War Production Board WPB

Weeks after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt created the War Production Board by Executive Order 9024 on January 16, 1942, replacing earlier, weaker mobilization agencies such as the Office of Production Management. Its chairman, the business executive Donald Nelson, received broad authority under the War Powers Acts to direct the procurement and production of war materials across the economy.

The Board decided which industries got steel, aluminum, copper, rubber, and other scarce materials, issued priority ratings for war contracts, and ordered civilian industries to convert to war work. In February 1942 it halted production of civilian cars, and automakers retooled to build tanks, aircraft engines, and trucks. It banned or limited production of many consumer goods, promoted scrap and salvage drives, and worked alongside the Office of Price Administration, which rationed goods and controlled prices. American factories produced about 300,000 military aircraft and tens of thousands of tanks and ships during the war.

Conflicts between the Board, the military services, and other agencies over control of production led Roosevelt to create the Office of War Mobilization above it in 1943. After Japan's surrender, the Board was terminated by executive order on October 4, 1945, and its remaining controls passed to a Civilian Production Administration. Its methods shaped later tools such as the Defense Production Act of 1950. Admirers credit wartime mobilization with making America the arsenal of democracy, while critics noted the concentration of contracts in large corporations and the frictions of central economic planning.