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In the 1940s, the careers of women and men were altered when World War II was at its peak, during the time between 1940 and 1945 the year the war ended, American factories and shipyards produced around 300,000 military planes, 86,000 tanks, 8.5 million guns and carbines, 3 million machine guns, 72,000 naval ships, 4,900 merchant ships which would carry important and needed supplies, and 14 million tons of explosives and ammunition for the war (the 1940s, 23). Before the United States had joined the war, many companies had already formed contracts with the government about being able to produce military equipment for the war. World War II had a big effect on not just women's but men’s careers as well, therefore it is important to know the history behind how it affected the careers of the 1940s, and to know how it changed the careers of men as well women. …show more content…
Most of the history during the 1940s were in between 1940 and 1945 when World War II ended, “Increases in female labor supply decreased both female and male wages, but had a stronger effect on women.” (nber.org).
World War II affected the workforce of men and women in different ways, men were drafted to war while women took their place in factories and workyards. Patriotism influenced women into working while the men were at war. Once at work, women were convinced to go to work by the economic incentives, the women learned about the nonmaterial benefits that come with working such as learning new skills, contributing to the public good, and proving that women can do the jobs meant for men just as good as the men could do the work (1940s.org). Women in the 1940s were hesitant to join the workforce, that was until Norman Rockwell’s fictional character “Rosie the Riveter” inspired multiple women to join the workforce to help dedicate their services to the war. The creation of “Rosie the Riveter”lead to, many other images of “Rosie” to help bring forth volunteers for the
war. During the 1940s one of the most popular activities that formed was the All American girl professional Baseball league. The league was formed in 1943 by the Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley, he believed it was a way to maintain the interest in baseball to the public (ebsco). Baseball was starting to lose the interest of the public once all the men in the professional baseball leagues were drafted into the war, and thus became the AAGPBL. Betsy Jochum, 94 year old woman and former player for the AAGPBL, Betsy had been among half a dozen players who were able to revisit their baseball careers when attending the historical museum of the women’s baseball leagues victories and downfalls. “There’s an old saying, ‘girls can’t play baseball.’ We proved them wrong,” said Dolly Konwinski, a former baseball player who had played for the Battle Creek Balles, Chicago Colleens, Grand Rapids Chicks, and Springfield Sallies (ebsco). The women that participated in the women’s professional baseball leagues, had the courage to go out on that field and show their fans that they were just as entertaining as men were at playing sports or anything else they had shown that women were equal to every human being not less than anybody else because of their gender. The women’s baseball league was a very popular and new thing among the feminine gender. Because of the women that were involved in the AAGPBL, women in the 1940s were braver and stronger against the struggles of the sexism during the 1940s time period. The 1940s historical timeline did in fact affect the careers of men and women. During this decade, there had been a rise in female labor, even though half or more than half of the women were brought into the workforce by the war (nber.org). The women that joined the workforce because of the war, felt it had been their way of contributing to the war. Women had answered the ‘call’ to contribute in the war differently, depending on their age, race, class, marital status, and the number of children they have had with their husband (1940s.org). Half of the women that had contributed to the war by joining the workforce, were mostly minority and lower-class, who had already been in the workforce and had jobs before the war had even begun (1940s.org). The women with the younger kids were encouraged to stay at home and care for the babies, but eventually they were needed in the workforce along with all the married women (1940s.org). Along with the women’s jobs being needed more frequently, the men were side by side on the war field fighting for the country we all live in. Both the women and men of the 1940s decade were absolutely brave in the situations that they had faced. In conclusion, the history of the careers of women was important to the generations in today’s present time. the 1940s careers were important not only to the war, but also to the present time and generations today.
In 1943, most women worked as teachers, nurses, or done some sort of domestic labor. Their opportunities were nowhere near as vast as the men’s. This caused the women to feel left out or unequal. Women fought for more equal opportunities as well as equal treatment. This along with their sense of patriotism is what led them to work in these factories. They wanted to be viewed as equal counterparts and have the same opportunities as men during this time. Not as many opportunities were open to the women so they jumped at the chance to widen them when the idea of working in the factories came up. This also paired with their sense of patriotism, making their determination to work stronger. The women knew the men were off fighting for their freedom so this would give them a chance to contribute to the cause as well as help war production. This challenged the views of the workplace as well as the beliefs of where women belonged in the workplace. Numerous men...
Rosie the riveter was the face of recruiting women into the Armed Forces during WWII. The increasing demand for soldiers was not being filled fast enough by just males. As a result, between the years 1940 and 1945, the percentage of female service members increased from 27% to 37%. Even on the civilian side of things, the ratio of married working women outside of their homes increased to one out of every four. The population of women that did not join the war was prompted by Rosie the Riveter’s iconic image of working in one of the many munitions industries throughout the US.
The film titled, “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter”, looks at the roles of women during and after World War II within the U.S. The film interviews five women who had experienced the World War II effects in the U.S, two who were Caucasian and three who were African American. These five women, who were among the millions of women recruited into skilled male-oriented jobs during World War II, shared insight into how women were treated, viewed and mainly controlled. Along with the interviews are clips from U.S. government propaganda films, news reports from the media, March of Time films, and newspaper stories, all depicting how women are to take "the men’s" places to keep up with industrial production, while reassured that their duties were fulfilling the patriotic and feminine role. After the war the government and media had changed their message as women were to resume the role of the housewife, maid and mother to stay out of the way of returning soldiers. Thus the patriotic and feminine role was nothing but a mystified tactic the government used to maintain the American economic structure during the world war period. It is the contention of this paper to explore how several groups of women were treated as mindless individuals that could be controlled and disposed of through the government arranging social institutions, media manipulation and propaganda, and assumptions behind women’s tendencies which forced “Rosie the Riveter” to become a male dominated concept.
After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.
World War I and industrialization both brought greater economic autonomy to American women. With immigration curtailed and hundreds of thousands of men needed for the armed forces, women’s labor became a wartime necessity. About 1.5 million women worked in paying jobs during the war, with many more employed as volunteers or secretaries and yeomen for the Army, Navy, and Marines (James and Wells, 66). Women retained few of those 1.5 million jobs after men returned from war, but the United States’ industrialized postwar economy soon provided enough work for men and women alike. Once confined to nursing, social work, teaching, or secretarial jobs, women began to find employment in new fields. According to Allen, “They ...
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.
In the early 1900’s, women who were married main jobs were to care for her family, manage their houses, and do housework. That is where the word housewife was come from. During the 1940's, women's roles and expectations in society were changing quickly and a lot. Before, women had very limited say in society. Since unemployment was so high during the Great Depression, most people were against women working because they saw it as women taking jobs from men that needed to work. Women were often stereotyped to stay home, have babies, and to be a good wife and mother. Advertisements often targeted women, showing them in the kitchen, talking with children, serving dinner, cleaning, and them with the joy of a clean house or the latest kitchen appliance.
During the war, men were off fighting for America, and the women were left behind to take over their jobs in the factories. Women proved that they can do almost all of the same jobs as men. Rosie the Riveter, a picture of a woman flexing with a caption of “We Can Do It,” became the symbol for women all across the nation. After the war, years later, women began to receive equal pay for the same jobs that the men were doing. Many other minority groups, such as African Americans, played a huge
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.
also managed to prove that they could do the jobs just as well as men
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
While the men were fighting, women took over their jobs. Women responded to this responsibility with a varying range of emotions. Many were excited for the opportunity, but some were scared of the change; so as a result, the government took action. The government created propaganda to encourage women to help the war efforts. One of the more famous propaganda posters showed, “Rosie the riveter.” She initially was created as an advertisement to encourage women to help out in the war, and she quickly became an important figure in women's rights. During the last two years of World War II, women were allowed to join the military. World War II greatly helped advance women’s