Shifts in Public Opinion during World War II

In class, we have discussed public opinion in the United States and how the nation’s isolationist tendencies tended to erode as the war wore on and as people began to realize the gravity of the situation.  Here, I hope to better illustrate trends in public opinion in relation to the events occurring at the time.  All graphs were taken from this source: http://web.mit.edu/berinsky/www/files/3040.pdf

In this image, we can clearly see the big shift in public opinion that occurred between 1939 and 1940.  But what accounts for it?  Well, on September 3, 1939, Britain and France both declared war on Germany.  It can reasonably be inferred that Americans at the time must have believed that the combined force of these two countries together would have been enough to counter the threat, and with memories of World War I still in lingering in the minds of many, people simply desired for non entanglement and isolation from European affairs.  However, jump to May of 1940, and we see how Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg all fell to Germany.  In June, more bad news arrived as Italy joined the war on the side of the Germans and French shockingly surrendered . These events must have been a wake-up-call to the American people, alerting them to the seriousness of the situation, for if the last major democracy in Europe, Britain, were overrun, then all of Europe would be controlled by the Nazis and America would be surrounded by enemies.  This sentiment is reflected in the following graph:

Surprisingly, in this graph we see a drop in public opinion around June, 1941 as people began to doubt whether the United States should help support England.  This trend can be partially accounted for by Ambassador Kennedy’s influence on the American people.  In the chapter “Agony of Neutrality” from Freedom from Fear, the author explains how Kennedy asserted that aid to Britain was pointless since it was inevitable that the country, surrounded by powerful forces, would eventually fall and that all of America's aid would be wasted. His idea must have grown over time as Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Croatia, and Finland all fell into German hands--all within the year of 1941.  The American public must have seen the growing mass of land being acquired by the Germans and they must have thought that there would be no point in helping Britain if the country's fall was inevitable.

While my explanation of the factors that affected these trends is oversimplified, I hope this review allowed you to see the connections between these graphs and the lectures on the reading that we heard in class.

Also, feel free to contribute your own thoughts on the trends of the graphs!