U.S. Government Policy Toward Civilian Women During World War II

“Soldiers without guns” by Adolph Treidler. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944.

 

by Eleanor F. Straub

When the classic work on the history of women comes to be written," Max Lerner mused in 1943, "the biggest force for change in their lives will turn out to have been war." With its female welders, bellhops, and taxi drivers, the American home front during World War II seemed to offer abundant proof for such a statement. The average American woman became a cultural heroine, a symbol of American determination to win a war that few understood. Sensing that the public identified with Rosie the Riveter and her sisters in the war, the information and image-making centers of the nation—Washington, Hollywood, and Madison Avenue—deluged the home front with a steady stream of material glamorizing, examining, glorifying, and exhorting the American woman. A whole genre of literature on women's participation was spawned, most of it echoing the theme that "housekeeping as usual ended in America on the day of Pearl Harbor." The message that women were vital to victory was drilled into the public mind by advertisers, journalists, and public officials. To describe the contribution of the nation's women, a new word, womanpower, crept into the popular vocabulary.

A loosely defined term, womanpower described efforts as diverse as halting careless talk and operating a fifteen-ton crane. At one time or another during the war, the success of virtually every home front campaign was deemed to depend on the nation's women. Keeping the home fires burning World War II style demanded far more than writing letters and knitting sweaters; it required, as one advertiser phrased it, for a woman to be "Betsy Ross, Barbara Fritchie and Molly Pitcher, reborn… A real fighting American." Nevertheless, soliciting women's aid in maintaining the nation's health through proper nutrition, in collecting tin cans, waste fats, and silk hosiery, in selling bonds, in fighting inflation, and in doing volunteer work of all sorts was in reality an expansion of war tasks that had been delegated to women in earlier conflicts.

A new element in the World War II appeal was the extent to which womanpower was described in terms of full-time paid work. Potential Rosie the Riveters were courted, cajoled, and flattered in an attempt to induce women to accept war jobs. The agency coordinating the government's publicity program, the Office of War Information, encouraged the media to create a " sense of urgency" in women in order to convince them that "women must work as men must fight."

Calls to action formed an important element in the wartime public relations program directed at women, but praise was an equally prominent feature. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman paid tribute to the "grand job" and "untiring efforts" of American women. Manpower Commissioner Paul V. McNutt lauded women workers as the "real heroines of this war." Songwriters concurred in these sentiments and penned paeans of praise to "Rosie the Riveter," "Woman Behind the Man Behind the Gun," "The Lady at Lockheed," and "The Janes Who Make the Planes." Although a few voices suggested women had not fully entered the war effort and expressed concern over high rates of absenteeism and the increase in juvenile delinquency, for the most part the American woman's war image remained untarnished.

The home front heroines often did not articulate their feelings about the war in abstract or patriotic terms. Instead, their efforts were explained in a personal way, as a desire "to help bring Harry back" or to have a hand in hurting the Axis. The average woman held an essentially negative view of the conflict and saw it as a matter of production and military strategy rather than a contest of values and ideas. Yet, the government and the media reminded her that she had a special stake in an Allied victory for neither Germany nor Japan was noted for generosity to women.

A more positive approach was generally preferred, however, and the argument was couched in terms of what American women stood to gain as a result of their participation. A few writers explicitly linked the concepts of fighting for democracy abroad and full status for women at home, but rejections of feminism as unnecessary were equally common. Susan B. Anthony warned that "unless you accept us as equals we might as well elect to sit this war out." But former ambassador to Norway Florence Jaffray Harriman applauded the fact that unlike World War I, during which "we had to give part of our time to getting the vote, now we can give all our time to finding jobs and doing them." Most Americans simply took it for granted that the war was changing women's status in the direction of greater equality. Beneath the continual flurry of reports of women doing new jobs, the statements that women were vital to victory, and the lavish praise bestowed on their contribution lay the almost universal assumption that there must be some broader meaning to the experience. Surely such things demonstrated, as one journalist wrote, that "the theory that woman's proper place was in the home has gone long since."

The rhetoric and ballyhoo about women in the war reflected the important changes that were occurring. Rosie the Riveters had increased the female labor force from thirteen million in 1940 to over nineteen million in 1944. Of equal significance, a large part of the gain came from the ranks of middle class, middle-aged, married women, a group that overwhelmingly had been housewives. War had forced a re-orientation of attitude toward women upon the federal government. Rosie was no longer simply a housewife but a consumer and more significantly a potential member of the labor force. Greater attention was now directed to recruitment, training, labor standards, job discrimination, wages, day care, and community facilities for women. Although women workers and their problems had existed for decades, only after Pearl Harbor did the government and the public become fully aware of them.

During the war years, women, like American society as a whole, witnessed a transformation with important repercussions. Nevertheless, the period cannot be seen merely as a story of progress or liberation for women because too many issues remained unsettled. The image projected by the government and the popular media—smiling lady riveters and flattering praise from important officials—obscures the complexities that make a simple balance sheet of women's wartime gains and losses impossible to construct.

Total war created unprecedented opportunity for women, but a number of elements limited their participation in the struggle and lessened the war's impact on their status in American society. These factors are well illustrated by the problems women faced in securing a voice in government policy, particularly in the area that affected them most, the mobilization of workers for war production.

Prior to Pearl Harbor labor supply questions received scant attention from government planners. As late as December 1941 over five million Americans were unemployed, hence the feeling persisted that the nation had almost endless reserves of labor. The federal machinery created to equip the United States for defense—first the National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC), then the Office of Production Management (OPM), and finally the War Production Board (WPB)—faced problems of materials, contract allocation, and transportation that loomed far more threatening than those of manpower. Sidney Hillman, who headed the Labor Division of each of these agencies, had led an uphill battle against official apathy. American entrance into the war ended one and a half years of defense preparations, but the government still lacked even the preliminary outlines of a manpower program.

At the beginning of the war, the upward revision of production goals awakened interest in labor supply matters. Pressure was exerted for the creation of a separate manpower agency, a drive that in April 1942 resulted in the creation of the War Manpower Commission (WMC) with Paul V. McNutt at the helm. The problems the WMC encountered in its three and a half year existence deserve mention, for they add perspective to an evaluation of the government's policy to mobilize women.

Although originally hailed as a manpower czar, McNutt lacked the authority necessary to develop a sound manpower program. No statutory basis for WMC efforts existed; few penalties were available to ensure compliance. The WMC faced the task of coordinating the work of government agencies eager to defend their own jurisdictions. Since the creation of an independent Selective Service System in 1940, manpower had been divided into two distinct spheres, military and civilian. Additionally, a number of federal agencies—the Civil Service Commission, the Department of Agriculture, the Office of Defense Transportation, the Maritime Commission, and the Railroad Retirement Board—maintained labor supply functions throughout the war. Such fragmentation made an integrated mobilization program impossible. The WMC's operating arm, the United States Employment Service (USES), was poorly equipped for its wartime tasks. Created during the depression to refer workers to relief projects, it lacked the confidence of many employers and government officials. The USES had been under state control until 1941; once federalized, the loyalty of its employees remained divided between Washington and the state capitals. Most importantly, the agency was virtually powerless to compel modification of hiring practices, and the agency was unable to accelerate the entrance of women and minority groups into war industries.

To fill the gap between its responsibilities and its meager powers, the WMC turned to non-governmental channels, labor-management cooperation. One of McNutt's first official acts was the creation of a Management-Labor Policy Committee (MLPC). Originally conceived as an advisory group whose members served as individuals, it soon became the most important organ in the WMC. In December 1942 Executive Order 9279 required McNutt to consult with it on all major decisions; the following March the MLPC was reorganized so that its members directly represented the major management, labor, and agricultural organizations in the United States. For the remainder of the war, the committee served a vital function through enlisting support for WMC programs and thereby aiding the translation of policy into action. This labor-management approach, however, lost sight of the interests of those segments of the population such as women who were not represented in its councils.

In 1943 a manpower crisis became a reality, and local stabilization plans that combined recruiting, utilization studies, and controls over hiring were developed. While such measures met the immediate need, the bumbling, haphazard nature of the manpower program remained obvious. An easy target for attack, the WMC was maligned until V-J Day for creating a "manpower muddle" and forming the worst administrative failure of the war. Within this inadequate labor supply framework, questions regarding women were decided, and womanpower policy naturally reflected the handicaps of the manpower program as a whole.

In theory a thoroughgoing mobilization program required no special policies for women, but at least one government official, Mary Anderson of the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor, realized the pitfalls inherent to such an approach. As she later recalled, during World War II there was a "great tendency among government officials… to speak about 'the people' as a whole, but when they spoke of 'the people' they meant the men." This propensity to assume that the interests of the two groups were synonymous provides a clue to the cause of the government's failure to utilize women effectively in World War II

Seventy years old in 1940, Anderson could look back on over twenty years of government service, first in the Ordnance Department, then in the Women in Industry Service, and finally as director of the Women's Bureau since its creation in 1920. A grandmotherly appearance belied the energy, dedication to improving the lot of working women, and penchant for bluntness in the face of bureaucratic red tape that characterized her war activities. As the predecessor to the Women's Bureau, the Women in Industry Service had attempted to increase industrial opportunity for women and promote appropriate labor standards during World War I. With this backlog of experience, the Women's Bureau seemed the obvious source of information on women in the present crisis.

After the outbreak of war in Europe, the bureau had kept a close watch on domestic developments, fearful that the economic upturn would herald a new attack on hard won protective legislation for women. Furthermore, a rising tide of proposed measures restricting the rights of married women to employment during 1939 and 1940 posed another cause for concern. The Women's Bureau with its advisory committee began as early as September 1939 to develop policies to preserve standards and to press for "suitably qualified women on all boards and commissions appointed to cope with the present economic situation."

The creation of the NDAC in May 1940 marked the beginning of active preparations for defense. Less than a month later, Anderson assembled a labor advisory committee to formulate guidelines for the use of women in defense industries. Released on 24 July 1940, the committee's recommendations formed the first statement on labor policy issued by any federal agency during the World War II period. The proposals contained in this document—jobs adapted to physical capabilities, safety standards, suitable working conditions, and maintenance of protective legislation—became a standard part of Women's Bureau pronouncements for the next five years.

Anderson concurrently began efforts to secure a voice for her agency in the defense program. In June 1940 she visited Hillman, the NDAC Labor Division head, to offer the services of the Women's Bureau. She also suggested that he name a female adviser to have charge of women's questions. At their 28 June meeting, the Women's Bureau Labor Advisory Committee backed her personal request with a resolution to Hillman. At the time Anderson was optimistic of success, and she wrote Mary Van Kleeck that Hillman was "perfectly willing to do so if I can find a woman who will integrate the working woman and the Women's Bureau in the defense program.

Such hopes were soon dashed for subsequent conversations with Hillman revealed that he was not yet convinced of the need for a female assistant. Instead, on the advice of his head of training, he had decided a female research aide would suffice. Undaunted, the Women's Bureau held a conference in November that once again passed resolutions calling for wider and wiser use of women in the defense program. Thus armed, Anderson trekked over to Hillman's office, this time with three women unionists in tow to urge recognition of the conference proposals and the appointment of a woman. At a NDAC Labor Division meeting the next week, she made a final, futile plea for action.

Meanwhile the Women's Bureau embarked on studies of safety standards, plant facilities, and work clothing for women and began investigations of defense industries such as airplane manufacturing in which few women were currently employed. In early 1941 Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins persuaded Undersecretary of War Robert B. Patterson to refer questions on women's employment and requests for exemptions from state labor laws to Anderson. Later that year, Hillman informed Perkins that while the OPM had no funds for the Women's Bureau, he recognized the increasing importance of its work. Hoping for a larger appropriation to expand the agency's field of activity, Anderson testified confidently in 1941 before a Senate committee that the Women's Bureau was "officially recognized by the War Department, the Navy, and the OPM as the one agency working with women." Beneath this official optimism, however, was a growing sense of frustration. Writing of her problems in June 1941, she confessed: "Even now, when we are in an unlimited emergency and our work has practically doubled, we have been unable to get any material increase in appropriation… Most men never think that women can do anything but housekeeping and should not do anything else even though they are calling upon them every day to enter defense industries."

During the summer and fall of 1941, Anderson participated on the OPM's National Labor Supply Committee, where she felt "women had very little chance to be even thought of, both from the training point of view and employment." Preoccupied with questions of military recruitment and male production workers, the body finally expressed interest in women in December 1941 when a subcommittee composed of Anderson, Thelma McKelvey of the OPM, and Nelle Miles of the USES was appointed. The women drafted a statement emphasizing the need to protect labor standards, open training to women, press for equal pay policies, and consider an immediate voluntary inventory of women available for war work. After some delay the report was accepted, but war and the OPM's rapid demise meant it was to have little effect. After predicting for two years that officials would regret their failure to plan for women, Anderson began to see her prophecy fulfilled. It became increasingly evident that women indeed would be the margin of victory as the press proclaimed, and the lack of an adequate mobilization program for women caused serious problems. By the spring of 1942 no work on the subject of women had been done by any federal agency that went much beyond the June 1940 recommendations of the Women's Bureau Labor Advisory Committee. A call for protection of standards and a plea for women in policy-making positions, such was the yield of defense period planning for women.

The Women's Bureau worked assiduously for recognition of women's interests throughout the war, but the agency increasingly operated on the fringes of power. It investigated ways to expand the use of women in industry, made suggestions on working conditions and community facilities, publicized women's needs and contributions, published pamphlets and bulletins relating to employment in wartime industries, and serviced requests from women's groups, unions, and government agencies. Yet it had little role in the actual development of policy; none in enforcement. The experience of the Women's Bureau during the defense and early war periods—the resolutions that never became operational, the inability to generate official interest—mirrors the difficulties faced by other groups concerned with government policy toward women throughout the war.

Pearl Harbor awakened interest in women's role in the war, and an immediate national inventory of women available for war work was proposed. Thelma McKelvey of the WPB testified before the Tolan Committee in February 1942 that compulsory registration might prove necessary. In March a Republican legislator in New York introduced a resolution in the state legislature in favor of registration; a month later it passed the upper house without debate. The AFL, CIO, and women's organizations endorsed the idea. Magazines demanded it, claiming that "only subservience to an outworn tradition… prevents us from taking these essential steps while there is yet time." Polls revealed the broad support behind the proposal, indicating between sixty-six and eighty percent of the public in favor. Action appeared imminent in April 1942 when the president admitted registration plans were under consideration and Eleanor Roosevelt announced her support of the measure. In retrospect this outpouring in favor of the registration of women seems to be a response to helplessness. With the war going badly on the battlefronts and in the absence of a definite man- or womanpower program, the need to do something concrete found expression in the national registration idea. In such an atmosphere government planning for women began to take place.

The suggestion that an advisory committee of women could serve a useful function in the manpower program was made as early as 4 March 1942, when the USES Labor Market staff investigated the idea as a way "to counteract irresponsible publicity concerning needs for women workers." USES estimates showed no general demand for women workers likely before 1943; hence immediate registration appeared premature. On the recommendation of the Labor Market staff, the women on the Federal Advisory Council of the Social Security Board assembled on 16 April to draw up a public announcement "to lessen the present ill-considered demand for all-out registration of women for war work." The creation of the WMC that same week, however, delayed release of the statement. In early May the registration idea was finally shelved when McNutt revealed that no such step would be taken in the near future.

Public speculation on registration continued, but by the summer of 1942 the focus of attention shifted from the subject of policy to the question of policy makers. Prominent individuals and women's organizations demanded representation of women in the war agencies, especially in the WMC. Meanwhile, the Manpower Commission was examining how women could be integrated into the agency's program. A summary of staff discussions in mid-July indicated that agreement had been reached that no separate women's division should be created and that it was "particularly important that women be used on the promotional or selling side of the program needed to get more women into industry." Opinion remained divided on the means of accomplishing this goal, but suggestions included appointing women to the MLPC and setting up a separate women's advisory committee. The discussions are especially revealing in light of later WMC actions toward women, for they indicate that even at this early date the agency was most interested in using women in a public relations capacity rather than in policy making.

Anderson, the National Women's Trade Union League, and the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs united in an effort to have women named to the MLPC in recognition of its rapidly growing importance in the WMC. The MLPC, however, refused any part of such a plan, and the women reduced their demands to a separate women's committee. Anderson insisted that any women's group must have real duties and not merely "sit in the corner," and she later insisted WMC officials had assured her that the women's committee chairman would be a voting member of the MLPC. Whether or not such a promise was made is open to question; at any rate, the Women's Advisory Committee (WAC), which McNutt appointed on 31 August 1942, received only the right to be an observer on the MLPC.

WMC Administrative Order No. 22 vested broad responsibility in the WAC to initiate studies and advise the WMC on "matters of major policies concerning the activities and responsibilities of the Commission, particularly as they affect women and the contribution women can make in the successful prosecution of the war." Despite the wide latitude given the WAC, some WMC officials had serious reservations about the body. Staff members later alleged McNutt had opposed a women's committee, partly from a distaste for feminism, partly from the WMC's bad experience with local enrollment campaigns that women on the staff had promoted. Nevertheless, with the announcement on 4 September 1942, of the committee and its membership, the organizational framework of government policy was complete. A combination of ill-advised publicity and the need to counteract it, pressure from women's groups, and WMC failures with its early womanpower activities had led to the establishment of an official body to represent women's interests in the manpower program.

The WAC assembled for its first meeting on 1 October 1942. Anderson attended the session and pronounced the group "a mighty fine lot of women, some of the best in the country." Still skeptical of WMC motives, however, she added, "It will be interesting to see if those boys over there will let them do anything." At first it seemed that WMC intentions were honorable, for the committee at once began to work on a general statement on recruiting, training, and employing women that the WMC promptly accepted. In the next few months the WAC also formulated and secured WMC adoption of a policy statement on the employment of youth, a revision of WMC policy on day care, and a procedure on planning and conducting enrollment campaigns for women. In March 1943 a WAC statement on community facilities was approved and sent to the WMC field staff.

Committee members and outside observers quickly recognized that such recommendations would prove worthless unless implemented. In December 1942 representatives of thirteen major women's organizations drafted a statement to McNutt declaring that "incorporating the knowledge and contribution of women into policy-making groups has not yet been satisfactorily accomplished." At their January meeting the WAC took essentially the same position. Chairman Margaret A. Hickey reported that she had informally urged the appointment of a woman to one of two executive posts open in the WMC, and the WAC backed her request with a resolution to McNutt. In February the WAC learned that Charlotte Carr, the former secretary of labor and industry for the state of Pennsylvania, had been named assistant to the deputy chairman. The expected fruits of such an appointment—closer liaison between the WAC and WMC and translation of policies into action—were never reaped. Caught in a WMC reorganization, Carr soon found herself without duties and resigned.

In January the WAC had sought to strengthen women's voice in the WMC in a second way through the appointment of women to management-labor committees being formed on the local and regional levels. Chairman Hickey presented the request to the MLPC and was encouraged by the interest with which the labor members had greeted the idea. When the proposal was not executed as expected, the WAC renewed the request. The women learned in April that the MLPC had proposed the creation of separate women's advisory committees at the local level instead.

Tiring of the indifferent treatment they felt WAC demands received, the women expanded their request to include full voting status for Hickey on the national MLPC. WAC relations with the MLPC further deteriorated when Hickey was denied admission to an MLPC emergency meeting. McNutt perhaps sensed a storm brewing in the WAC, for in May he made one of his rare appearances at their meetings. Relaying the MLPC's unanimous decision against granting Hickey a vote, he attempted to smooth the committee's ruffled feathers by assuring them their advice was valuable and their status equivalent to the MLPC. The women found the suggestion of equality absurd; in staff, budget, and functions the MLPC contrasted sharply with the ineffectual WAC. The committee refused to budge from the position that women needed representation on national and local management-labor committees. The next day the WAC met again to mull over its grievances and decided that a careful evaluation of the WAC's position was in order. One member had already resigned in April, having concluded that the WAC's "very existence and status are humiliating to women." The remainder of the committee sent confidential statements on the present impasse to Hickey that revealed widespread dissatisfaction among the members. Mandelle B. Bousfield and Elisabeth Christman suggested resigning in protest as a possible course of action, and the letters were laced with comments about WMC apathy, failure to seek advice, and use of the committee as a "mere paliative [sic] to women."

At their June meetings the women held an off-the-record executive session where a motion to revise the order creating the WAC was passed. In its new form the WAC charter would require McNutt to submit all major manpower questions, not simply women's issues, to the WAC for approval. On 6 July 1943, the committee sent a confidential statement to McNutt that detailed WAC grievances. This report forms the most thorough critique of government policy toward women written during the war. In strong terms it "unreservedly" criticized the WMC's failure to develop an integrated program of recruiting, training, and utilizing women. Additionally, it severely chastised the commission for ignoring the WAC. The women demanded appointment of liaison personnel in all WMC divisions and the naming of an executive assistant responsible for implementation of WAC policies.

In August, Executive Director Lawrence Appley responded to the committee's charges. He promised to seek the WAC's advice on matters concerning women and vowed to keep the committee informed on general policy. He reported, however, the WMC's rejection of the committee's concrete demands. The WMC would appoint no special personnel to look after women's interests, and it would not delay manpower matters until the WAC was consulted.

The storm over the WAC's place in the manpower program ended with a whimper. At best it had defined the positions of the parties involved. One WAC member reported that the committee was "now an integral part of WMC, after a determined stand by its members," but only in a very narrow sense could the women claim victory. The situation remained virtually unchanged; WAC recommendations continued to be ignored, its advice rarely sought.

In August 1944 Hickey suggested the WAC dissolve, indicating her intentions to resign in October. The members pressed her to reconsider and agreed among themselves that the WAC should continue to function as a link with women's organizations. The WMC executive director added his opinion that the committee's existence remained necessary to aid in "creating a public psychology conducive to the most effective prosecution of the war." The committee's response to Hickey's proposal reveals the extent to which the women had accepted the limitations of working within the WMC and had surrendered their demand for a policy-making role.

In the final analysis the WAC was reduced to a publicity organ. With speeches, press releases, and articles, the members helped to acquaint the public with the need for womanpower and the problems of the working woman. Through its contacts with women's organizations, the committee found a means to relay its recommendations to the local level. The WAC did not succeed in formulating policy for women workers or in integrating women into the government's policy-making positions. Consequently, complaints about the "cold-shouldering of women… in the war effort" continued. The National Federation of Business and Professional Women, for example, in July 1943 found that only eight of the 641 top officials in the war agencies were female. The members of the WAC were seldom blamed for this state of affairs; the problems they faced in the WMC were only too apparent. In evaluating the attempt of the women to influence manpower policy, however, three additional factors deserve consideration.

Interested in a wide variety of issues—day care, youth, community facilities, older women, part-time employment, agriculture, and training—the WAC spread itself thin and could not effectively influence policy in any of these areas. Much of their meeting time was taken up by outside speakers, leaving them with little opportunity to develop thorough programs. Had the committee been willing to narrow its vision and push consistently for one or two measures, greater success might have been achieved. A second handicap was the WAC's inability to rally outside support for its policies. The frequent reminders of the equal status of the WAC and the MLPC failed to mention the key difference between the groups—the MLPC members each had a constituency that they could mobilize. Most of the women on the WAC were leaders in national women's organizations, but they served as individuals. Conceivably a WAC organized along lines similar to the MLPC would have proved more forceful. The nonpartisan character of most women's organizations and the fact that the majority of women were affiliated with no national group, however, indicates that such a change would not have significantly strengthened the WAC's position. The simple truth remained that women were in no sense a power bloc capable of influencing government policy.

Finally, the attitude of the WAC merits attention. It would be wrong to cast the committee as a valiant band of feminists fighting for recognition against a hostile, male-dominated war agency. There was no such fervor or unity of views in the WAC, and the women were frequently at pains to deny any feminist leanings. In January 1943 when the WAC was attempting to secure the appointment of a woman to a WMC executive position, for example, one member felt compelled to state, "It isn't as feminists that we go out for key positions … but as women who recognize that it is necessary for the furtherance of the war effort." The Women's Bureau in 1952 studied the WAC's efforts to give women a voice in the war program and concluded that on all counts except publicity the committee accomplished little. Nevertheless, the bureau praised the committee for proving that "it could quietly go about its business, without offending propriety or tradition." No evidence indicates that a more avowedly feminist stance would have improved the WAC's record, but in hewing a middle course, the committee undoubtedly made it easier for the WMC to ignore its presence.

In mobilizing women into the "arsenal of democracy," the most striking feature of government policy was the extent to which there was none. Unlike Great Britain, where women's role in the war was guided by parliamentary legislation, womanpower policy in the United States could never be defined by a body of laws, rules, or regulations. A combination of elements prevented American women from having a voice in manpower policy: the inability of women to function successfully as a pressure group, the government's failure to anticipate how sweeping a mobilization would be necessary, the tendency to confront problems from a management-labor perspective, and the determination to protect the social status quo. These same factors influenced the government's response to nearly every aspect of women's war participation: recruiting, day care, equal pay, and demobilization. Instead of policy, a mosaic of experiments, makeshifts, and temporary expedients emerged. The induction of six million women into America's war production machine occurred as a response to an urgent, immediate situation with scant attention paid to its long-range consequences and possibilities.

 

We Can Do It! (Rosie the Riveter) by J. Howard Miller. Produced by Westinghouse for the War Production Coordinating Committee. 1942.

 

 

"’The girl he left behind’ is still behind him. She's a WOW.” Artist Adolph Treidler. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943.

 

“Longing Won't Bring Him Back Sooner . . . Get a War Job!” Artist Lawrence Wilbur. 1944. Printed by the Government Printing Office for the War Manpower Commission.

 

“Victory Waits on Your Fingers – Keep ’Em Flying, Miss U.S.A.” Produced by the Royal Typewriter Company for the U.S. Civil Service Commission.

 

“Save them this fate. Don’t stay home from work! Back up our battleskies!” This U.S. government poster implied the terrible fate in store for American families if workers were to strike.

 

 “WANTED! For Murder. Her careless talk costs lives.”

 

NYA employees receiving training in the Assembly and Repair Dept., Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas, August 1942.

 

A lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas, October 1942.

 

Lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas, October 1942.

 

Electronics technician, Goodyear Aircraft Corp., Akron, Ohio, December 1941.

 

War workers at a factory in Ohio. 1942.

 

Workers on the B-24 Liberator bombers, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas. October 1942.

 

Douglas Aircraft Company employees work on the belly of a bomber at the plant in Long Beach, California. 1942.

 

An A-20 bomber being riveted by a woman worker at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant at Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

Two women employees of North American Aviation, Incorporated, assembling a section of a wing for a P-51 fighter plane. October 1942.

 

Workers feed sections of sheet metal through a pneumatic numbering machine at the North American Aviation plant in Inglewood, California. 1942.

 

With careful Douglas training, women do accurate electrical assembly and installation work at Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

Metal parts are placed on masonite by this woman employee before they slide under the multi-ton hydropress, at North American Aviation, Inc. plant in Inglewood, California. October 1942.

 

Operating a hand drill at North American Aviation, Inc., a female employee is working in the control surface department assembling a section of the leading edge for the horizontal stabilizer of a plane at the Inglewood, California plant. October 1942.

 

World War II aviation worker assembles switch boxes on the firewalls of B-25 bombers at North American Aviation, Inc.'s Inglewood, California plant. October 1942.

 

Manufacture of self-sealing gas tanks, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio. December 1941.

 

Women become skilled shop technicians after careful training in the school at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant, Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

Women are trained to do precise and vital engine installation detail in Douglas Aircraft Company plants, Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

Working with the electric wiring at Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

A young woman employee of North American Aviation, Incorporated, working over the landing gear mechanism of a P-51 fighter plane in Inglewood, California. The mechanism resembles a small cannon. October 1942.

 

Women at work on C-47 Douglas cargo transport, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

Women are trained as engine mechanics in thorough Douglas training methods. Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

Two female assembly line workers at the Long Beach, California, plant of Douglas Aircraft Company enjoy a well-earned lunch period, Long Beach, Calif. Nacelle parts of a heavy bomber form the background. October 1942.

 

Worker enjoying her lunch break in the California sunshine at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach. October 1942.

 

A noontime rest for a full-fledged assembly worker at the Long Beach, California, plant of Douglas Aircraft Company. October 1942.

 

Woman at work on motor, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

Punching rivet holes in a frame member for a B-25 bomber, the plant of North American Aviation, Inc., California. June 1942.

 

Woman working on an airplane motor at North American Aviation, Inc., plant in California. June 1942.

 

Operating a hand drill at the Vultee plant in Nashville, Tennessee, woman is working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber. February 1943.

 

This woman worker at the Vultee-Nashville is shown making final adjustments in the wheel well of an inner wing before the installation of the landing gear, Nashville, Tennessee. This is one of the numerous assembly operations in connection with the mass production of Vultee "Vengeance" dive bombers. February 1943.

 

Operating a hand drill, this woman worker at Vultee's Nashville plant is shown working on the horizontal stabilizer for a Vultee "Vengeance" dive bomber. The "Vengeance" (A-31) was originally designed for the French, and was later adopted by the R.A.F. and still later by the U.S. Army Air Forces. It is a single-engine, low-wing plane, carrying a crew of two men and having six machine guns of varying calibers. February 1943.

 

Two women workers are shown capping and inspecting tubing which goes into the manufacture of the "Vengeance" (A-31) dive bomber made at Vultee's Nashville division, Tennessee. The "Vengeance" (A-31) was originally designed for the French. It was later adopted by the R.A.F. and still later by the U.S. Army Air Forces. It is a single-engine, low-wing plane, carrying a crew of two men and having six machine guns of varying calibers. February 1943.

 

Women worker touching up the U.S. Army Air Forces insignia on the side of the fuselage of a "Vengeance" dive bomber manufactured at Vultee's Nashville division, Tennessee. February 1943.

 

Operating a hand drill at Vultee-Nashville, woman is working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber, Tennessee. February 1943.

 

February 1943. Heil & Co., Milwaukee. “Agnes Cliemka, age 23, husband may be going into the service any day. Agnes used to work in a department store. Checking fuel hose on gasoline trailer before it is turned over to the Air Force.”

 

Pearl Harbor widows have gone into war work to carry on the fight with a personal vengeance, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Mrs. Virginia Young (right) whose husband was one of the first casualties of World War II, is a supervisor in the Assembly and Repairs Department of the Naval Air Base. Her job is to find convenient and comfortable living quarters for women workers from out of state, like Ethel Mann, who operates an electric drill. August 1942.

 

Women are contributing their skills to the nation's needs by keeping our country's planes in top-notch fighting condition, Corpus Christi, Texas. Wife of a disabled World War I veteran, Mrs. Cora Ann Bowen (left) works as a cowler at the Naval Air Base. Mrs. Eloise J. Ellis (right) is a senior supervisor in the Assembly and Repairs department.

 

Women from all fields have joined the production army, Corpus Christi, Texas. Miss Grace Weaver, a civil service worker at the Naval Air Base, and a school teacher before the war, is doing her part for victory along with her brother who is a flying instructor in the Army. Miss Weaver paints the American insignia on repaired Navy plane wings.

 

This girl in a glass house is putting finishing touches on the bombardier nose section of a B-17F navy bomber, Long Beach, Calif. She's one of many capable women workers in the Douglas Aircraft Company plant. Better known as the "Flying Fortress," the B-17F is a later model of the B-17 which distinguished itself in action in the South Pacific, over Germany and elsewhere. It is a long range, high altitude heavy bomber, with a crew of seven to nine men, and with armament sufficient to defend itself on daylight missions.

 

Women workers install fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage section of a B-17F bomber at the Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif. 

 

Formerly a sociology major at the University of Southern California, Mrs. Eloise J. Ellis (right) now "keeps 'em flyin'" at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. She is a supervisor under civil service in the Assembly and Repair Department. It is her job to maintain morale among the women by helping them solve housing and other personal problems. With her is Jo Ann Whittington, an NYA trainee at the plant.

 

"Women in white" doctor Navy planes (motors) at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. Mildred Webb, an NYA trainee at the base, is learning to operate a cutting machine in the Assembly and Repair Department. After about eight weeks as an apprentice she will be eligible for a civil service job in the capacity for which she has been trained.

 

A rivet is her fighting weapon. Oyida Peaks, daughter of a Navy lieutenant, one of many women taking NYA training to become mechanics at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. After eight weeks apprenticeship she will be qualified as a civil service worker in the Assembly and Repair Department.

 

American mothers and sisters, like these women at the Douglas Aircraft Company, give important help in producing dependable planes for their men at the front, Long Beach, Calif. Most important of the many types of aircraft made at this plant are the B-17F ("Flying Fortress") heavy bomber, the A-20 ("Havoc") assault bomber and the C-47 heavy transport plane for the carrying of troops and cargo

 

Lunchtime brings a few minutes of rest for these women workers of the assembly line at Douglas Aircraft Company's plant, Long Beach, Calif. Sand bags for protection against air raid form the background. 

 

Inspectors examine wing parts of C-47 transport planes at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach, California. 1942.

 

Carefully trained women inspectors check and inspect cargo transport inner wings before they are assembled on the fuselage, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif.

 

Transfusion donor bottles, Baxter Lab., Glenview, Ill. Formerly a sculptress and designer of tiles, Dorothy Cole converted her basement into a workshop to tin plate needles for valves for blood transfusion bottles prepared by Baxter Laboratories where she lives. She turns in her profits to war bonds to provide a college education for her young nephew.

 

Two Navy wives, Eva Herzberg and Elve Burnham, entered war work after their husbands joined the service, Glenview, Ill. They assemble bands for blood transfusion bottles at Baxter Laboratories. Mrs. Burnham is the mother of two children.

 

Transfusion donor bottles, Baxter Lab., Glenview, Ill. Formerly a sculptress and designer of tiles, Dorothy Cole converted her basement into a workshop to tin plate needles for valves for blood transfusion bottles prepared by Baxter Laboratories where she lives. She turns in her profits to war bonds to provide a college education for her young nephew.

 

War production workers at the Vilter Manufacturing Company making M5 and M7 guns for the U.S. Army, Milwaukee, Wis. Ex-housewife, age 24, filing small parts. Her husband and brother are in the armed service.

 

War production worker at the Vilter Manufacturing Company making M5 and M7 guns for the U.S. Army, Milwaukee, Wis. Ex-housewife, age 49, now doing bench work on small gun parts. Son is Second Lieutenant; Son-in-law, Captain in Army.

 

War production workers at the Vilter Manufacturing Company making M5 and M7 guns for the U.S. Army, Milwaukee, Wis. Ex-stage orchestra musician, checking an M7 gun with gage, after turning out on a gun lathe. Her two brothers and husband are in the service.

 

War production workers at the Heil Company making gasoline trailer tanks for the U.S. Army Air Corps, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Elizabeth Little, age 30, the mother of two children, spraying small parts. Her husband runs a farm.

 

War production workers at the Heil Company making gasoline trailer tanks for the U.S. Army Air Corps., Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mrs. Angeline Kwint, age 45, an ex-housewife, checking the tires of trailers. Her husband and son are in the U.S. Army.

 

Gist inspector, Mrs. Mary Betchner inspecting one of the 25 cutters for burrs before inserting it in the inside of a 105mm. howitzer at the Milwaukee, Wis. plant of the Chain Belt Co. Her son is in the army; her husband is in war work.

 

Mrs. Eloise J. Ellis has been appointed by civil service to be senior supervisor in the Assembly and Repairs Department at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. She buoys up feminine morale in her department by arranging suitable living conditions for out-of-state employees and by helping them with their personal problems.

 

Woman aircraft worker, Vega Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, Calif. Shown checking electrical assemblies 

 

Answering the nation's need for womanpower, Mrs. Virginia Davis made arrangement for the care of her two children during the day and joined her husband at work in the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. Both are employed under Civil Service in the Assembly and repair department. Mrs. Davis' training will enable her to take the place of her husband should he be called by the armed service.

 

Mrs. Doris Duke, who is 26 and a mother of one child, Corpus Christi, Texas. Mrs. Duke is a civil service worker in the Assembly and Repair dept. at the Navy Air Base, seen here reconditioning spark plugs.

 

With a woman's determination, Lorena Craig takes over a man-size job, Corpus Christi, Texas. Before she came to work at the Naval air base she was a department store girl. Now she is a cowler under civil service.

 

Assembly and Repairs Dept. mechanic Mary Josephine Farley works on a Wright Whirlwind motor, Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas.

 

Bowen and Olsen, a riveter and her supervisor, in the Assembly and Repair Dept. at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas.

 

Lorena Craig is a cowler under civil service at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas.

 

Oyida Peaks riveting as part of her NYA training to become a mechanic at the Naval Air Base, in the Assembly and Repair Department, Corpus Christi, Texas.

 

Mrs. Eloise J. Ellis, senior supervisor in the Assembly and Repairs Dept. of the Naval Air Base, talking with one of the men, Corpus Christi, Texas.

 

Working in the Assembly and Repair Dept. of the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas.

 

Bowen, a riveter, and Olsen, her supervisor, in the Assembly and Repair Dept. at the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas.

 

Drilling a wing bulkhead for a transport plane at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Drilling a wing bulkhead for a transport plane at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Drilling a wing bulkhead for a transport plane at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Drilling a wing bulkhead for a transport plane at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Rita Rodriguez was a real-life "Rosie the Riveter" during World War II. Shown here in this photo taken in October 1942 by Howard Hollem, she operates equipment at the Consolidated Aircraft plant in Fort Worth.

 

Riveting team working on the cockpit shell of a C-47 at the plant of Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California. October 1942.

 

B-25 bomber cowl assembly, North American Aviation, Kansas City, Kansas. October 1942.

 

Beulah Faith, 20, used to be sales clerk in department store, reaming tools for transport on lathe machine, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Helen Bray, who left school to become a mechanic at a western aircraft plant, is making an emplanage section on a new Consolidated transport, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas. This new ship, adapted from the B-24 bomber, is known as the C-87, carries one of the greatest human and cargo loads of any plane now in mass production.

 

Production of B-24 bombers and C-87 transports, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas. Cabbie Coleman, former housewife, works at western aircraft plant. Installing of oxygen racks above the flight deck.

 

Mary Louise Stepan, 21, used to be a waitress. She has a brother in the Air Corps. She is working on transport parts in the hand mill, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Frances Eggleston, aged 23, came from Oklahoma, used to do office work. Riveting fuselage panels, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Riveter at work on Consolidated bomber, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Riveting on a Liberator Bomber, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, Texas.

 

One of the girls of Vilter Manufacturing Co. filing small gun parts, Milwaukee, Wisc. One brother in Coast Guard, one going to Army.

 

Lucile Mazurek, age 29, ex-housewife, husband going into the service. Working on black-out lamps to be used on the gasoline trailers in the Air Force, Heil and Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

Enola O'Connell, age 32, widow and mother of one child. Ex-housewife, now [she is the] only woman welder at Heil and Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

Helen Ryan, age 41 (with cap), widow and used to work in a show factory, Heil and Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Agnes Cliemka, age 23, married and husband may be going into the service any day, brother in the army. She used to be a clerk in a department store. Unmasking and checking parts of the gasoline trailers that will be turned over to the Air Force.

Clerk in one of the stock rooms of North American Aviation, Inc., checking to see if the proper numbers of parts were received and placed in the proper bin, Inglewood, Calif. This plant produces the battle-tested B-25 ("Billy Mitchell") bomber, used in General Doolittle's raid on Tokyo, and the P-51 ("Mustang") fighter plane which was first brought into prominence by the British raid on Dieppe.

Working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber, Vultee Aircraft Inc., Nashville, Tennessee.

Making harnesses, Mary Saverick stitching, Pioneer Parachute Company Mills, Manchester, Conn.

A noontime rest for a full-fledged assembly worker at the Long Beach, Calif., plant of Douglas Aircraft Company. Nacelle parts for a heavy bomber form the background.

Girl inspector confers with a worker as she makes a careful check of center wings for C-47 transport planes, Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, Calif.

A girl riveting machine operator at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant joins sections of wing ribs to reinforce the inner wing assemblies of B-17F heavy bombers, Long Beach, Calif. 

A noontime rest for a full-fledged assembly worker at the Long Beach, Calif., plant of Douglas Aircraft Company. Nacelle parts for a heavy bomber form the background.

Mrs. Jennie Mae Turner, welder at the Ingalls shipyard, Pascagoula, Miss.

Kaiser shipyards, Richmond, Calif. 1943. Welder-trainee Josie Lucille Owens helping to construct the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver.

A Negro woman at North American Aviation uses an electric hand drill to drill holes in a sheet metal assembly prior to riveting.

Miss Jeri Tanaka, Nisei, is employed by the Modern Lighting and Manufacturing Company in Des Moines as a welder. She was a former resident of Gila River Relocation Center and, prior to this, lived in Pasadena, California. September 1944. Miss Tanaka came here in August, 1943 and immediately enrolled in the West Technical High School and completed all the courses which they had in welding. Although the usual course is 480 hours in actual shop work, she continued for approximately five months in the school and completed the regular acetylene and arc welding courses. The school reported that she was an excellent student and, in conjunction with the United States Employment Service, located her present employment for her. The shop has approximately thirty employees and, in peace time, makes light fixtures but is now employed on war contract. She obtained PMGO clearance after starting to work and has been employed by the company for eight months. The employer reports that she rates among the highest in the number of units produced daily. Two months ago, she arranged to relocate her mother and sister from Gila River Relocation Center and the family is now living in a furnished apartment.

Mrs. Yoshiye Abe, an American of Japanese ancestry, helps to make American flags in a Denver factory. Photograph shows former incarceree working at flag factory after being released from the concentration camp where she was incarcerated during World War II. 

Negro girls are proving willing and capable aircraft workers. This girl works on wing jigs in the assembly of B-17F heavy bombers at the Long Beach, California, plant of Douglas Aircraft Company. October 1942.

Kay Lamphear, half American Indian and half Scotch-Norwegian, has joined the growing army of American women war workers. Employed by a large Midwest supercharger plant, this 21-year-old former costumes model operates a punch press, machining diaphragm blades for airplane engines. Allis Chalmers Manufacture Company.

“I'm proud ... my husband wants me to do my part. See your U.S. Employment Service. War Manpower Commission.” Artist John Newton Howitt. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944.

"Good work, sister. We never figured you could do a man-size job! America's women have met the test!” May 5, 1944. 

“Their real pin-up girl. War worker.” Artist Cy Hungerford. 1944.

Plant foremen point to 20-year-old Annie Tabor as one of their best lathe operators, despite her lack of previous industrial experience. Employed by a large Midwest supercharger plant, this young woman machines parts of aircraft engines. Like many other young Negro girls, she had known only domestic work but a brief NYA vocational training course fitted her for this highly important job. October 1942. 

This capable young woman is making an important contribution to America's war effort. Employed by a Midwest plant, converted from the production of spark plugs to machine guns, she's one of many skilled women milling-machine operators who are producing weapons for America's armed forces. Here, she's checking a slot she has just milled in a gun part. October 1942.

A good day's work done, employees of a large Midwest supercharger plant line up to punch their timecards. With women comprising 80 percent of its workers, it’s nothing unusual to find an all-female contingent like this one at the plant. Allis Manufacture Company. October 1942.