During the First
World War, the emphasis for women to join the work force was not as
pronounced as during World War II. In 1917, Woodrow Wilson stated,
"Every housewife who practices strict economy puts herself in the
ranks of those who serve the nation." That same year, the Secretary
of Agriculture stated, "Every woman can render important service to
the Nation in its present emergency. She need not leave her home or
abandon her home duties to help the armed forces. She can help to
feed and clothe our armies and help to supply food to those beyond
the seas by practicing effective thrift in her own household."
The Great Depression
cast a long shadow over the decade of the 1940s. When the economy
hit its low point in 1933, the gross national product had plunged
from $149.3 to $107.6 billion; national income stood at one-half its
1929 level; and more than 30 percent of the work force-12 million
men and women could not find jobs.
On the eve of
World War II, the country was still recovering from the Great Depression.
Unemployment rates, though reduced, remained high and working married
women were not acceptable. In fact, on December 8, 1941, the lives
of most women closely resembled those of their mothers.
In 1941, one-third
of all households were still cooking with wood or coal; and water
often had to be carried from an outside source. Even though bed sheets
were changed less frequently than now, laundering them was a backbreaking
task for that half of the female population who scrubbed the laundry
by hand or used a hand-cranked washing machine. Both farm and city
women spent over 50 hours a week! in household responsibilities. Over
one-half of the population still lived in rural areas or in towns
of under 50 thousand where traditional values prevailed. The family
concept dominated and was idealized in the mass media. Under this
concept, the role of the husband was to provide for the family, and
the role of the wife was to provide a suitable home. The place for
the wife was at home.
During the 1930s,
as the effects of the Great Depression deepened, it was basic economic
need that drew married women into employment outside the home. By
the end of the decade, almost 15.5 percent of all married women were
gainfully employed. The husbands of over one-third of these women
made less than $600 annually, barely half the median income in 1939.
The majority of these working wives of the poor were not likely to
earn more than $200, but their economic contribution often provided
something as basic as a roof over their head or enough food for their
children to eat.
Most wage-earning
wives did not have the luxury of choosing to work or not. Nevertheless,
public opinion was against them. In 1936, 82 percent of the population
felt that wives should not work if their husbands had jobs. Furthermore,
a majority believed that laws should be passed to prohibit wives from
working. These restrictive laws were never enacted, but the federal
government did prohibit a married couple from both holding government
jobs, and as late as 1939, legislatures in 26 states considered laws
limiting married women's work. Both men and women believed that married
women should give up their jobs if their husbands wanted them to.
In the Depression decade, those wives who worked outside the home
were viewed as selfish, greedy women who took jobs away from male
breadwinners. A Gallup poll in 1936 reported that 82 percent of the
respondents believed that wives with employed husbands should not
work outside the home, and three-fourths of the women polled -agreed.
When the United
States entered World War II, the country had to move quickly into
high gear. Almost overnight, auto factories were converted into aircraft
plants, shipyards were expanded, and new factories were built. In
order to quickly fill the demands for workers in these new or expanding
industries, complex jobs that formerly had been performed by highly
skilled workers, like machinists, were broken down into smaller tasks
that could be quickly learned. The promise of new, well-paying jobs
attracted not only the urban unemployed, but also people from rural
areas and small towns. The mass migration from the South, the Southwest,
and the Midwest into the industrial centers of the West and North
would have an important and lasting affect on the nature of American
society.
Recruitment campaigns
directed at women played upon their patriotism. The messages appealed
to their domestic and nurturing roles. Self-sacrifice was required
to bring their loved ones home safely and to preserve the way of life
they cherished. The temporary nature of this required shift in roles
was stressed.
Novel approaches
were developed to get the message across. The Womanpower Commission
in Buffalo, New York, set up Cape Cod cottages downtown in order to
welcome potential applicants. In Los Angeles, married Lockheed women
workers served as "Victory Visitors" going from door to door in their
neighborhood to recruit full-time homemakers for the factories. As
the federal budget grew to $100 billion in 1945, new means were devised
to procure revenue. Deficit financing provided about one-half the
war costs as the national debt rose from $43 billion in 1941 to nearly
$260 billion in 1945. While the government continued to borrow money
by selling securities to Federal Reserve Banks, it also launched massive
campaigns to sell war bonds in low denominations and got 25 million
workers to purchase$25 bonds through payroll savings plans. Increased
taxes provided the remaining half of the Treasury's needs. New legislation
increased corporate taxes, raised the excess-profits tax to 90 percent,
initiated the income-tax withholding system, and broadened the tax
base. The number of Americans who paid federal income taxes rose from
about 7 million in 1940 to more than 42 million in 1945. Higher taxes
and the encouragement of savings through war bonds were not sufficient
to limit the inflation which resulted from increasing consumer purchasing
power chasing a limited supply of goods. The government succeeded
in curtailing the rise in prices to 29 percent between 1939 and 1945.
The labor force
expanded from 56,180,000 in 1940 to 65,290,000 in 1945. Workers saw
their average yearly real earnings rise from $754 in 1940 to $1,289
in 1944. The increase resulted not simply from increased rates of
pay, but also from overtime work and expanded employment in already
high-paying jobs.
The Census Bureau
estimated that 15.3 million people moved during the war, half of those
having crossed state lines. Some of the migration consisted of servicemen's
families moving to military base areas, but most of it resulted from
the lure of higher paying jobs. Between 1940 and 1945, the female
labor force grew by more than 50 percent, as the number of women at
work outside the home jumped from 11,970,000 (with an additional 2.19
million unemployed) in 1940 to 18,610,000 (420,000 unemployed) in
1945. The proportion of all women who were employed increased from
27.6 to 37 percent, and by 1945, they formed 36.1 percent of the civilian
labor force. Three-fourths of the new female workers were married;
by the end of the war, one of every four wives was employed.
The number of
women in civil-service jobs jumped from fewer than 200,000 in 1939
to more than 1 million in 1944, a 540 percent increase. Their share
of federal positions increased from 18.8 to 37.6 percent. Although
clerical work continued to be the typical female job, by 1943 women
were being hired as mechanics and press, crane, and tractor operators
as well as in professional classifications usually filled by men.
During the war, all new civil service appointments were limited to
the duration plus six months. Thus, the postwar prospects for these
new employees depended upon the degree of contraction of the federal
bureaucracy and the extent to which veterans would want civil service
jobs.
Since wages in
munitions plants and aircraft factories averaged 40 percent higher
than those in female fields, the hiring of women in durable goods
represented a significant step up the occupational ladder for women
workers. In Detroit, a typical war production center, the average
weekly take-home earnings of women in war industries were $40.35 whereas
those of women in laundries, restaurants, hotels, retail and wholesale
trade, and consumer goods industries ranged from $24.10 to $29.75.
As a result, massive shifts occurred in the labor force as women abandoned
these fields to seek work in war production plants. In the ten major
war production areas, 50 percent of all women who had been in trade
and personal service and 66 percent of those who had been employed
in eating and drinking establishments shifted to war manufacture.
The greatest changes in wartime economic behavior took place among
married women. One in every ten married women entered the work force
during the war, and they represented more than 3 million of the new
female workers, while 2,890,000 were single and the rest widowed or
divorced. For the first time in the nation's history there were more
married women than single in the female labor force. While housework
and voluntary activities continued to occupy the majority of married
women, the percentage of all wives who worked outside the home grew
from 13.9 in 1940 to 22.5 in 1944.
In Rosie The
Riveter Revisited (by Sherna B. Gluck), one of the messages which
came to the surface was the women saying, "I never realized what I
could do." Many of the women interviewed by Ms. Gluck said that their
wartime work experiences changed the way they felt about themselves.
Being able "to hold their own with men," gave a new sense of self,
of competency, not only to women new to the world of work outside
the home; but, also, to those who had worked at traditional women's
jobs. During the war, for the first time in their lives, many women
performed jobs that were viewed by the public as necessary and valuable.
Women who worked during the war were faced with the double burden
of maintaining the home. After 8 to 10 hours on the job, these wives
and mothers had to stand in long lines in the stores and cope with
rationing. By the time they reached the market at the end of their
workday, the limited supplies were depleted unless they were fortunate
enough to have a grocer who looked out for them. The shoppers who
were lucky enough to have a washing machine still had to contend with
the search for laundry soap. Those who used a commercial laundry had
to wait as long as two weeks or a month for the return of their clothing
and linens.
The war permeated
every aspect of daily life. News from overseas was regularly broadcast
on the radio. One network devoted almost 40 percent of its broadcast
time to news programming about the war. War themes were incorporated
into the dramatic and variety shows as well. The popular comedy programs
often originated from army bases and joke routines touched on life
in the service. Many of the old standbys, like " Fibber McGee and
Molly," incorporated war messages into the body of their programs,
dealing with issues like the black market and the recruiting of nurses'
aides.
Movie attendance
was at an all-time high with women the major audience. War themes
were regularly served up, but most movies were escapist in nature,
especially after 1943. The genre of women's films that had first appeared
in the 1930s were still popular, and the strong characters portrayed
by Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Barbara Stanwyck continued to survive
in a male dominated world. They were offset by the emergence of a
new model, the " girl next door, " as portrayed by actresses like
June Allyson. Still, the workwomen were performing during the war
was treated seriously.
