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They were welders, welding planes for the WW2 air strikes and air warfare. They also worked as riveters, building the machines used in war.

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American Women in World War II: On the Home Front and Beyond
American women played important roles during World War II, both at home and in uniform. Not only did they give their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers to the war effort, they gave their time, energy, and some even gave their lives.

Reluctant to enter the war when it erupted in 1939, the United States quickly committed itself to total war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. That commitment included utilizing all of America's assets-women included. The Axis powers, on the other hand, were slow to employ women in their war industries. Hitler derided Americans as degenerate for putting their women to work. The role of German women, he said, was to be good wives and mothers and to have more babies for the Third Reich.

When the war began, quickie marriages became the norm, as teenagers married their sweethearts before their men went overseas. As the men fought abroad, women on the Home Front worked in defense plants and volunteered for war-related organizations, in addition to managing their households. In New Orleans, as the demand for public transportation grew, women even became streetcar "conductorettes" for the first time. When men left, women "became proficient cooks and housekeepers, managed the finances, learned to fix the car, worked in a defense plant, and wrote letters to their soldier husbands that were consistently upbeat." (Stephen Ambrose, D-Day, 488) Rosie the Riveter helped assure that the Allies would have the war materials they needed to defeat the Axis.

Nearly 350,000 American women served in uniform, both at home and abroad, volunteering for the newly formed Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs, later renamed the Women's Army Corps), the Navy Women's Reserve (WAVES), the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, the Coast Guard Women's Reserve (SPARS), the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS), the Army Nurses Corps, and the Navy Nurse Corps. General Eisenhower felt that he could not win the war without the aid of the women in uniform. "The contribution of the women of America, whether on the farm or in the factory or in uniform, to D-Day was a sine qua non of the invasion effort." (Ambrose, D-Day, 489)

Women in uniform took office and clerical jobs in the armed forces in order to free men to fight. They also drove trucks, repaired airplanes, worked as laboratory technicians, rigged parachutes, served as radio operators, analyzed photographs, flew military aircraft across the country, test-flew newly repaired planes, and even trained anti-aircraft artillery gunners by acting as flying targets. Some women served near the front lines in the Army Nurse Corps, where 16 were killed as a result of direct enemy fire. Sixty-eight American service women were captured as POWs in the Philippines. More than 1,600 nurses were decorated for bravery under fire and meritorious service, and 565 WACs in the Pacific Theater won combat decorations. Nurses were in Normandy on D-plus-four.

At the war's end, even though a majority of women surveyed reported wanted to keep their jobs, many were forced out by men returning home and by the downturn in demand for war materials. Women veterans encountered roadblocks when they tried to take advantage of benefit programs for veterans, like the G.I. Bill. The nation that needed their help in a time of crisis, it seems, was not yet ready for the greater social equality that would slowly come in the decades to follow.

The National WWII Museum recognizes the contribution that women played in the success of the Allied victory in World War II and explores that contribution in depth in its newest permanent exhibit,The Arsenal of Democracy: The Herman and George Brown Salute to the Home Front.

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History At a Glance: Women in World War II | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans

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American Women in World War II: On the Home Front and Beyond American women played important roles during World War II, both at home and in uniform. Not only did they give their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers to the war effort, they gave their time, energy, and some even gave their lives.

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Men went overseas to go fight in the war so the jobs occupied by men before the war had to be taken by women substitutes

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Women learned most of the normal tasks men used to do, like fixing the car, managing finances, working, and more

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"Women: There's work to be done and a war to be won...NOW! See Your U.S. Employment Service," 1944.
Vernon Grant, U.S. Government Printing Office/Office of War Information. Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-5604

Rosie the Riveter is an icon of the American experience during World War II. With her denim uniform, red kerchief, and flexed bicep, she represents women's employment and empowerment. But the story of women on the home front is broader, deeper, and more complex than Rosie's image suggests.

Millions of women did work in shipyards and factories during World War II. They labored as welders, machinists, and (of course) riveters. Women also drove trucks, cleaned houses, flew planes, organized fundraisers, treated patients, grew crops, broke codes, and took care of children. Hundreds of thousands of them joined the armed forces.

With opportunities came struggles. Some Americans heralded women's patriotism, but others thought it was inappropriate for them to work outside the home. Women experienced sexual harassment and violence at work, in public, and in their homes. Black, Latina, Native American, and Asian American women faced racism and discrimination in war work and society. The US government forced Japanese American and Unangax̂ (Aleut) people into incarceration camps.

On this page, you will find stories of American women spending World War II in uniform, at work, and in their homes and communities. You can engage with this legacy through articles, lesson plans, travel ideas, and historic places. Learn about the history of women in World War II at national parks, like Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in California. Or investigate how women lived and worked on the home front in American World War II Heritage Cities.

Women's home front experience is the American experience. Explore your history here.

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Women in World War II (U.S. National Park Service)

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Rosie the Riveter is an icon of the American experience during World War II. With her denim uniform, red kerchief, and flexed bicep, she represents women's employment and empowerment. But the story of women on the home front is broader, deeper, and more complex than Rosie's image suggests.

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There were millions of women that worked in men’s place. 6 million worked in men’s place on the homefront, and around 200,000 enlisted in the army.

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Women in the Work Force during World War II

Background:

Women have always worked outside the home but never before in the numbers or with the same impact as they did in World War II. Prior to the war, most of the women that did work were from the lower working classes and many of these were minorities. There were a variety of attitudes towards women in the work force. Some thought they should only have jobs that men didn't want while others felt women should give up their jobs so unemployed men could have a job, especially during the Great Depression. Still others held the view that women from the middle class or above should never lower themselves to go to work. These and other viewpoints would be challenged with the United States' entry into World War II.

With men off to fight a worldwide war across the Atlantic and the Pacific, women were called to take their place on the production line. The War Manpower Commission, a Federal Agency established to increase the manufacture of war materials, had the task of recruiting women into employment vital to the war effort. Men's attitude towards women in the work force was one challenge to overcome but, surprisingly, women's own ideas about work outside the home had to change as well. Two of the primary sources below deal with arguments to challenge these attitudes.

A number of cities across the nation had a positive economic effect because of the demand for manufactured war materials. In Alabama no city felt a greater impact than did Mobile. An estimated ninety-thousand workers swarmed into the city to work in the local war factories, especially in one of the two shipyards (Gulf Shipbuilding and Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding) or in the ALCOA factory. The ALCOA plant alone would produce 34% of the nation's aluminum, a metal necessary for the production of airplanes. Men still worked at these plants, but without the women, these plants would have never been as productive or as successful as they ultimately were.

After the war, most women returned home, let go from their jobs. Their jobs, again, belonged to men. However, there were lasting effects. Women had proven that they could do the job and within a few decades, women in the workforce became a common sight. An immediate effect is often overlooked. These women had saved much of their wages since there was little to buy during the war. It was this money that helped serve as a down payment for a new home and helped launch the prosperity of the 1950s.

Documents:

Classroom Comments:

Many of the attitudes about women in the workforce in the 1940s were quite different than they are today. Have students consider the following:

Why did the government see a need to convince both men and women about the need for women in the workforce during World War II?

What were some of the attitudes that men had about women working?

What were some of the attitudes that women had about entering the workforce?

If a teacher finds unique and effective ways to use these documents in their classroom and would like to share them with other teachers, please contact joel.walker@nara.gov.

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Women in the Work Force during World War II

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Women in the Work Force during World War II Background: Women have always worked outside the home but never before in the numbers or with the same impact as they did in World War II. Prior to the war, most of the women that did work were from the lower working classes and many of these were minorities.

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There were many organizations dedicated to women’s participation in the armed forces, such as the WAACs, WAVEs, WASPs, and the SPARs.

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In the 1800s women were not working and were just housewives so when the men were drafted in the 1940s women saw it as an opportunity to get out of the house and do something new

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World War II - Women & the American Story

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Examine women’s crucial roles on the American warfront and homefront during World War II, and consider women’s opportunities and obstacles during the war.

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With the men gone and their jobs gone the economy would fall into crisis if nobody took their place

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The Women’s Rights Movement stirred between women after WW2 after they worked in jobs they felt they needed basic rights as men did.

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Prologue to a social movement

In the aftermath of World War II, the lives of women in developed countries changed dramatically. Household technology eased the burdens of homemaking, life expectancies increased dramatically, and the growth of the service sector opened up thousands of jobs not dependent on physical strength. Despite these socioeconomic transformations, cultural attitudes (especially concerning women's work) and legal precedents still reinforced sexual inequalities. An articulate account of the oppressive effects of prevailing notions of femininity appeared in Le Deuxième Sexe (1949; The Second Sex), by the French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. It became a worldwide best seller and raised feminist consciousness by stressing that liberation for women was liberation for men too.

The first public indication that change was imminent came with women's reaction to the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. Friedan spoke of the problem that "lay buried, unspoken" in the mind of the suburban housewife: utter boredom and lack of fulfillment. Women who had been told that they had it all-nice houses, lovely children, responsible husbands-were deadened by domesticity, she said, and they were too socially conditioned to recognize their own desperation. The Feminine Mystique was an immediate best seller. Friedan had struck a chord.

Reformers and revolutionaries

Initially, women energized by Friedan's book joined with government leaders and union representatives who had been lobbying the federal government for equal pay and for protection against employment discrimination. By June 1966 they had concluded that polite requests were insufficient. They would need their own national pressure group-a women's equivalent of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). With this, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was born.

The organization was not an instant success. By the end of its second year, NOW had just 1,035 members and was racked by ideological divisions. When the group tried to write a Bill of Rights for Women, it found consensus on six measures essential to ensuring women's equality: enforcement of laws banning employment discrimination; maternity leave rights; child-care centres that could enable mothers to work; tax deductions for child-care expenses; equal and unsegregated education; and equal job-training opportunities for poor women.

Two other measures stirred enormous controversy: one demanded immediate passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution (to ensure equality of rights, regardless of sex), and the other demanded greater access to contraception and abortion. When NOW threw its support behind passage of the ERA, the United Auto Workers union-which had been providing NOW with office space-withdrew its support, because the ERA would effectively prohibit protective labour legislation for women. When some NOW members called for repeal of all abortion laws, other members left the fledgling organization, convinced that this latest action would undermine their struggles against economic and legal discrimination.

NOW's membership was also siphoned off from the left. Impatient with a top-heavy traditional organization, activists in New York City, where half of NOW's membership was located, walked out. Over the next two years, as NOW struggled to establish itself as a national organization, more radical women's groups were formed by female antiwar, civil rights, and leftist activists who had grown disgusted by the New Left's refusal to address women's concerns. Ironically, sexist attitudes had pervaded 1960s radical politics, with some women being exploited or treated unequally within those movements. In 1964, for example, when a woman's resolution was brought up at a Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) conference, Stokely Carmichael flippantly cut off all debate: "The only position for women in SNCC is prone."

While NOW focused on issues of women's rights, the more radical groups pursued the broader themes of women's liberation. Although they lacked the kind of coherent national structure NOW had formed, liberation groups sprang up in Chicago, Toronto, Seattle, Detroit, and elsewhere. Suddenly, the women's liberation movement was everywhere-and nowhere. It had no officers, no mailing address, no printed agenda. What it did have was attitude. In September 1968 activists converged on Atlantic City, New Jersey, to protest the image of womanhood conveyed by the Miss America Pageant. In February 1969 one of the most radical liberation groups, the Redstockings, published its principles as "The Bitch Manifesto." Based in New York City, the Redstockings penned the movement's first analysis of the politics of housework, held the first public speak-out on abortion, and helped to develop the concept of "consciousness-raising" groups-rap sessions to unravel how sexism might have coloured their lives. The Redstockings also held speak-outs on rape to focus national attention on the problem of violence against women, including domestic violence.

Responding to these diverse interests, NOW called the Congress to Unite Women, which drew more than 500 feminists to New York City in November 1969. The meeting was meant to establish common ground between the radical and moderate wings of the women's rights movement, but it was an impossible task. Well-dressed professionals convinced that women needed to reason with men could not unite with wild-haired radicals whose New Left experience had soured them on polite discourse with "the enemy." NOW's leadership seemed more comfortable lobbying politicians in Washington or corresponding with NASA about the exclusion of women from the astronaut program, while the young upstarts preferred disrupting legislative committee hearings. NOW leaders were looking for reform. The more radical women were plotting a revolution.

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Women's rights movement | Definition, Leaders, Overview, History, & Facts

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Women's rights movement, diverse social movement, largely based in the United States, that in the 1960s and '70s sought equal rights and opportunities and greater personal freedom for women. It coincided with and is recognized as part of the 'second wave' of feminism.

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Speed them back--Join the WAAC--Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. U.S. Army--Apply at any U.S. Army recruiting and induction station. Created by the United States. Army, Recruiting Publicity Bureau, 1943.

This is a guest blog by Siobhan Miller, the fall 2022 Teaching with Primary Sources intern at the Young Readers Center & Programs Lab. For more information on the Teaching with Primary Sources internship opportunity, please follow this link.

Did you know that every branch of the US military employed women during World War II ? Women played an essential role in filling non-combat positions so men could be freed to fight overseas. If your family is curious about women's military history, we invite you to explore the sources and complete the activities below to start conversations with your children about women in the military during World War II.

The Army created the as the first women's auxiliary organization in 1941. The Navy followed soon after with the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), the Marines with the Women Marines, and the Coast Guard with the SPARS (after their motto, Semper Paratus or "Always Ready"). The Army Air Forces created the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) as a civilian female pilot program in 1943.

Women worked in different roles throughout the military, serving as mechanics on training bases, pilots transporting military planes, and postal workers delivering overseas mail. Women also continued to serve as nurses in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps. Unlike women in auxiliary programs who were kept far away from combat, nurses were often required to serve in active war zones close to the front lines. By the end of the war, over 350,000 women had served in uniform.

Although the military was still segregated at this time, women of color enlisted in many women's military . African American women served in all Black units in the Women's Army Corps, the Navy's WAVES, and the Army and Navy Nurse Corps. The first African American women to serve abroad were the members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Watch a clip with your family from the "All American News" newsreel below to see footage of these women stationed in England. The segment about the division starts at 5:12 and ends at 6:55. Ask your child the observation question: What kind of work were these women doing?

Japanese Americans on the west coast incarcerated during World War II were encouraged to "prove their loyalty" by joining the military. Both men and women responded. Photographer Ansel Adams took several portraits of Japanese American women in uniform at the Manzanar Japanese Internment Camp, such as the one featured below.

As you view this image, ask your children:

What do you know about Japanese Americans during World War II?

What do you know about the military during World War II?

How does this image alter what you know?

As an intern at the Library of Congress, I began by researching the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). WASPs ferried planes from factory to base, trained male cadets, towed anti-aircraft gunnery targets, served as test pilots, and helped with weather data gathering. The 1,074 women who served in the WASP program were the first women to fly military aircraft in the United States, and their efforts helped pave the way for future generations of women in aviation.
Starting conversations with your children about the history of women in the military.
Take a look at personal narratives from the Library's Veterans History Project, which contains many/several oral history interviews with female World War II veterans. Explore collections together , including curated collections about African American women in World War II or the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Choose one woman's oral history to delve into. Some of my favorites include:

Marcella Ryan Le Beau of the Army Nurse Corps (watch from 13:53-15:41 to hear her day-to-day experience as a Native American woman overseas in the Army Nurse Corps, and from 25:30-28:10 to hear what happened during the Battle of the Bulge).

Catherine Vail Bridge of the WASPs (watch from 36:30-42:00 to hear about being a ferry pilot).

Dorothy E. Jenkins of the WACs and the 6888th Postal Directory Battalion (watch from 38:35-45:10 to hear about her service and duties in England).

After listening to the oral history, reflect together:

When and where was this woman born?

Does she describe her childhood? How is it similar or different from yours?

What were some of the reasons she joined the armed forces? If you were in her shoes, would you make the same choice?

Where did this woman train for the military, and how does she describe her training?

What are some moments or events in her description that you find particularly interesting? Why?

What more do you want to know? How might you find out through further research?

Why is it important today to talk about women in the military during World War II?

Although often overlooked when discussing the history of World War II, the 350,000 women who served in the armed forces were essential to the success of the United States military and its allies. We invite you to engage with your children to seek out stories of these women whose courageous steps impacted history.

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Women in the Military During World War II: Family Listening Activities | Minerva's Kaleidoscope

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This is a guest blog by Siobhan Miller, the fall 2022 Teaching with Primary Sources intern at the Young Readers Center & Programs Lab. For more information on the Teaching with Primary Sources internship opportunity, please follow this link. Did you know that every branch of the US military employed women during World War II ?

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Women in the army were in separated units from men and this made women feel like they were less

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Black women and Japanese women still were discriminated against and in segregated units but they were a great asset in the war

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Japanese women were stuck in internment camps for nearly the whole war and could not work or enlist in the war

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Women of color were not looked discriminated against as much because of their loyalty to the USA