Download Social Impact of WWII Women - George Washington High School

“Why do we need women
workers? You can’t build ships,
planes, and guns without them.”
Social Impact of War: The
Experience of Women
IB History of the Americas
“If you can drive a car,
you can run a machine.”
“It wasn’t just my brother’s country, or my husband’s
country, it was my country as well. And so this war
wasn’t just their war, it was my war, and I needed to
serve in it.”
Major Beatrice Hood Stroup
Women’s Army Corps, WWII
EFFECTS ON THE HOMEFRONT: WOMEN, WORK
AND FAMILY
• Armed Forces - 200K+ women; non-combat roles: clerical
jobs in WACS and WAVES.
• Work Force - 6.5 million women entered (57% increase)
– concentrated in government clerical jobs
– "Rosie the Riveter"
• Families and home life – “8-hour orphans”, juvenile
delinquency, crime, rationing
Women in the Armed Forces
Women in WWII: Introduction
• 400,000 American women served
• American women were in every service branch,
assigned around the world
• 1st time the armed services actively recruited women
in large numbers
• Helped alleviate major workforce shortages in
various fields within the military
• Service helped in expanding women’s roles and
opportunities around the world
• Women took on jobs in the war effort,
including those such as:
– Military nurses – working near battles
around the world to save wounded men
– Factory workers – building the machines
necessary to fight wars
– Journalists – reporting the happenings of
the battle front to news agencies in their
home countries
Army Nurse Corps (ANC)
• Est.1901 - oldest female branch of U.S. military services
• Served all over world, including near front lines in the Battle of the
Bulge (Ardennes Forest, on German/Belgian border)
• Army nurses in Philippines were taken prisoner and cared for
other inmates during the 2½ years they were POWs
• April 1945, suicide plane off waters of Okinawa crashed into the
USS Comfort, killing 6 Army nurses and 1 Navy nurse
• 201 Army nurses died during the war
• Many African American nurses tried to join, but
most were denied
- A unit of African American nurses served in
Tagap, Burma, in September 1944
Navy Nurse Corps
• Established in 1908
• Navy nurses were at Pearl Harbor and cared for the injured
after the attack
• 11 Navy nurses and 66 Army nurses were Japanese POWs for
over 3 years
• Army and Navy nurses served throughout the world and
suffered highest casualty rate of all military women
– 83 taken as POWs
“One day it seemed like the whole area was full of ships and the next morning there
was not a single one. We knew the invasion was beginning. We were on alert. We
could not leave and were on duty 24 hours a day. We didn’t know what we were
waiting for…And then the causalities came. It took about 3 or 4 days after the invasion
before we started receiving causalities…We did not sleep for the first 24 hours, and
then finally sleep had to be rationed because no one would leave their work.”
Helen Pavlovsky Ramsey, LT, USNR (Ret.), Stationed at Royal Hospital in Netley,
England on D-Day
Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and Women’s
Army Corps (WAC)
•
WAAC became WAC when women given full status and benefits
•
300 WACs worked at Los Alamos, NM, on the Manhattan Project
atomic bomb development
– Cryptographers, chemists, photographers, electronics techs, etc.
•
40,000 WACs assigned to Air Corp. (“Air WACs”) and were radio
operators, code instructors, and airplane mechanics.
•
Former WAC, Sherian Grace Cadoria, became the 1st African American
female general in 1985
•
Oveta Culp Hobby was 1st Director of WAC
– Later became 1st person to hold position of Secretary of Health, Education
and Welfare and 2nd woman to hold a cabinet position
Women Accepted for Volunteer
Emergency Service (WAVES)
•
Were control tower operators, aviation metal smiths, aviation machinist mates, and
gunnery instructors.
•
Between December 1941 and August 1945, 7 officers and 62 enlisted WAVES died while
on active duty
•
3 WAVES awarded Cross of Lorraine by France for training French pilots
– Invented COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) and guided U.S. Navy into
the computer age
“WAVES of the Navy, there’s a ship sailing down the
bay/ And she won’t come into port again until that
vict’ry day./ Carry on for that gallant ship and for every
hero brave/ Who will find ashore his man-sized chore
was done by a Navy WAVE.” – WAVES song
Marine Corps Women’s Reserve
• Were automotive mechanics, auditors and statisticians,
assembly and repair mechanics, weather observers, teletype
operators, welders, map makers, etc.
• Over 22,000 female officers and enlisted served during the
war
• Marine Corps Women’s Reserve Band formed in 1943, and
toured country, often playing concerts at hospitals
“They are Marines. They don’t have a nickname and they don’t
need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere,
at a Marine post. They inherit the traditions of Marines. They are
Marines.”
General Thomas Holcomb, Marine Commandant, on the issue of
women in the Marines, in a March 27, 1944 issue of Life
Women’s Reserve of the Coast Guard Reserve
(SPARs)
• Over 10,000 women volunteered for SPARs from 1942-1946
• SPARs is from Coast Guard motto – Semper Paratus, Always Ready
• 1st women to attend a military academy
– During war, Coast Guard was only service to train women’s officer corps at its
academy
• Were parachute riggers, chaplains assistants, air control-tower operators,
vehicle drivers, gunner’s mate, etc.
• Assigned to highly classified LORAN (Long Range Aid to Navigation) project,
which enabled navigation under all weather conditions
• Was not until October 1944, that Coast Guard authorized
the acceptance of African American women to enlist
• March 1945, Olivia J. Hooker became 1st African American in
March 1945
Women Air force Service Pilots (WASP)
• 1,078 women were WASP and became 1st women in history to fly
American military aircraft
• Stationed at 120 air bases across the U.S.
• Flew more than 60 million miles ferrying aircraft, flight testing,
transporting cargo, etc.
• 38 WASP died in the line of duty
• Unlike other women in military services, WASP denied military status and
benefits
“Fifinella” is WASP mascot and was designed by Walt Disney
for a proposed film, but he allowed WASP to use it
“…On through the storm and the sun/ Fly on till our mission is
done/ From factory to base, let the WASPs set the pace,/
We’re a thousand strong!”
From WASP song
WOMEN AT WAR AND WAR
ON THE HOME FRONT
Women in the War
The Canadian Women's
Auxiliary Corp.
On August 13, 1941, the
Canadian Women's Auxiliary
Corp. was established.
Women in the Corp. took over
jobs as clerks, vehicle drivers,
messengers and canteen
workers. Their pay was only
2/3 of the men's wages.
WOMEN AT WAR AND WAR
ON THE HOME FRONT
Women in the War
The WREN's
On July 31, 1942, the
Women's Royal Canadian
Naval Service was
established. This division
got the cream of the crop.
The navy wouldn't look at a
woman who didn't have
excellent references.
Women in the Workforce
Women in WWII
• Benefited from huge
demand for labor because
of wartime production
• Many American women
entered workforce for first
time
– “Rosie the Riveter”—
icon of women worker
– Women told it was their
patriotic duty to work
– Over 6 million women
entered the workforce
– Women who worked
before the war were
able to get better paying
jobs when war began
WOMEN AT WAR AND WAR
ON THE HOME FRONT
Women at War
Propaganda once again
encouraged women to do “the
right thing” and contribute to
the war effort.
“Roll Up Your Sleeves for
Victory!” was one popular
slogan. Posters showed women
with goggles, dressed in
overalls, and wearing kerchiefs
or turbans over their hair to
keep it from getting caught in
factory machinery.
WOMEN AT WAR AND WAR
ON THE HOME FRONT
Women at War in Canada
By 1943 there were over 261,000
women working in munitions factories
In the aircraft industry alone there were
over 33,000 women working alongside
men building planes that would be used
to win the war.
Elizabeth “Elsie” McGill, who was the
first woman to ever graduate from
mechanical engineering in Canada, was
in charge of Canadian production of two
types of fighter planes used in the war.
Women, Families and Home life
Rationing
• The rationing and
shortage of domestic
resources fell more
heavily on women to
accommodate.
• Women's shopping
and food preparation
habits were affected
by using ration
stamps or other
rationing methods
Frugality
• In the United States, women were
urged by organized propaganda
campaigns to practice frugality:
– to carry groceries instead of using
the car to preserve tire rubber for
the war effort
– to grow more of their family's food
(in "Victory Gardens" for example)
– to sew and repair clothing rather
than buy new clothes
– to raise money for and contribute to
war bonds
– and generally to contribute to the
morale of the war effort through
sacrifice.
8 hour orphans
• Mothers and children were frequently used as
symbols of what the war was being fought to
protect, yet they bore the brunt of social
upheaval on the home front.
• Outcry over "eight-hour orphans"
accompanied the remarkable development of
Federal-local partnerships to provide daycare
for the first time to large numbers of working
women.
Did Women’s Roles Really Change?
• Men continued to dominate supervisory positions
• Women still paid less, restricted from joining labor
unions
• Women who wanted to expand their working careers
were looked down upon for not putting motherhood
and household duties first
• Most were forced out of the workforce at the end of
the war
– 1950s: Women return role of housewives in suburbs
• Women veterans were not recognized for benefits
until 1979.