The Lend-Lease Act

President Roosevelt Signing the Declaration of War against Japan,
December 1941.
Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present

The Senate passed the $5.98 billion supplemental Lend-Lease bill on October 23, 1941, bringing the United States one step closer to direct involvement in World War II. The Lend-Lease Act, approved by Congress in March 1941, gave President Roosevelt virtually unlimited authority to direct material aid such as ammunition, tanks, airplanes, trucks, and food to the war effort in Europe without violating the nation's official position of neutrality.

The United States formally entered the war in December 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Initially intended to help Great Britain, within months, the Lend-Lease program was expanded to include China and the Soviet Union. By the end of the war, the United States had extended $49,100,000,000 in Lend-Lease aid to more than 40 nations.

Bean Field and Canning Factory Seabrook Farm,
Bridgeton, New Jersey,
John Collier, photographer.
June 1942.
FSA/OWI Photographs, 1938-1944

New B-25 Bombers Lined Up for Final Inspection and Tests,
Inglewood, California,
Alfred T. Palmer, photographer.
October 1942
FSA/OWI Photographs, 1938-1944

For more information about the United States during World War II:

• The Office of War Information, created on June 13, 1942, assigned its staff of photographers the task of documenting the nation's mobilization for war. Browse the subject index of the collection, or search on tank, plane, truck, bomber, army, food or supplies to find more images of the war effort on the home front.
• The exhibition Women Come to the Front explores the role of women journalists in covering the events of World War II.
• Find more resources on the war. Search on World War II in Words and Deeds in American History and World War 1939 in Taking the Long View, 1851-1991.
• Search the Today in History Archive on World War II to read more about events related to World War II including the Spanish Civil War, Casablanca, D-Day, the Marshall Plan, and the charter of the United Service Organizations (USO).
• Visit the exhibition For European Recovery: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Marshall Plan to learn more about how the United States helped war-devastated Europe rebuild through the Secretary of State George Catlett Marshall's Economic Recovery Program, first proposed on June 5, 1947.