Before Pearl Harbor, the USA was still in denial that WWII was going to truly affect us. We have the Pacific and Atlantic oceans as massive buffers. But the government was already working toward the idea of rearming the USA in preparation.
In 2013 the author Charles Hyde wrote a wonderful book, The Arsenal of Democracy, about the American auto industry moving from car and truck production to tanks, planes, and other necessities of war. (I am considering carrying that book at a future time.) But while he was researching that book, he came across a treasure trove of images from the late 1930s and especially the 1940s of the automotive industry changing direction to help with the war effort.
Certainly, Ford Motor Company is depicted in these pages, but so are many, many others. Nearly 300 pages of black-and-white images, mostly in factory settings, of the war effort appear together. New, $45. S&H will be added to your total order.