Women at War

Francis Perkins--Sec. of Labor

• During WWII an encouraging trend has been a break-down in prejudices against certain types of women workers. Married women . . . older women . . . and Negro women

Rosie the Riverter

A strong woman--she can work

Convince women that they can work outside the home

B-17 Nose

Shipyard workers

Age didn’t matter

Factory workers

Black women

• Women operated cranes & worked in mines and assembly lines

• They made machine guns and airplanes• They were guards in factories• They ran hydraulic presses• Strato Equipment, which made and

designed high-altitude suits, was 100% female

• By 1944 475,000 women in aircraft industry--45% of labor force

• “They take orders easily, have the patience of Job and are more frank than men.”

• In some jobs efficiency increased 100% with women workers

• Should women be paid the same as men?

• During WWII 78% said absolutely!

• But it didn’t happen

• No one pushed for it even though it had public support--1963

• What was the work day like?

• Six days a week--eight hours a day

• A 48 hour work week was standard

• The bus to work took another 2 hours a day

6 million women joined work force

2 million as clerical workers

3 million Red Cross

Worked in every professional area as well as in every blue

collar job that was traditionally seen as male only

But still had to do all the housework

• Most men refused to do housework

• Cooking was from scratch

• No automatic dishwashers

• Clothing handwash & ring dry

• Icebox rather than refrigerators

• All this on Sunday and after working all day

• Concept of day care was decades away

• Kaiser shipyards provided day care and carry out food for workers but it was rare

• A pregnant woman had no right to work

• Women’s magazines were silent on these issues--work was temporary

• A huge shortage of doctors and nurses in WWII

• Only single women could join Army or Navy Nurse Corps

• Black nurses--330 of 9,000--could not treat white soldiers

• Armed Forces refused to use women doctors• Quota systems at most medical schools

• Harvard refused to admit women to medical school until 1945

• Army and Navy paid for education for men to be doctors

• A woman had to pay her own way and then was refused if she tried to join

• But the war did liberate many women in the health field--war made it a necessity

Army nurses

Women JournalistsUnited Press had only one woman journalist in 1941

White House correspondents dinner was a stag affair

Yet there were 74 accredited women journalists

Therese Bonney

Margarite Higgins

Clare Booth Luce

Toni Frissel

Janet Flanner

Marvin Breckinridge

Mrs. Roosevelt and May Craig

WAC

• 45 killed in • line of duty

WAF

• And go back

• home when

• he comes home

The war is over--now what?

Women did not want to go back to ironingYet there was a campaign to force women to stop working--give her job to a vetWomen’s Home Companion urged women to“Give Back the Jobs”In a Chicago radio plant all 80,000 women wantedTo keep their jobs!Return to civilian economy forced women out4 million lost jobs soon after VE Day

• Yet there was no going back to 1939• Women stayed in the labor force• They moved strongly into clerical positions

that had been mostly male• They moved in huge numbers into the federal

and state governments• It would take decades before women made

advancements in medicine, law and business but WWII changed the working landscape for good