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Learn about Women in World War II with these old magazine articles. Find information on the working women of the 1940s.
The War Labor Board has decreed ‘equal pay for equal work’ for women in war industry… George W. Taylor, WLB vice-chairman, wrote the decision and said that any other condition than that of pay equality was ‘not conducive to maximum production’.
The WASP program, for as such the Women Airforces Service Pilots became known, was begun in August, 1943. In addition to providing women fliers who could take over certain jobs and thereby release their brothers for front-line duty, the program was designed to see if women could serve as military pilots and, if so, to serve as a nucleus of an organization that could be rapidly expanded…The women who took part in the pilot program proved of great value to their country, flying almost every type of airplane used by the AAF, from the Thunderbolt fighter, to the C-54 transport, they flew enough miles to reach around the world 2,500 times at the Equator.
The WASPs were fortunate enough to have pioneering aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran (1906 – 1980) to serve at their helm.
Click here to read about the WAC truck drivers of the Second World War.
When it became clear to the employers on the American home front that there was going to be a shortage of men, their attention turned to a portion of the labor pool who had seldom been allowed to prove their mettle: they were called women. This article recalls those heady days at the U.S. Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground when local women were trained to fire enormous artillery pieces in order that the Army weapons specialists understand the gun’s capabilities. This column primarily concerns the delight on all the men’s faces when it was discovered that women were able to perform their tasks just as well as the men.
Eight months into America’s entry into the war came this article from PM reporting the War Manpower Commission and their data as to how many American women up to that point had stepped up to contribute their labor to the war effort (over 1,500,000):
Women have been found to excel men in jobs requiring repetitive skill, finger dexterity and accuracy. They’re the equals of men in a number of other jobs. A U.S. Employment Service has indicated women can do 80 percent of the jobs now done by men.
During World War II many women played roles as daring and courageous as were required of any man. This is the true story of one such woman, who gambled her life to help the Allies win the final victory in Europe.
…I began my mission in wartime France as a British secret agent. Colonel Maurice Buckmaster had told me what my assignment was:
You will parachute into France with a wireless operator and a demolition specialist. The drop will be 40 miles from Le Mans, where Rommel’s army is concentrated…
Click here to read about the women who spied for the Nazis during the Second World War.
Lady Leathernecks’, as the trimly-clad members were affectionately dubbed, responded to their country’s call some 19,000 strong, accomplishing more than 150 different jobs at more than fifty Marine bases and stations throughout the United States.
Organized February 13, 1943 the Women’s Reserve was directed by Lt. Colonel Ruth Cheney Streeter (1895 – 1990). Women in the Marine Corps were authorized to hold the same jobs, ranks and pay as Marines.
Although the Selective Service agency granted 4,192,000 draft deferments to farmers throughout the course of World War II, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recognized that this number alone would never be enough to harvest the food necessary to feed both the home front and the armed forces. With this shortage in mind, the Women’s Land Army was created in 1943 to provide that essential farm labor that proved so vital in winning the war. Between the years 1943 and 1945 millions of American women from various backgrounds rolled up their denim sleeves and got the job done. The attached magazine article is one of the first to tell the tale of this organization, and was printed at a time when there were only 60,000 women in the field.<
Here is an account by one reporter of his visit to an American aircraft factory early in the war. His article concerns the novelty of female laborers:
We climbed to a catwalk in the rafters and looked down on one of the most fascinating factories on earth. It was gay as a flower garden. Women in bright blouses and slacks were everywhere, doing everything. Blondes and brunettes and redheads and – well , middle-aged ones. Mostly pretty. And every one eagerly intent upon her job.
In an effort to put an end to worker absenteeism at defense plants, a fetching welder at the Albina Engine & Machine Works shipyard (Portland, Oregon), Jeannine Christiansen unhatched a sure-footed scheme to do just that. Recognizing that (most) men don’t find life worth living without rubbing noses with the females of the species, Miss Christiansen instituted the NO WORK NO WOO movement (I think you can guess what Woo means). The attached report states that it was effective and spread to other factories along the West Coast.
The Navy Yard in Brooklyn (NY) got along with men mechanics for 141 years, up to now – but this is a tough war. Women are now being hired to help build and repair warships and their accessories.
The Army Nurse during World War II was at work in every quarter of the globe, serving on land, on the sea in hospital ships and in the air, evacuating the wounded by plane. Because of the rugged conditions under which she served, she was trained to use foxholes and to understand gas defense, to purify water in the field and to crawl , heavily equipped, under barbed wire.
By the time VJ-Day rolled around, the Army Nurse Corps was 55,000 strong.
(From Amazon: G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II
Attached is a photo-essay from a 1943 issue Pic Magazine illustrating the roll women played in a California bomber factory.
Click here to read about the women war workers of W.W. I.
To read the U.S. magazines and newspapers printed in 1941 is to gain an understanding as to the sixth sense many Americans had in predicting that W.W. II would soon be upon them – and this article is a fine example. One month before Pearl Harbor the editors of AMERICAN MAGAZINE ran this column about Lauretta Schimmoller (1902 – 1981) who established the Aerial Nurse Corps of America, which, at that time, was composed of over 400 volunteers:
All air-minded registered nurses, they stand ready to fly with medical aid to scenes of disaster…Now established on a nation-wide scale, ANCOA, with its 19 national chapters, has already handled more than 3,000 emergency cases.
For those who survived it, the Second World War changed many lives – some for better, some for worse. Gale Volchok was rescued from a dreary job in New York retail and delivered to the proving grounds of two different infantry training camps in New Jersey. It was under her watchful eye that thousands of American soldiers learned to throw their enemies into the dirt and generally defend them selves.
The attached is a short article from THINK MAGAZINE that sums up the contributions made by the 87,000 American women of the U.S. Navy during World War II. These women were organized into a body called WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service):
In 500 shore establishments of the United States Fleet, women in navy blue released enough men from non-combatant duty to man all of America’s landing crafts in two important operations: the Normandy landings on D-Day and the invasion of Saipan.
Created July 30, 1942, the Corps completed more than three years of service while the nation was engaged in war. The director was Captain Mildred H. McAfee (1900 – 1994), former president of Wellseley College.
Sand Diego wanted women for its war industries. Since the beginning of the war boom San Diego has cajoled, bribed and appealed publicly for women. And San Diego got women, not only for the war industries, but for every other conceivable job. They became letter carriers, bus drivers, high-altitude window washers, milk deliverers, office workers.
Youngest and largest of the the women’s uniformed services, the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, has made nursing history in the brief span of it’s existence…the corps includes more than 112,000 women between 17 and 35 who enrolled to help meet the emergency demand for nursing service and at the same time prepare themselves for a post-war profession.
One of the seldom remembered branches of the War Production Board was the Women’s Labor Supply Services which served to eradicate the various draft deferments that were keeping too many men out of the military. Thelma McKelvey was the woman in charge of this body:
This captain of industry expects to see women workers in factories and farms increase from 700,000 today to 4,000,000 by mid-1943.
