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https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/diversity/women-in-the-navy/waves.html#:~:text=More%20than%20100%2C000%20women%20served,Navy%20and%20the%20Naval%20Reserve.

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In 1941, after the Navy conducted a wartime estimate of the amount of men it would need to staff its ships and bases, it was clear the Navy did not have enough personnel. In order for the Navy to meet its wartime mission at sea, it would need to relieve men from their desk-bound jobs on shore duty.

The Navy sought to fill those clerical positions with women, just as they did in World War I. However, Congress and U.S. Navy leaders disagreed on whether the women should be in the Naval Reserve or part of an auxiliary. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox proposed a women's branch of the Naval Reserve, whereas Congress wanted a naval women's auxiliary like the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). The Navy sought advice from a women's advisory council of female educators on how to organize and administer a women's branch. This council, led by Barnard College Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve, helped to persuade the President to follow Secretary Knox's suggestion. On 30 July 1942, the President signed Public Law 689 establishing the Women's Reserve as a branch of the Naval Reserve.

Members of the Women's Reserve became known as Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). The first woman appointed as a lieutenant in the reserve, Elizabeth Reynard, created the WAVES acronym. Reynard wanted to accentuate the fact that WAVES were volunteers and temporary (they were authorized to stay in the Navy for the duration of the war, plus six months).

Unlike the Yeomen (F) of World War I, WAVES entered the Naval Reserve as officers as well as enlisted. However, the officers had no command authority except within the Women's Reserve. Officers received training at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School, located on the Smith College campus at Northampton, Massachusetts. Enlisted personnel received their recruit and specialized training on college campuses as well.

Lieutenant Commander Mildred McAfee was the first female line officer in the Naval Reserve as well as the director of the Women's Reserve. She served as the president of Wellesley College prior to her commissioning.

WAVES filled billets at 900 locations on shore. Public law 689 still prohibited them from serving on ships or overseas, though that law was later changed. While 38 ratings were open to women, the majority of WAVES worked in clerical, health care, or storekeeper billets. Approximately 14,000 served as yeomen and 13,000 WAVES served as hospital corpsmen. Women also served as codebreakers for the Office of Naval Operations's highly secretive Communication Division in Washington, DC, and managed the fleet's post offices.

The Bureau of Aeronautics was the mostly highly receptive to WAVES, and employed officers in the traditionally-male fields of engineering, gunnery, radio and radar, aircraft navigation and air traffic control. This was, in part, due to Lieutenant Joy Bright Hancock 's influence. Hancock, a former WWI Yeoman (F), had worked at the Bureau of Aeronautics as a civilian prior to World War II, and served as a Women's Reserve representative for the bureau.

Twenty-three thousand WAVES served in the aviation field during World War II. Enlisted WAVES served on naval air stations as aviation machinist mates, parachute riggers, photographers, aviation metalsmiths, aerographer's mates, gunnery instructors, radiomen, control tower operators, and pigeon trainers. They also served as Link trainer instructors, teaching pilots aerial navigation in small cockpit simulators. Eighty members of the WAVES served as air navigation officers on Naval Air Transport Service flights in the United States, Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii after Congress passed legislation allowing WAVES to volunteer for service in Hawaii and Alaska in September 1944.

The Bureau of Ordnance also utilized WAVES, but selected those with mathematical and technical backgrounds. The bureau sent mathematician Lieutenant (j.g.) Grace Hopper to Harvard University to program the Mark 1 computer, which the Navy used during the war to carry out computations.

The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery was also highly receptive to employing members of the Women's Reserve during World War II. The Medical Corps saw its first female physicians enter the Navy through the Women's Reserve.

The Navy Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps utilized WAVES as well-filling its empty billets with women who had been civilian attorneys prior to becoming reservists.

On 19 October 1944, less than a year before the war's end, the Navy began accepting Black women into the Women's Reserves. Lieutenant (j.g.) Harriet Ida Pickens and Ensign Frances Wills were the first two Black officers to be commissioned into the Women's Reserve.

More than 100,000 women served in the WAVES during World War II. Most were discharged in 1946. In 1948, Congress passed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act, which gave women a permanent place in the regular Navy and the Naval Reserve. Although the "Women's Reserve" ceased to exist, the acronym WAVES continued to be used in the subsequent 25 years.
Further Reading
Godson, Susan H. Serving Proudly: A History of Women in the U.S. Navy. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001.

United States Naval Institute. The U.S. Naval Institute on Women in the Navy: The History. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2015.

Notable WAVES

Captain Joy Bright Hancock, served in both World Wars

Captain Mildred McAfee, first WAVES officer and director of Women's Reserve

Grace Murray Hopper, pioneer in the field of computer science

Commander Elaine Toms, WAVES and Naval Reserve

Commander Bernice R. Walters Nordstrom, Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy

Captain Joan R. Hankey, trailblazing WAVES officer

Artifacts
WAVES Uniform Naval Training Center Bainbridge Pennant
Oral Histories

WAVES - Stoddard Oral History Collection, Thirteen transcripts of oral history interviews with former WAVES

Women in the Navy - Susan Godson Collection, Audio and transcripts of oral history interviews with former WAVES and Navy Nurse Corps members

World War II Veterans, Includes oral interview of two WAVES veterans

Additional Resources
Establishment of the Women's Reserve
The WAVES' 75th Birthday by NHHC Historian Regina Akers, Ph.D.

The Integration of the WAVES and the Navy's First Female African-American Officers by NHHC's Adam Bisno,Ph.D.
First Female Physicians (navy.mil) Women in the Navy First Anniversary of the WAVES Great Lakes ALWAV Newsletter
A Historical Overview of the Yeoman (F), by NHHC Historian Regina T. Akers, Ph.D.

How to Serve Your Country in the WAVES, a World War II information booklet on joining the WAVES

Minorities and Women in the Navy, bibliography

WAVE Quarters "D", a living quarters booklet for new WAVES during World War II (Lieutenant Commander Katherine Porter Allen, W, USNR, Officer-in-Charge)

WAVE Quarters "D", a living quarters booklet for new WAVES during World War II (Lieutenant Commander W-V(S), USNR, Officer in Charge)
WAVES Trivia
Uniform Regulations, Women's Reserve, United States Naval Reserve, 1943

Collections and Museum Exhibits

WAVES in World War II (photography collection)

Women in Uniform (art)
WAVES personal papers
Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth S. Denny Papers (1944-1973)

From Typewriters to Strike Fighters: Women in Naval Aviation (National Naval Aviation Museum)

Digital Resources
Women in Naval History Infographic Women in the U.S. Navy Infographic Harriet Pickens and Frances Wills

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In 1941, after the Navy conducted a wartime estimate of the amount of men it would need to staff its ships and bases, it was clear the Navy did not have enough personnel. In order for the Navy to meet its wartime mission at sea, it would need to relieve men from their desk-bound jobs on shore duty.

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In 1941, when the Navy counted how many men were there during WWII, there weren’t nearly enough soldiers to help fight in the war effort. This caused the Navy to start enlisting women into the war. At first, there were many disputes and disagreements about whether or not women should join and what roles they should do. Eventually though, they came up with the conclusion that the women should be placed in the Naval Reserve. The women in the Naval Reserve were known as the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service or the WAVES which was created by Elizabeth Reynard, a lieutenant in the reserve at the time. Unlike WWI, the women who were there could enlist either as an officer or a soldier. Even though women enlisted as officers, they were only allowed to command things inside of the Women’s Reserve. They filled the billets, which were areas for soldiers to temporarily live in, over the span of 900 locations. Although they were prohibited at the time from serving on ships or going overseas, they were still able to help out by working as nurses, servants, and code breakers. They also helped many soldiers in the aviation field at Naval Air stations. More than 100,000 women participated and served in the WAVES and were removed at the end of the war.

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In WWII, munitions factories were created throughout rural America. Women at the time went inside to make military weapons and supplies and were known as the Women Ordnance Workers (WOWs). They were required to have a perfect attendance record at work and at special meetings for 3 months straight. Although they did help other soldiers get the supplies they needed to fight the war, they were often paid less than regular men because they were still considered as weak. But even so, they were still able to receive an equal payment from the army and navy as compensation for helping them.

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https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/museum/past-exhibits/shes-wow/wows

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Approximately three million women served on the home front as defense production workers during World War II.

Women were employed in munitions factories spread throughout rural America. Because the work was often dangerous, the factories were typically located a significant distance from major metropolitan areas. Women were often recruited from the neighboring towns and communities.

The women who flooded the factory workforce organized themselves into a group known as the Woman Ordnance Workers (WOWs). Membership in the WOWs required perfect attendance at work and at chapter meetings for three months. While WOWs took over the work of men, they often did not receive equal pay for their work. In 1942 the National War Labor Board advised that women receive compensation commensurate to that of their male counterparts. Although the National War Labor Board could not force the factories to increase women's pay, the Army and Navy responded by providing their female workforce with a pay increase. Once World War II ended the women workers were asked to return to their previous lives. Many women found this a challenge, as giving up a paying job meant they were giving up financial independence. It would take many years for women to regain the workforce presence that they enjoyed during World War II.

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Approximately three million women served on the home front as defense production workers during World War II. Women were employed in munitions factories spread throughout rural America. Because the work was often dangerous, the factories were typically located a significant distance from major metropolitan areas. Women were often recruited from the neighboring towns and communities.

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Female WWII Pilots: The Original Fly Girls

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https://www.npr.org/2010/03/09/123773525/female-wwii-pilots-the-original-fly-girls

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Female WWII Pilots: The Original Fly Girls

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About 1,100 young women flew military aircraft stateside during World War II as part of a program called Women Airforce Service Pilots — WASP for short. These civilian volunteers ferried and tested planes so male pilots could head to combat duty. The groundbreaking program lasted only two years and nearly fell through the cracks of history.

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Women in WWII also helped as pilots. In 1942, the US had extreme shortages in pilots so women were trained to fly the military planes. This group of pilots were called the “Women Airforce Service Pilots” or the WASP. There were about 1,100 women in the WASP that flew almost every type of plane that was there and also helped ship war supplies, food, equipment from factories, etc. Although women during WWII who flew these planes asked for military status, they weren’t allowed to have it until 1970 because they were still dubbed as “weak and fragile” women.

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

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https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/women-in-the-military-during-world-war-ii.htm#:~:text=More%20than%20350%2C000%20American%20women,Marine%20Corps%2C%20and%20Coast%20Guard.

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Maj. Charity E. Adams and Capt. Abbie N. Campbell inspect members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the first primarily-Black unit of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) to serve overseas during World War II, Feb. 15, 1945.
Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration.

American Servicewomen During World War II

More than 350,000 American women joined the United States Armed Forces during World War II. Women had been serving as Army and Navy nurses for decades, but World War II led to new opportunities for women to enlist in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

In 1942, Congress created the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (later renamed the Women's Army Corps, or WAC), the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service ( WAVES, part of the US Navy), and the Marine Corps Women's Reserve. The Coast Guard established a women's unit known as the SPARS, short for the Marine Corps motto "Semper Paratus, Always Ready." Women aviators flew with the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) unit beginning in 1943.

Women in uniform performed more than 200 different jobs during their service. They were clerks, mechanics, pilots, drivers, gunnery instructors, air traffic controllers, weather forecasters, postal workers, and translators. They served at home and abroad. Many of them risked their lives and safety. Four hundred and thirty-two servicewomen died. Eighty-eight were taken prisoner.

Many servicewomen received recognition and respect during the war, but they also faced gender discrimination from the public and male colleagues. Women of color confronted a double burden of racism and sexism.

After the war, the military discharged most women in uniform and disbanded some of their specialized units. But the demands of a world war had created a future for American women in the armed forces. In 1948, Congress passed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act, which granted women the right to serve as regular members of the military for the first time.

Explore some of the stories of World War II women in uniform.

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

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More than 350,000 American women joined the United States Armed Forces during World War II. Women had been serving as Army and Navy nurses for decades, but World War II led to new opportunities for women to enlist in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

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About 350,000 women during WWII served in the Armed Forces which helped soldiers recover and heal because of the many nurses that were there during the war. This also helped many soldiers fight during WWII because they could at least somewhat recover from fighting at the battlefront.

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Women in the Work Force during World War II

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https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/wwii-women.html#:~:text=With%20men%20off%20to%20fight,vital%20to%20the%20war%20effort.

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

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https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/women-wwii

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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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Not only did woman give their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers to the war effort, they gave their own time, energy, and some even gave their life even though they could have had a really long and great life.

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When the US entered WWII, there was a lack of nurses to help the soldiers so they could recover. This created the United States Cadet Nurse Corps or the CNC. Women between 17-35 years of age went to a nursing school in order to be able to help and heal the soldiers. There were advertisements placed in order to convince other young women into joining the CNC. Although many women faced discrimination by men and there were very few people of color, it created a lasting impact that caused many women to be more involved in one of other jobs they didn’t have before and helped change the view of men in a slight way.

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Even though many women didn’t like the amount of jobs available, there was a new job called “Tupperware Home Sales” that helped them get employment. Although it was similar to what they usually did at home, it helped them have more employment which was able to make them able to have more of a variety of jobs.

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Although men’s wages were higher than before WWII ended, it was later revealed to society that more married women were working in the labor force than any time before. This made more men want their wives to work more so their families could have more money. Even though they did want to work, many women resisted the urge to because of high pressure and the very limited and strict jobs available.

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Many women were discriminated against because of how most men thought that they still deserved to stay at home cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children because they were still considered “weak and fragile”.

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Although women were able to have employment and more variety in jobs available to them during WWII, when it was over, they were pressured to go inside their houses and work more at home rather than for the variety of jobs they had available in WWII.

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In 1945, women managed to create the fact that 1 in 4 married women were employed or out working for factories producing war supplies, farms, businesses, banks, etc. This acted as a little bit of a first step towards women employment. It also proved that women were more capable of doing the jobs than the rest of society would’ve imagined of.

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Cadet Nurse Corps (U.S. National Park Service)

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https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/cadet-nurse-corps.htm

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"Be A Cadet Nurse: The Girl With a Future." Cadet Nurse Corps recruitment poster, 1944.
United States Office of War Information, US Government Printing Office

During World War II, more than 100,000 American women served their country as members of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps. The program averted a shortage of nurses. Many participants saw it as a chance to serve their country while earning valuable career training.

Creating the US Cadet Nurse Corps

After the United States entered World War II, military and civilian authorities became concerned about a lack of nurses. Lawmakers and hospitals worried that they might have to draft nurses into the military. A nursing shortage would also harm patients on the home front-both during and after the war.

Ohio congresswoman Frances Payne Bolton introduced the Bolton Nurse Training Act to address the shortage. The act created the United States Cadet Nurse Corps (CNC). In June of 1943, Congress approved the law and appropriated $65 million for the program's first year. Nurse and administrator Lucile Petry became its director.

The law's two-part strategy was simple: first, pay existing nursing schools to improve and accelerate their programs. Second, pay promising nursing students to attend training. Cadets had to pledge to serve in a military or essential civilian role for the duration of the war.

Recruitment and Programming

To qualify for the Cadet Nurse Corps, participants had to be age 17-35 with a high school diploma and good grades. Once accepted to a nursing school, cadets received scholarships, room and board, and a stipend of $15-$20 per month throughout training. Nursing schools had to speed up their coursework so cadets could earn degrees in just 30 months. Schooling included the fundamentals of nursing in medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and pediatrics.

Cadet Nurse Corps recruitment materials emphasized that the program would allow young women to serve their country while preparing for a stable career. Posters showed attractive young women wearing the Corps' uniform and insignia. "A Lifetime Education FREE!" the text read. "Be A Cadet Nurse-The Girl With A Future." Fashion designers created crisp dress uniforms for the Corps. The uniforms were central to the image of the sharp, modern, and patriotic cadet nurse. The program's image reassured young women that nursing work meshed with a traditionally feminine identity.

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Cadet Nurse Corps (U.S. National Park Service)

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During World War II, more than 100,000 American women served their country as members of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps. The program averted a shortage of nurses. Many participants saw it as a chance to serve their country while earning valuable career training.

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American Women in World War II: WACs WAVES & WASPS - HISTORY

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https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/american-women-in-world-war-ii-1

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Some 350,000 women served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II, both at home and abroad. Women on the home front were critical to the war effort: Between 1940 and 1945, the era of "Rosie the Riveter," the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945, nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. World War II opened the door for women to work in more types of jobs than ever before, but with the return of male soldiers at war's end, women, especially married women, were once again pressured to return to a life at home-a prospect that, for thousands of American women, had dimmed thanks to their wartime service.
WATCH: Women Combat Pilots: The Right Stuff on HISTORY Vault
Women in World War II Military

In addition to factory work and other home front jobs, approximately 350,000 women joined the Armed Services, serving at home and abroad. At the urging of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and women's groups, and impressed by the British use of women in service, General George Marshall supported the idea of introducing a women's service branch into the Army.

In May 1942, Congress instituted the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, later upgraded to the Women's Army Corps, which had full military status. Its members, known as WACs, worked in more than 200 non-combatant jobs stateside and in every theater of the war. By 1945, there were more than 100,000 WACs and 6,000 female officers.
WATCH VIDEO: The Hidden Army of Women That Helped Defeat Hitler
In the Navy, members of Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) held the same status as naval reservists and provided support stateside. The Coast Guard and Marine Corps soon followed suit, though in smaller numbers.

One of the lesser-known roles women played in the war effort was provided by the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs. These women, each of whom had already obtained their pilot's license prior to service, became the first women to fly American military aircraft.

They ferried planes from factories to bases, transporting cargo and participating in simulation strafing and target missions, accumulating more than 60 million miles in flight distances and freeing thousands of male U.S. pilots for active duty in World War II.

Did you know? On March 10, 2010, at a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol, the WASPs received the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest civilian honors. More than 200 former pilots attended the event, many wearing their World War II-era uniforms.

More than 1,000 WASPs served, and 38 of them lost their lives during the war. Considered civil service employees and without official military status, these fallen WASPs were granted no military honors or benefits, and it wasn't until 1977 that the WASPs received full military status.

Rosie the Riveter

Though women had been joining the work force in greater numbers since the hardships of the Great Depression, the entry of the United States into World War II completely transformed the types of jobs open to women.

Before the war, most working women were in traditionally female fields like nursing and teaching. Post- Pearl Harbor, women worked in a variety of positions previously closed to them, though the aviation industry saw the greatest increase in female workers. More than 310,000 women worked in the U.S. aircraft industry in 1943, representing 65 percent of the industry's total workforce (compared to just 1 percent in the pre-war years).

The munitions industry also heavily recruited women workers, as represented by the U.S. government's "Rosie the Riveter" propaganda campaign. Based in small part on a real-life munitions worker, but primarily a fictitious character, the strong, bandana-clad Rosie became one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history, and the most iconic image of working women during World War II.

In movies, newspapers, posters, photographs, articles and even a Norman Rockwell-painted Saturday Evening Postcover, the Rosie the Riveter campaign stressed the patriotic need for women to enter the work force-and they did, in huge numbers. Though women were crucial to the war effort, their pay continued to lag far behind their male counterparts: Female workers rarely earned more than 50 percent of male wages.
READ MORE: The Asian American Women Who Fought to Make Their Mark in WWII
Working Conditions For Women

With many fathers abroad fighting, mothers were faced with the burden of balancing childcare and work, and absenteeism became the symptom that caused factory owners-and the United States government-to finally acknowledge the issue.

The Lanham Act of 1940 gave war-related government grants for childcare services in communities where defense production was a major industry. In 1942, Eleanor Roosevelt stepped in, encouraging her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to pass the Community Facilities Act, which led to the creation of the first U.S. government-sponsored childcare center.

Roosevelt also urged for reforms like staggered working hours at factories to allow working mothers to go to grocery stores-stores that were often either closed or out of stock by the time women clocked out of work.

Not all women were treated equally in the workplace. Black women found that white women were not always welcoming at work-if they were even granted the same job opportunities in the first place-and were paid less than their white peers. Japanese American women fared even worse, as they were sent off to Japanese internment camps under Executive Order 9066.

Though women, as a whole, had access to more jobs than ever before, they were paid far less than men, and most found themselves pressured to relinquish jobs to the male soldiers returning home at war's end. But something had permanently shifted: World War II empowered women to seek new opportunities and fight for equal pay in the decades to come.

Photo Gallery

Sources

Women in the Work Force during World War II. National Archives.
Women in the Military - WWII: Overview. Minnesota Historical Society Library.
These 5 Heroic Women of World War II Should Be Household Names. USO.
History At a Glance: Women in World War II. The National WWII Museum.

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American Women in World War II: WACs WAVES & WASPS - HISTORY

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American women served in World War II in many roles: as pilots, nurses, civil service employees, and in many home-front jobs that were formerly denied to them.

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Women and Work After World War II | American Experience | PBS

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https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-work/

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Tupperware targeted women who were interested in working, Tupperware, Inc.

During the Second World War, women proved that they could do "men's" work, and do it well. With men away to serve in the military and demands for war material increasing, manufacturing jobs opened up to women and upped their earning power. Yet women's employment was only encouraged as long as the war was on. Once the war was over, federal and civilian policies replaced women workers with men.

The Boom
After the war, the birth rate increased dramatically. Although many people assume that the baby boom happened because peace and prosperity returned, historian Elained Tyler May points out in Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era that the rise in the number of births went far beyond what was expected from a return to peace. Previous periods of post-war prosperity, notably the period after World War I, had not led to such dramatic increases in marriage and childbearing. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Americans in their childbearing years had weathered the Depression and a devastating war, and they were living under a cloud of possible nuclear war. After studying statistics, personal testimony, and popular culture imagery and language, May concluded, "Americans turned to the family as a bastion of safety in an insecure world... cold war ideology and the domestic revival [were] two sides of the same coin."

Rigid Gender Roles
The dramatic dichotomy in gender imagery in the 1950s makes people laugh 50 years later. In Dick and Jane readers, advertisements, educational films, and television shows, post-war Americans saw feminine, stay-at-home moms cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children while masculine dads left home early and returned late each weekday, tending to their designated roles as lawnmowers and backyard BBQers on the weekend. In More Work for Mother, Ruth Schwartz Cowan wrote that psychiatrists, psychologists, and popular writers of the era critiqued women who wished to pursue a career, and even women who wished to have a job, referring to such "unlovely women" as "lost," "suffering from penis envy," "ridden with guilt complexes," or just plain "man-hating."

Yet Married Women Worked
With the international expansion of the American economy after the war, men's wages were higher than ever before, making it possible for the first time in U.S. history for a substantial number of middle class families to live comfortably on the income of one breadwinner. Yet the figures reveal that by the early 1960s, more married women were in the labor force than at any previous time in American history.

Domesticity and Money Pressures
The reality of many middle- and aspiring middle-class families' finances didn't match their dreams. Many families wanted extra income -- and required a wife's earnings - to afford the lifestyle they desired. Yet middle-class women felt the pressure of the culture telling them to stay home. Many also had little desire to work in the nine-to-five jobs open to them. They didn't want to be factory workers, secretaries, bookkeepers or department store salespeople in an increasingly bureaucratic, corporate workplace, which demanded that home and work life be clearly separated. In The Organization Man, a best-selling book of the period, William Whyte, Jr. wrote that organization men "are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of organization life." How could a woman reconcile the ideal of female domesticity and the desire to earn?

Home-Centered and Lucrative
Tupperware home sales offered a solution, providing women with work they could do in their homes - part-time, for as many or as few hours as they chose, on flexible schedules that accommodated the needs of children and the demands of housework. Home party selling allowed women to do income-producing work they didn't need to call "work," but instead "having parties." When they joined "the Tupperware family," they didn't need to leave their own families behind.

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Women and Work After World War II | American Experience | PBS

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Tupperware home sales offered women part-time work they could do in their homes.

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Places like farms, factories, and businesses still needed employees to operate correctly. Men were usually the employees for businesses, but when they went to war the woman took their place to keep things running.

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Men were away at war, but woman still needed money to support themselves and their family.