10 and left school at 14 to begin playing professionally. In 1925, he joined Ben Pollack’s orchestra, and he made his first recording in 1926. Goodman began performing as a solo artist and with different ensembles in 1929, making a number of radio broadcasts and recordings. In 1934, he formed his own band in New York City, and his was one of three bands to play on the three-hour National Biscuit Company radio program Let’s Dance. His band included drummer Gene Krupa and pianist and arranger Fletcher Henderson, and they had a number of hit records, including, Stompin’ at the Savoy (1935) and Don’t Be That Way (1938).
In 1935, the Goodman band began a national tour. It was not successful until August of that year when a performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles provoked an enthusiastic response from the audience who began jitterbugging in the aisles. Goodman began to add black musicians to the lineup, including pianist Teddy Wilson, trumpeter Cootie Williams, and guitarist Charlie Christian. Their hits included “Bugle Call Rag,” “One O’Clock Jump,” and “Sing, Sing, Sing.” After playing to packed houses at the Paramount Theater in New York in 1937, Goodman and his band appeared at Carnegie Hall in 1938 in what is regarded as a historic concert marking the pinnacle of the swing era. During the war years, the popularity of swing began to decline, and it was difficult to maintain big band performances or produce records. Goodman gave the occasional concert and recorded V-discs for the troops. From 1942 to 1944, he appeared in a number of films, including The Powers Girl (1943) and The Gang’s All Here (1943). He also played and recorded a number of classical pieces. In 1948, he appeared in the movie A Song Is Born with Tommy Dorsey, Lionel Hampton, and Louis Armstrong.
During the 1950s, Goodman performed widely and took part in a number of international tours, some sponsored by the State Department. The film The Benny Goodman Story appeared in 1955. In 1961, he toured Latin America for the first time, and in 1962 he visited the Soviet Union. He even publicly debated with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev about the merits of jazz. Goodman continued performing and recording until the end. He put on his final concert in 1986 just days before his death. He received numerous awards and titles in recognition of his contribution to music. See also CINEMA.
GRABLE, BETTY (1916–1973). The serviceman’s favorite pin-up girl during World War II was born Elizabeth Ruth Grable in St. Louis, Missouri. She began her film career in blackface in Happy Days in 1929 and had small roles in several films throughout the 1930s before achieving some success in Dubarry Was a Lady in 1939. She signed a contract with 20th Century Fox and starred in more than half a dozen films during World War II. In 1943, she posed in a bathing costume for a photograph that became iconic. It was named as one of 100 photos that changed the world by Life magazine. The best-paid female star, Grable’s legs were reputedly insured for $1 million each. One of her wartime movies was appropriately entitled Pin Up Girl (1944). She made several more films after the war, including Lady in Ermine (1948), My Blue Heaven (1950), and her last film, How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). See also CINEMA
GRAND COULEE DAM. Construction of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington began in 1933 and was completed in 1942 as part of the Columbia River Reclamation Project. At the time, it was the largest concrete dam in the world and provided power and irrigation for 11 western states. See also COLUMBIA RIVER PROJECT.
GREAT BRITAIN. Along with Germany, France, and Spain, Great Britain was one of the leading Western European nations at the end of the 19th century and a major imperial power. However, although victorious in 1918, following the devastating effects of World War I, Great Britain suffered from political instability and uneven economic development. While such new industries as chemicals, electrical goods, and automobiles began to grow, particularly in the 1930s, such older staple industries as coal mining, steel, and shipbuilding were in decline. Unemployment never fell below 10 percent in the 1920s, and with the onset of the Great Depression after 1929, the rate rose to more than 20 percent. The nation was also beset by labor conflict, with major strikes occurring in 1919 and the General Strike in 1926. After 1920, political power shifted from the centrist Liberal Party to the Conservative Party, with a brief minority Labour Government in 1924. Labour again regained power as a minority government in 1929, but faced by the economic crisis, it collapsed in 1932 to be replaced by a National Government consisting of some Labour MPs, Conservatives, and Liberals. Leadership passed from Ramsay Macdonald (Labour) to Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) and finally in 1937 to Neville Chamberlain (Conservative).
The National Government was increasingly forced to respond to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany, and the Chamberlain administration was generally associated with the policy of appeasement that allowed Hitler to rearm and embark on expansion, first into the Rhineland, then Austria, and then Czechoslovakia between 1936 and 1939. Following the meeting between German, French, and British representatives at Munich in September 1938 in which the Sudetenland was ceded to Hitler, Chamberlain claimed to have achieved “peace with honor” and “peace in our time.” However, when it became clear that Germany next threatened Poland, the British and French issued guarantees that they would maintain Polish independence. Thus when German armies invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Britain and France declared war on 3 September, and World War II had begun.
After a period known as the “Phoney War,” in which all sides prepared their forces, in 1940 German armies quickly overran Denmark and Norway and in May launched their assault on Belgium and the Netherlands. Faced with these setbacks, Chamberlain was forced to resign and was replaced as prime minister by Winston Churchill. Promising nothing more than “blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” Churchill proved an inspirational wartime leader with his famous “V sign” gesture for victory—the personification of British resistance. That resistance was evident during the Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force overcame the German Luftwaffe’s attempts to gain air superiority over Great Britain in July through October 1940, prior to a possible invasion. The British people also demonstrated a dogged determination in response to the “Blitz,” the German bombing of major towns and cities between September 1940 and May 1941 that claimed more than 43,000 civilian lives. These events were reported on by American reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Ernie Pyle, and Great Britain increasingly began to receive aid from the United States. Having secured a lend-lease agreement in March 1941, Churchill met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in August and agreed on a common vision for the postwar world based on the Atlantic Charter.
Once the United States entered the war in 1941, cooperation between the two major Allies was established and a common strategy agreed upon at the Arcadia Conference. Other wartime meetings between British, U.S., and Soviet leaders and representatives took place at Casablanca, Tehran, Moscow, Yalta, and Potsdam. Although there were strategic differences between the British and Americans, for example concerning the invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch) and then Sicily (Operation Husky), the two nations generally worked closely together. Beginning in 1942 U.S. forces were based in Great Britain, leading to the buildup of D-Day and the invasion of Normandy. U.S. wartime aid and military presence helped to cement the “special relationship,” which Churchill referred to after the war. Although Churchill was defeated in the elections of July 1945 and a Labour Government under Clement Attlee came to power, the relationship grew stronger when Great Britain, already impoverished by the war, faced economic crisis during the winter of 1946 and 1947. The British government indicated that it could no longer carry the burden of supporting royalist forces against left-wing groups in Greece and called upon the administration of Harry S. Truman for assistance. The response was the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, providing military and economic aid to European countries.
As one of the four occupying powers in postwar Germany, Great Britain worked closely with the United States during the Berlin Airlift in 1948. The British were also instrumental in securing the U.S. military commitment to the security of Europe in the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and from 1948 onward, U.S. Air Force bombers were located on British airfields. Britain actively supported the United States during the Cold War and committed 63,000 troops to the United Nations forces in the Korean War. However, British power was much diminished, and as parts of its empire gained independence, it could no longer claim to be a superpower. The Suez Crisis in 1956, in which Great Britain and Israel attacked Egypt, weakened its influence in the Middle East and strained relations with the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration. Great Britain increasingly favored Europe, joining the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. Nonetheless, relations with the United States continued to be strong, particularly during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, respectively.
GREAT DEPRESSION. The Great Depression was the worldwide economic crisis that followed the Wall Street Crash and the Depression that began in the United States in 1929. The calling in or cessation of foreign loans and the imposition of high tariffs led to a shrinking in international trade. As prices fell and trade shrank, the number of unemployed workers worldwide was estimated to be more than 30 million by 1933, with two-thirds of those in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States.
The Wall Street Crash was not the cause of the collapse but merely the trigger that revealed the underlying weaknesses of international markets and the U.S. economy in particular. The apparent prosperity of the “Roaring 1920s” masked a number of flaws, including the maldistribution of incomes, overproduction and buildup of inventories, falling farm prices, instability of banks, and imbalances in the international economy. The breakdown of financial institutions in the United States led to the failure of more than 5,000 banks between 1929 and 1932, and as money and credit dried up, businesses also reduced output or failed completely. Workers found their wages or hours of work cut, and many were laid off altogether. By 1933, industrial production in the United States had fallen to less than 50 percent of its 1929 levels. The automobile industry that had played such a key part in the prosperity of the 1920s was operating at 20 percent of its capacity.
Unemployment reached an estimated 17 million people, or 25 percent of the labor force. Farmers, already suffering in the 1920s, saw their situation further deteriorate as commodity prices fell by 55 percent between 1929 and 1932. Almost a quarter of farmers lost their property through foreclosures, and others were driven out by drought and dust storms in the early 1930s, joining the thousands of migrants—“Okies” and “Arkies,”—heading West. Urban workers too took to the road as 250,000 families lost their homes and jobs. Many men abandoned their families, and the number of female-headed households increased. Many women were forced to seek work, but gender-based discrimination increased as priority was often given to men. Similarly, African Americans found themselves “last hired, first fired,” and black unemployment rates were twice as high as those of whites. Prejudice against Hispanic Americans forced half a million to return to Mexico in the 1930s.
Many Americans began to protest as their economic plight worsened. Farmers destroyed produce or poured milk into the road, foreclosures were prevented by mob action, and unemployed workers marched in protests sometimes organized by socialists or communists. In 1932, veterans of World War I marched on Washington, D.C., as part of a Bonus Army calling for payment of war bonuses. Their forcible removal from the capital was the last nail in the political coffin of President Herbert Hoover, whose name had become synonymous with the Depression. Hoover’s inability to abandon a commitment to limited federal action led to his political defeat by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the election of 1932. Roosevelt promised the nation a “New Deal,” and the 1930s witnessed a series of programs aimed at bringing “relief, recovery, and reform.” The result of this political change was the transformation of U.S. politics and the beginning of a welfare state. However, although the situation was considerably alleviated by the New Deal, it was the expansion of industry that came with the World War II that finally ended the Depression. That was in part a result of the economic and political problems caused by the Great Depression in Europe and elsewhere.
GREEN, WILLIAM (1870–1952). William Green was born in Coshocton, Ohio. He left school at the age of 16 and became a coal miner and active trade unionist. From 1912 to 1914, Green was secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor, and he became vice president in 1913. In 1924, he succeeded Samuel Gompers as president and continued his predecessor’s conservative and rather undynamic approach. He opposed strikes, instead preaching the need for cooperation with business and management. Although Green agreed with industrial trade unions, having been an officer in the United Mine Workers of America, he resisted those people who founded the Committee of Industrial Organizations and the Congress of Industrial Organizations when it was formed in 1938, and he was highly critical of sit-down strikes.
Green supported much of the New Deal and served on the President’s Committee on Economic Security, National Recovery Administration, Management-Labor Policy Committee of the War Production Board, Economic Stabilization Committee in the Office of Economic Stabilization, and Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. During World War II, Green firmly supported the no-strike pledge. After the war, he mobilized opposition to the Taft-Hartley Act and disavowed any links with communism and established an International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. Such policies were supportive of President Harry S. Truman’s Cold War initiatives, like the Marshall Plan.
GROVES, LESLIE RICHARD (1896–1970). Born in Albany, New York, to a military family, Leslie Groves went to the University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and finally West Point, where he graduated in 1918. He was commissioned into the Army Corps of Engineers. He held a series of positions during the 1920s before joining the Office of Engineers in Washington, D.C., in 1931. Groves was involved in overseeing the construction of the Pentagon building for the War Department in 1941. In 1942, he was appointed brigadier general and military director of the Manhattan Project. It was Groves who selected J. Robert Oppenheimer to head the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 1945, Groves recommended that the atomic bomb be dropped on Japan, and he played a part in choosing the targets. He was appointed chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project in 1945. He retired in 1948 and became vice president of the Sperry Rand Corporation until 1961. His account of the Manhattan Project, Now It Can Be Told, was published in 1962.
GUADALCANAL. Guadalcanal, one the larger Solomon Islands, was attacked by the U.S. Navy and Marines on 7 August 1942 to prevent Japan from building an airfield enabling attacks on Australia during World War II. The assault was followed by a series of naval battles before U.S. forces achieved control of the island in February 1943. From there the United States was able to continue their “island hopping” campaign against Japanese forces.
GUTHRIE, WOODROW WILSON (“WOODY”) (1912–1967). Born in Okemah, Oklahoma, in 1927 Woody Guthrie moved to Pampa, Texas, where he learned to play the guitar and developed his skill as a singer/songwriter. He moved to California in 1937 and had his own radio show on KFVD in Los Angeles. Two years later, Guthrie was in New York, where he recorded songs and comments for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song and also made his first commercial collection, Dust Bowl Ballads. It was in these songs, including “Hard Travellin’” and “I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore,” that he captured the experiences of the “Okies”—the migrant families displaced from the Midwest states and the Dust Bowl.
In 1941, Guthrie worked for the Department of the Interior, but he left to become a merchant seaman. He was drafted near the end of the war and spent a year in the army. After the war, he briefly joined Pete Seeger and the Almanac Singers, who popularized songs of his, like “Good Night, Irene.” After spending time traveling across the United States, Guthrie returned to New York, where he was hospitalized with Huntington’s disease. During his career, he wrote more than 1,000 songs, including “This Land Is Our Land,” and he was an inspiration to his own son, Arlo Guthrie, as well as for many other singers in the 1960s, including Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. See also MUSIC.