After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States ramped up industrial production, which soon brought the economic woes of the Great Depression to an end. During the war, West Virginians still made sacrifices but did so now to support the troops overseas.

The coming of World War II brought the Great Depression to an end but left unresolved many of the state's underlying poverty problems that would re-appear in the years to come.