Life for Women in America in the 1930s
Life was difficult for women in America in the 1930s. Society had specified roles for them and women worked long hours for little pay. Women in the 1930s were expected to stay home and take care of children and had limited career opportunities; those that had careers earned low wages.
Family Roles were predetermined for women in America in the 1930s. Many people believed, “...the woman's place was in the home, and that children needed a mother at home full time” (Working Women in the 1930s). The man of the house was providing money for the family so women were expected to stay home. Working women were accused of “taking jobs” from men. Not every woman was married and had children, “In the 1920s and the
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1930s some women, especially college-educated women, chose to remain single. These women expected to find spiritual and emotional fulfillment from other women” (Working Women in the 1930s). The depression caused many women to become more self reliant. Many single women also found that they could focus better on their studies, work, or whatever they enjoyed doing. This is how family roles for women in the 1930s were predetermined. Career options for women in America in the 1930s were limited.
For instance, “Section 213 of the 1932 Federal Economy Act prohibited more than one family member from working for the government, barring many married women from federal employment. Even positions that were traditionally held by women, such as teacher and librarian, were affected” (Working Women in the 1930s). Women lost their jobs because the men earned much higher wages. This caused many women to lose their jobs and they were forced to stay home. “According to the 1930 census almost eleven million women, or 24.3 percent of all women in the country, were gainfully employed. Three out of every ten of these working women were in domestic or personal service. Of professional women three-quarters were schoolteachers or nurses” (Working Women in the 1930s). This authenticates the fact that women had limited career options. 75% of professional working women were in the same two jobs, teaching and nursing. 30% of working women worked in homes as the help. Many women joined the military when war broke out. These women were called “she-soldiers”. “To recruit she-soldiers, the War Department created a woman's branch of the army, called the Women’s Army Corps, or WACs for short. She-soldiers could not shoot a gun, but they could do clerical and technical work” (Gourley 105). Since many men left to fight in the war, women were needed to fill in the jobs they left. Women were as effective as men in the military because they …show more content…
were not fighting with guns but, they were very helpful doing other things. This affirms that women had limited career options in the 1930s. Wages too were limited for women in America in the 1930s.
“More than half of all employed women worked for more than fifty hours a week, and more than one-fifth worked for more than fifty-five hours” (Working Women in the 1930s). These women worked long hours for little pay. This is another demonstration as to why most women did not work. To some women, working was not worth the long hours away from family. “According to the Social Security Administration, women's average annual pay in 1937 was $525, compared with $1,027 for men” (Working Women in the 1930s). Women received almost half of what men received annually. Women worked for wages most men would never even consider. During the war, “Many of them were more that glad to leave these jobs for higher-paying jobs in wartime industries” (“Women and Work”). This confirms that women were receiving such low wages that they were happy to leave their jobs. Women received higher pay for wartime industries because the work was necessary for the war. For normal jobs, labor was not time sensitive. This displays the low wages that women had in the
1930s. Women in the 1930s had limited career opportunities and were expected to stay home and take care of children; those that had careers earned low wages. Most of the issues for women in the 1930s have been resolved. However, some still remain. Look at men’s vs. women’s annual wages today.
During the time of 1940-1945 a big whole opened up in the industrial labor force because of the men enlisting. World War II was a hard time for the United States and knowing that it would be hard on their work force, they realized they needed the woman to do their part and help in any way they can. Whether it is in the armed forces or at home the women showed they could help out. In the United States armed forces about 350,000 women served at home and abroad. The woman’s work force in the United States increased from 27 percent to nearly 37percent, and by 1945 nearly one out of every four married woman worked outside the home. This paper will show the way the United States got the woman into these positions was through propaganda from
May argues that “the depression thus paved way for two different family forms: one with two breadwinners who shared tasks and the other with spouses whose roles were sharply differentiated.” In the latter form the father would have earned a “family wage” while his wife would have been responsible the children and their home, only working if it was necessary to supplement her husband’s income. This trend was caused mainly by two factors. During the financial strain of the depression, marriage and birth rates were much lower than they had been in the previous decade while the divorce rate was much higher. Young men of the time were afraid that they would not be able to provide for their new families and chose not to get married. While young women on the other hand, encountered an employment boom that allowed them to gain a sense of economic freedom that allowed them to not feel compelled to marry. This new single woman was glamorized by Hollywood during the 1930s. However, families tended toward choosing a life with the husband earning a “family wage” with the wife at home. Why? May concludes, "for all its affirmation of the emancipation of women, Hollywood fell short of pointing the way toward a restructured family that would incorporate independent women." Films from the 1930s like Gone with the Wind and His Girl Friday portrayed strong female leads that had to choose between their independent working life and domestic happiness, as it seemed that both could not coexist in their lives. Another cause for this were the programs implemented during the New Deal Era. Such programs aimed to raise male employment levels and often did nothing for female employment. Men had become embittered during the depression when women
For the first time women were working in the industries of America. As husbands and fathers, sons and brothers shipped out to fight in Europe and the Pacific, millions of women marched into factories, offices, and military bases to work in paying jobs and in roles reserved for men in peacetime. Women were making a living that was not comparable to anything they had seen before. They were dependent on themselves; for once they could support the household. Most of the work in industry was related to the war, such as radios for airplanes and shells for guns. Peggy Terry, a young woman who worked at a shell-loading plant in Kentucky, tells of the money that was to be made from industrial work (108). “We made a fabulous sum of thirty-two dollars a week. To us that was an absolute miracle. Before that, we made nothing (108)." Sarah Killingsworth worked in a defense plant. " All I wanted to do was get in the factory, because they were payin more than what I'd been makin. Which was forty dollars a week, which was pretty good considering I'd been makin about twenty dollars a week. When I left Tennessee I was only makin two-fifty a week, so that was quite a jump (114)." Terry had never been able to provide for herself as she was able to during the war. " Now we'd have money to buy shoes and a dress and pay rent and get some food on the table. We were just happy to have work (108).” These women exemplify the turn around from the peacetime to wartime atmosphere on the home front. The depression had repressed them to poverty like living conditions. The war had enabled them to have what would be luxury as compared to life before.
The start of the war era came on the heels of a decade when women had seemingly taken a step backward in social and economic progress. The depression of the 1930's had devastated the American economy. Women, especially married women, had bore the largest share of the burden. To help male workers get back on the job, national leaders called for married women in two-income families to give up their jobs. Several states had passed laws barring women from holding state jobs.
During WWII, women took over the work force, and had such inspirations as Rosie the Riveter. This created a generation of women who wanted more out of life than birthing children, and keeping a nice home for their husband. The end of the war, however, brought with it a decrease of working women. In the 1950’s the rate of working women had slightly rebounded to 29% following the post-war decrease in 1945. These women were well rounded, working outside the home, and still having dinner on the table by 5PM.
Women in the 1930 were a significant part of everyday life, they just did not get credit for it. Women were not recognized for all that they did because men were put on a pesistool. The inequality in this time period affected everything women did. Women were important in American history because of their family roles, careers, and wages.
The 1940s provided a drastic change in women’s employment rates and society’s view of women. With the end of the Depression and the United States’ entrance into World War II, the number of jobs available to women significantly increased. As men were being drafted into military service, the United States needed more workers to fill the jobs left vacant by men going to war. Women entered the workforce during World War II due to the economic need of the country. The use of Patriotic rhetoric in government propaganda initiated and encouraged women to change their role in society.
When all the men were across the ocean fighting a war for world peace, the home front soon found itself in a shortage for workers. Before the war, women mostly depended on men for financial support. But with so many gone to battle, women had to go to work to support themselves. With patriotic spirit, women one by one stepped up to do a man's work with little pay, respect or recognition. Labor shortages provided a variety of jobs for women, who became street car conductors, railroad workers, and shipbuilders. Some women took over the farms, monitoring the crops and harvesting and taking care of livestock. Women, who had young children with nobody to help them, did what they could do to help too. They made such things for the soldiers overseas, such as flannel shirts, socks and scarves.
During America’s involvement in World War Two, which spanned from 1941 until 1945, many men went off to fight overseas. This left a gap in the defense plants that built wartime materials, such as tanks and other machines for battle. As a result, women began to enter the workforce at astonishing rates, filling the roles left behind by the men. As stated by Cynthia Harrison, “By March of [1944], almost one-third of all women over the age of fourteen were in the labor force, and the numbers of women in industry had increased almost 500 percent. For the first time in history, women were in the exact same place as their male counterparts had been, even working the same jobs. The women were not dependent upon men, as the men were overseas and far from influence upon their wives.
The 1950s was a time when American life seemed to be in an ideal model for what family should be. People were portrayed as being happy and content with their lives by the meadia. Women and children were seen as being kind and courteous to the other members of society while when the day ended they were all there to support the man of the house. All of this was just a mirage for what was happening under the surface in the minds of everyone during that time as seen through the women, children, and men of this time struggled to fit into the mold that society had made for them.
During the Great War and the huge amount of men that were deployed created the need to employ women in hospitals, factories, and offices. When the war ended the women would return home or do more traditional jobs such as teaching or shop work. “Also in the 1920s the number of women working raised by fifty percent.” They usually didn’t work if they were married because they were still sticking to the role of being stay at home moms while the husband worked and took care of the family financially. But among the single women there was a huge increase in employment. “Women were still not getting payed near as equally as men and were expected to quit their jobs if they married or pregnant.” Although women were still not getting payed as equally it was still a huge change for the women's
In the 1960’s women were still seen as trophies and were beginning to be accepted into the work industry. They were still homemakers, raised the family, and made sure their husbands were happy. That was the social norms for women during that time period. They were not held to high work expectations like men were. But something amazing happened that would change women 's lives for centuries; it was the 1970’s. The 60’s put the equality movement in motion but 70’s was a time of reform where women were finally able to control their own paths. Not only was the 70’s a historical marker for the fiftieth anniversary for women suffrage, it was also a marker for the drastic change of different social norms, the changes of the American Dream, and the
“The War led to a dramatic rise in the number of women working in the United States; from 10.8 million in March, 1941, to more than 18 million in August, 1944…” (Miller). Although the United States couldn’t have been as successful in the war without their efforts, most of
To begin, the Great Depression caused many societal changes within families. During the Roaring Twenties, males were considered as the “breadwinners” of the family. They provided the family a stable income. However, after the 1929 Stock Market Crash, many businesses lost investments, ceasing production and manufacturing. Without profit and consumers, many men lost their jobs, along with their dignity (“Suffering America”). Men were humiliated and felt like failures by not being able to support their families. In efforts to adjust to this economic crisis, some married women began to work outside home, providing the sole source of income. Many soon recognized “that working-class women played a key role as decision-makers in their families” and
American women had a new lifestyle and role. There were three different ideas about the identity of women. These included the 19th Amendment, the flapper, new opportunities, and family during 1920. In 1917, women’s organizations started to fight for their freedom, right to vote, and equality. The 19th Amendment passed in 1920, was the best result for women to get the first step on a new role. It represented that women had the same rights as men and they were no different. The flapper was the new word and showed young women how to embrace a new style of clothes, image, and behavior. During the 1920s, women had short hair, wore skimpier skirts, smoked, and talked about sex. All of these changes surprised and shocked the previous generation. “Along with all this, the younger generation discovered sex. It was hardly unique to their generation, but they had the automobile in which to experiment.” (AC,p.180) These 10 years, it changed the ideas people had about women. The traditional style no longer existed and they had a new style of sexual freedom and fashion. There were also new job opportunities for women. Many of them got professional jobs after they graduated colleges, such as a nurse, teacher or typesetter-“By 1930, 10 million women were earning wages: however, few rose to a managerial job, and whatever they worked, women earned less than men.”(textbook p.442)Although women earned less than men, it proved women had a specific level in society. In the same way, it changed the idea that only men had responsibilities to support their families financial needs. At those points, women’s role became freedom and equal as