Uncirculated History: The 1943 Steel Penny explores the coin’s origins and discusses relevant history regarding America’s introduction to World War II. This episode features interview segments from Professor Peter Kuznick, an expert on 20th century America.
TRANSCRIPTION
(MUSIC)
JAKE RAIMER: Hello! I’m your host, Jake Raimer, and this is “Uncirculated History,” where we discuss lesser-known historical facts and stories through American coinage.
JAKE RAIMER: This episode covers the 1943 steel penny. Although it’s a collector’s item today, the steel penny was born of a war-time shortage of copper—as copper was needed for shell casings and munitions during World War II. So how did a penny come to represent an era of xenophobia, racism, and sexism in America? Well, it all started with America entering World War II…
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(PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’S PEARL HARBOR SPEECH: DECEMBER 8, 1941)
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
PROFESSOR KUZNICK: The attack of Pearl Harbor was universally described as a sneak attack. We now know that the Japanese did plan to warn the United States that they were breaking relations. But that didn’t get communicated in time because of a technical screw up.
JAKE RAIMER: This is Peter Kuznick, a history professor at American University who is an expert on 20th century America.
PROFESSOR KUZNICK: Nearly 3000 people were killed. Much of the American fleet was destroyed on December 7, 1941. So that’s a big factor in American racist attitudes toward the Japanese. But on top of that, we’ve got the reports that came out about the treatment of American troops at Bataan.
JAKE RAIMER: From January to April, 1942, American and Filipino forces fought the Japanese on the Bataan Peninsula of the Philippines near Manila Bay.
(WWII BATTLE SOUND FX)
JAKE RAIMER:
A combined 76,000 soldiers from the American and Filipino forces surrendered. This was the largest American surrender since the Civil War. Shortly after, the American and Filipino prisoners of war were forced into the Bataan Death March.
(DEATH MARCH SOUND FX)
PROFESSOR KUZNICK: We’ve got the reports that came out about the treatment of American troops at Bataan. Not just Americans—also Filipinos, but the stories they’re about the castration, tying the prisoners to trees and using them for bayonet practice, burying people alive, vivisection, crucifixion horrible things that were done that was taking place mostly in forty-two.
JAKE RAIMER: Professor Kuznick went on the say that even though the reports regarding the mistreatment of POWs did not come out until 1944, the feelings Americans had towards the Japanese intensified considerably around this time.
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JAKE RAIMER: On February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This allowed the secretary of war to relocate and incarcerate around 120,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast. About 80,000 of those Japanese-Americans were second-generation, American-born, U.S. citizens—and some were even third-generation.
(MUSIC INTENSIFIES)
PROFESSOR KUZNICK: In terms of the internment camps, that begins very, very early in 1942. And there was no good reason for doing that. Even J. Edgar Hoover, who is not known as a great civil libertarian, did not believe was necessary to put the Japanese internment camps. He said all the Japanese who represent any kind of security threat have already been taken care of they’ve been identified. But putting 110 to 120,000 Japanese in ten camps was a colossal violation of civil rights and human rights. Now, there was the assumption that the Japanese were going to be a fifth column inside the United States—that the Japanese would serve as spies—that they would assist the Japanese effort, and there was even concern that the Japanese would bomb—especially on the West Coast, but there was no sabotage. There was no illegality. There was no disloyalty. And their neighbors took the land, took the stores, took the property— and that cost billions of dollars to the Japanese community. So this was a very, very backward policy that reflected that deep-seated racism, but also the specific hatred towards Japan for what the Japanese had done at Pearl Harbor and Bataan throughout the war.
(WWII BATTLE SOUND FX)
JAKE RAIMER: Despite this, an estimated 33,000 Japanese-Americans served in the U.S. military. One of the most notable fighting units was known as the 442nd Infantry Regiment, which was composed almost entirely of second-generation, Japanese-American soldiers.
PROFESSOR KUZNICK: Many Japanese-Americans did serve in the war—they served heroically, many were wounded, some were killed—they were very, very highly decorated, and they served the United States loyally despite this discrimination that their families were undergoing.
JAKE RAIMER: As war efforts abroad continued to intensify, the United States’ government made accommodations to supply troops with the right equipment.
(PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT’S FIRST WARTIME STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, DELIVERED ON JANUARY 6, 1942)
Production for war is based on metals and raw materials—steel, copper, rubber, aluminum, zinc, tin. Greater and greater quantities of them will have to be diverted to war purposes. Civilian use of them will have to be cut further and still further—and, in many cases, completely eliminated.
JAKE RAIMER: On December 8, 1942, Public Law 815 was passed by the 77th Congress. This authorized metal substitutes to be used for the production of nickels and pennies. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. didn’t waste any time. Starting January 1, 1943, all one cent coins were struck in low-grade steel with an ultra-thin zinc coating to prevent rust.
(COIN PRODUCTION SOUND FX)
JAKE RAIMER: This drastic change for the penny, in a way, represents the increasing war efforts and, rising tensions in America. The stark contrast from copper to steel serves as a visual metaphor for the volatile attitudes occurring in America.
(PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT’S FIRST WARTIME STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, DELIVERED ON JANUARY 6, 1942)
Production for war is based on men and women—the human hands and brains which collectively we call Labor.
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PROFESSOR KUZNICK: The Rosie the Riveter campaign was very important part of the war effort and it’s interesting that—so now the men are overseas, the women are independent, they have their own incomes, and the divorce rate skyrockets after the war. What we see is women, filling a lot of those factory jobs that were necessary to win the war and African-Americans doing so also. So we see on the part of African-Americans that continued expansion of the migration from the south to the northern cities, and going to work in the factories. There was still a lot of discrimination, not only in the military were African-Americans segregated, but also in the workplaces.
JAKE RAIMER: In early 1941, civil rights activist, A. Philip Randolph, who organized the first African-American Labor Union, announced a march on Washington to protest discrimination in the defense industry.
PROFESSOR KUZNICK: In response to that, President Roosevelt passes an executive order —number 8802, which bans discrimination in the employment of workers in the defense sector, on the basis of race, creed, or national origin or color.
(PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT’S FIRST WARTIME STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, DELIVERED ON JANUARY 6, 1942)
We must raise our sights all along the production line. Let no man say it cannot be done. It must be done—and we have undertaken to do it.
PROFESSOR KUZNICK: During the war, there were at least a half dozen race riots in the United States. There were lots of racial confrontations overseas. We had big race riots in Mobile, Alabama in 1943, in Detroit in 1943, in Harlem in 1943. Many, many people were killed in those race riots.
(RIOT SOUND FX)
JAKE RAIMER: For African-Americans soldiers fighting abroad, discrimination was also prevalent, even though African-American forces represented less than 10% of all U.S. troops in the war, they represented more than 40% of the soldiers tried for sex crimes in Europe. In two thirds of those cases, they were convicted.
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PROFESSOR KUZNICK: So this kind of discrimination against Black soldiers is again very, very destructive, wrongheaded, unfair and debilitating. But there was a lot of racial tension during the war. Now, for the Black strategy was what they called the Double V campaign—they wanted to end racial discrimination at home—at the same time, they were defeating racism overseas.
JAKE RAIMER: Throughout the duration of the war, African-American troops were still segregated, and were restricted from having higher positions than their white counterparts. The treatment of marginalized groups in America during World War II, shouldn’t be forgotten. Because without these communities, the war could have ended with a much different outcome. The steel penny, today, serves as a reminder of those times and should be regarded as much more than the product of a wartime conservation effort.
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JAKE RAIMER: This podcast was produced and edited by me, Jake Raimer. I would like to thank my guest, Professor Peter Kuznick, and Professor Jill Olmsted for her guidance. Thank you for listening to “Uncirculated History.”
SHOW NOTES
Credits
Host: Jake Raimer
Episode Guest: Peter Kuznick
Producer: Jake Raimer
Editor: Jake Raimer
Music
Foney Money
Steve Raimer
Release and Forget
Sun Chime
The Twelve Spies
Silver Maple
North of Hope
Gavin Luke
Sound FX