Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WWII & Postwar
New Deal or not, some felt what the country really needed to break out of the Depression
was a good war. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, fi-
nally brought the USA into the fighting that had been going on throughout the world since
1939.
The Texas war machine was brought back to full capacity. With the activation of all its
bases, the creation of more than a dozen new ones and more than 40 airfields, Texas be-
came a major preparing ground for WWII soldiers - almost 1.5 million were trained in the
state.
The economic prosperity in the USA after WWII was unprecedented. The wartime eco-
nomy had created a powerhouse, and when the fighting stopped in 1945, industry didn't
want to stop with it. For the next 15 years, the US economy surged, fueled by low con-
sumer credit rates and a defense-based economy that plowed money into manufacturing
military hardware (as well as ever more automobiles and household appliances). Most
people were feeling pretty good. So good, in fact, that a whole passel of Texans was born in
this period: the baby boomers.
HOUSTON & THE SPACE RACE
Upon his election as vice president, one of the first things Lyndon Johnson did was to work on instituting well-fun-
ded federal programs back home in Texas. The most notable of these was the relocation of the National Aeronaut-
ics and Space Administration's (NASA) Mission Control from Florida to Texas. At the time, the Mercury space
missions were just getting under way. As the 'space race' between the USA and the USSR heated up, the forward-
thinking vice president realized the enormous financial potential. He lobbied congress mercilessly and in 1961 was
victorious. Although launches continued to leave from Cape Canaveral, Mission Control and the astronaut training
program were moved to the Manned Space Flight Center (now, cozily enough, called the Johnson Space Center)
near Houston.
