Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Women During World War II 20240713

At work during world war ii. You can find it on the National Archives website. But well talk about that. But well talk about these different parts of women american women during world war ii. Were just hitting the survey, theres so much we can talk about throughout the entire semester, and we do all of u. S. And world war ii, except we cant do all of it so we do our bits and pieces. Weve already talked about some of these. Some will be familiar. Especially when we get to women at work part. But then well go from there. Be sure to stop me if you have any questions and well do our thing. So women at home. So when we think about this one of the biggest things i want you to do today is think about this reality for the homefront, which is mainly what were talking about, and the reality of what life meant for women in the war. With one of the first that we often think about is all the men going away to war. The men are going off. That means who is left behind . The women. Right . The women. So a lot of the women are married. We talked about there are all sorts of quickie weddings going on. But people who have been married for a while as well decide, how do you get by . If youre a household with a husband and a wife in this time period, you know, its a partnership and each has their role and theyre much more defined roles in world war ii than today. So this idea of how are you going to do both your job as the wife and often the mother, and the job of the husband . How do you do this . This is a very popular book, this came out in 19 42. So your husbands gone to war. This idea of what do you do . How do you get through it . You can see from the cover tackling male chorse. Because chores were defined by male and female,. And any woman, any widow, any woman like that does everything. Right . If you live on your own you do your own thing, put your own libet bulbs in make your own repairs. But this book gives some guidance. This book to help women know how to do those little maintenance jobs that they needed to. This is my favorite part. The wolves in the friends clothing. This idea that weve got wolves. That was the phrase of the day about you know what that means right . They pretend to be helpful. Oh, ill come change your light bulb for you. Let me help. But really theyre you know. Not quite as nice as they seem. How do you distinguish between the wolf and the real friend . Then theres part up in the upper right corner is something thats really important. Women had a lot of responsibility not just to do their work and things like this but this is the lost art of letter writing. This idea that women were responsible for keeping up the morale of men. This is going to be a theme that well have through this entire section. The idea that women are responsible for making men remember what theyre fighting for, making men feel confident, making men feel that its ok for them to be away but theyre missed and they need to come home. So this lost art of letter writing. She writes this whole chapter about how to write your letters to your men. Theres articles in womens magazines, theres articles in mainstream newspapers. All these editorials about how women should write their letters. So what do you think you want to put in your letter if youre writing to johnny whos away in surep fighting against the germans . What do you want to put in your letter as youre writing from home . What would you put in there . Dont worry about how things are going here. Just focus on getting the job done. Dont worry about how things are, focus on getting the job done, were ok here. You have to realize they want you to write multiple letters a week. If you can write daily thats best. Imagine your soldier is going to get mail every day and if theres nothing there, how tee pressing. Nobody cares about me. Thats the guilt. So the presure is to write every day three days a week four, five days a week at the minimum. So you write that once. Then what the do you write . Then what else do you do . We miss you. Please come home. Right . But you cant do too much of that or it will make him foo sad. Right . Too sad. Focus on the war. Right. A fun story. So a piece of advice that goerman puts in her book is make yourself interesting so your letters are interesting. Do interesting things. But dont be too interesting because he will think youre having fun while hes a war. You have to find that balance being being interesting and not being interesting. So what if they dont have a sweetheart at home . Are there women getting together to write let torse strangers to help out . Yes. Theres this whole campaign that can be through the red cross or different organizations where soldiers would give their names and women would write letters. You have romances that grow out of that. This idea of writing letters, talking about whats going on at home. What if your roof gets a leak . Should you write johnny about that . I dont know. Right . Its this balance between maybe you wait until the leak is fixed and then you tell johnny hey the roof had a leak but we got it fixed. But you dont want to seem too efficient, because if the roof leaks and the plumbing breaks and all these things and you take care of it, why does johnny need to come home . So its a lot of pressure on these women to write these letters in these very specific ways. High volume, positive. You can say you miss him but you cant be too blue. Youve got to find this balance of being responsible and hip not needing to worry but still needing him to come home. You can get by but hurry home. So its this balance. And this pressure on women that gets put, again, youve got whole books about it but in different forms of media about womens responsibilitys to write these letters. And the men, i read a lot of these letters coming back. We dont have as many letters of the women going overseas, these letters that the women wrote we dont see as many because the men didnt keep them. Where the women kept the letters that the men wrote from overseas. So we have more of those. So we can figure out what the women were talking about by how the men respond. Thats one of the ways that we can determine what went into those letters. You see a lot of anxiety from the men, especially about the wolves. Right . Theres a lot of ideas about the men who dont serve, who arent able to serve or have these different positions domestically and that theyre going to try to steal the women. And thats actually a campaign that the germans and the japanese both used in leaflet campaigns, is the men back home are stealing your girl. Dont you wish the war was over and you could go home . So this idea of the letter writing and things. And the fact that this is an incredibly popular book in 1942 says a lot, i think, that women are working on this and going forward. So other responsibilities that the women had. We talked a little bit about the rationing. Well talk about it more in another week. But this idea of weve got all this rationing. Because who is the United States responsible for feeding during the war . Pretty much everybody. Lets narrow that down a little. Thats good. But who are we responsible for feeding this our allies. The allies. Were going to get food to the russians, the british, and all that entails. Who else do we need to feed . Our people. Our soldiers. The men and women who have gone abroad. Were responsible for feeding them. The british arent going to pull out fish and chips for our soldiers. Who is the third group . People were rescuing. Yes. The home front. The people back home need to eat as well. So weve got rationing so we can get all that manufacturing that we talked about already. But then that reality of food and who is going to eat and who we are responsible for feeding. So theres a lot of emphasis on women growing those Victory Gardens. Grow those Victory Gardens, grow vitamins. Theres a huge growth in the study of nutrition this this time period because you want to get as much nutrition in as little food as possible. Then this idea of what are women going to do . Well, youve got to can that. Its one thing to grow a Victory Garden but if its done by the end of summer thats no good. So this idea of canning. Am i proud. Im fighting by canning at home. This is hard but im doing it. I love this one with the little girl, well have lots to eat this winter. Wont we mother . As we go through these were going to see a lot of these posters and different images. I want you to note things like the race of these women being portrayeded. The appearance of them. These are pretty perfect, that little girl is so cute you could pinch her cheeks. And this idea of who is being represented, which audience are these government posters trying to reach . Now, another thing thats used so women get used in a number of different ways. Weve got this pressure to try to get women to take action. But weve also got the effort to use women as propaganda pieces to achieve other goals. What do you see in this image . What do you think of this . Sacrifice. Is she a perky cleancut gal . Well, she might have used to have been. What is she now . Scared. Does she look very happy . No. Right . The babieslaughing. But the little girl is clinging to her, not quite knowing whats going on. But the woman looks kind of sad and scared and, i gave a man. Remember when we talked about the soviets and how the americans are like, youve got to do more and theyre like we gave blood, you give money. Shes saying a gave a man. My children dont have a father. Im alone and scared. Can you at least give 10 of your pay to buy a war bond . That is the very least you can do. Look at the sacrifice my family has made. This is the very least you can do. So women being used to for guilt to make you feel this pressure to buy war bonds. Now, review, why do we need war bonds . What are the war bonds for . For equipment and supplies going out. We need it because we talked about how expensive the war is. And war bonds are one way that we pay for it. Its basically loaning money to the government so that you can so that the government can afford the war. This is another way women are portrayed. So information is important. And theres all sorts of campaigns out there. Dont talk about whats in johnnys letters. Anybody can be listening. And this idea wanted for murder. What does she look like . If she was in a movie which would she be . The villain. Or the neighbor gossip. Because women just cant help themselves. Thats the impression thats given in so many of these images. Again, ive got about 20 of these that we could look at. This idea that women just cant help themselves gossipping. But her gossip cost lives. Maybe his life. So this idea that women need to control themselves, resist their natural urge to gossip. Women are used for sex. This is a whole famous series of prints that im sure you have seen before. Shes a wac. Shes in the military but not in this moment shes not. But this is mainstream. This is a picture that came out of life magazine. So this is a mainstream image of the idea of women as the sexualized being because youve got to think about why were fighting. Were fighting so we can get home to the girl. Were fighting so we can get home and because this is what all girls look like apparently. This reality. But they cant be so women are supposed to be sexual. Theyre supposed to be pretty, theyre supposed to be sexual so the men will know what theyre fighting for. But they cant be too sexual. Give you a minute to take a look at these. How are women portrayed . Spreading disease. This is my favorite. She may look clean but. Theres a whole series of these images that are given to men at the different bases and overseas. You know, whole classes on venereal disease. But this idea that these goodtime girls and p pickups, these are a problem. So we want to give you posters like this to hang up but dont touch because they probably are diseased. So this idea that women as all these Different Things, women are mothers, women are raising the gardens and saving and feeding everyone and women are sacrificing, women are writing letters and being good for morale. Women are these sexual beings. And women are also diseased. All these things all at the same time, this idea of i just think this is right . And again theres a whole series of these that are out there and theyre promoted among all these men. applause so thats our women at home. Whats o our next topic, this idea of women at work. And we think of this a lot when we think of women in world war ii we often think of these working women. This is the point of the class, the section of the course. You know my favorite thing is to be a myth buster. Thats what we do. Thats our job. So this section were going to bust some myths. So when we think of women working in world war ii, one of the biggest things that is often talked about is the idea that women go to work. Ok, all the women go to work. Now, do you remember your u. S. History class . What did you learn about women working this did women work before world war ii . No . Not according to my survey class. What about in the factories at the turn of the century . What about those immigrant women . Wasnt as widespread and it wasnt mothers. So all those factories that came out through the Industrial Revolution and all those children, that child labor, did women not work in those factories . Lots of young single women, lots of immigrant women. What about women of color this did they work . You think so . Yeah. Well, women of color didnt get a lot of teaching jobs. Coming up to here they do. Coming out of the progressive era we get more women of color taking middle class jobs. But women have always worked. Youve always had workingclass women. Workingclass women, immigrant women, women of color, unmarried women that have always worked. So which women are we really talking about when we say women began to work during world war ii . Middle class white women. This expansion into this area that people didnt work before. Then a second group tied in there is going to be mothers. More mothers are going to work in world war ii than worked before. So its a shift from workingclass women, immigrant women, women of color working. To that expansion of middle class white women. Thats what we often see portrayed in these posters. Look at these women. First, their teeth are perfect, which did not happen in the 19 40s. They all look like movie stars. Their eye brows just right, their hair just right. Theyre beautiful. This is not what most people ever look like let alone in the 40s. But this idea of who the target is. Whos the target for the working . Because this is the group that we have in excess that we can target to get to work. Thats an important distinction i want to make sure that we understand which women were talking about when we say the workforce expanded to women. Its a specific group of women that are going to be expanded. Now, one area that often doesnt get talked about in women working in world war ii is women in agriculture. This idea of women in agriculture. So its important to realize that we have over 6 million agricultural laborors and farmers that leave the land during world war ii. Over 6 Million People who had been working the land leaf it during world war ii. These are often going to be men who are going to work in the factories because theyre better paid. These are going to be men who are being drafted or enlisting. The shortage of laborers gets so bad during the war that by the middle and late 1942 it becomes a draftdeferred position. Whats draftdeferred position . You dont have to go over to the war. Your job is war critical. Your job is war critical so you cannot be drafted. If you leave that job you may be eligible for the draft but if youre in that position. So they become draft deferred because we need people so badly. That doesnt mean you cant enlist. That doesnt mean you cant go work in a factory. By late in the war there are limits. You have to get permission to do that. So were at the same moment that were expanding the agricultural needs because were feeding people at home, were feeding americans abroad, and then were feeding all of o our allies. Helping feed our allies. At the same time were doing that, the laborers are shrinking. So theres a huge push to get american women involved in this. And we had seen this before. We had seen this in world war with one. There was a volunteer Organization Called the Womens Land Army of america that was around. We expand that in world war ii. There was Womens Land Army in Great Britain and we model a lot of what goes on in the United States after that. But theres this huge push to get american women as part of this. There were other organizations. The brasero program. To allow workers to come work in the field. The agreement between the United States and mexico to allow laborers to come to the United States and work. This program goes from 1942 to 1951. So this is a huge program well talk about in another class. But they tried that to the government tried that to expand the number of laborers. They also go to convicts, prison labor, which had been used some in the past but gets expanded. They also use pows. We had some in texas and in oklahoma and in different regions of the country where you would have german and italian pows that would come to the United States and put them in the farms. Let them be laborers. So youve got all these different groups. Then this huge push, lets get more women to do this. Some basic numbers for you. We end up with Something Like 3. 5 million women working in the agricultural fields. Which is a much bigger number than you think of. You think of world war ii, usually we think of rosie the rivetter or the women pilots because were here and have me as a professor. But 3. 5 million women are recruited. Theres some bias against some in the beginning. You can read a lot of documents about this idea that women arent going to be able to do the job. We cant trust them. This idea of urban women especially. Nobody wants a city girl to come work on their farm. Theyre going to break their heel and not be able to do it. But very quickly the women prove themselves, that theyre able to do the work that needs to be done and make a real difference. Some basic numbers. 1940, women made up 8 of all farm workers. By 1945, it was 23 . So women went from 8 in agriculture to 23 in agriculture just that quickly. Again, the this is all going to shrink back down after the war just because we arent growing as much after the war. But thats a significant amount 3. 5 million women working on fars. A new costume idea for you for halloween. Dress up like a farm worker. Womens land army. Everybody does rosie. Now, this idea of women in labor. So this is you cant talk about women at work without talking about this. Who do you see here . Rosie the rivetter. This is another part of the class that im going to bust some myths. I was watching the army tv, it started off with i guess it was supposed to be somebody playing hitler talking about how american women spend more on parts than the u. S. Military did for their own supplies while german women were put to work as baby producers basically. So i was curious as to how at the time the u. S. Thought about its women becoming part of the major workforce. I dont think that was really discussed in the video. This is a really good question. How were the women working in the factories treated by the men . And ive got some numbers for you to give you some big ideas. The female labor force grows by 6. 5 million during this period. During world war ii. A shift from 25 of american women working in 1940 to 37 of all american women working in 1944. So this is going to be a huge shift. Now to your idea of how were they seen . Because women did work but women are dominating a lot of these factories especially. And the reality is a lot of the men were put in charge. Theyre going to be put into some are going to be happy to have them as laborers, some will believe they cannot do the job. Some will be a little sexist or harassers. The reality is we could not have done the work that we did during the war without them. By sheer numbers. As you brought up the film, that hidden army, i want to give you a chance to talk about that. This is a propaganda film that was done in 1944 before the end of the war. I should not have underestimated those american women. It is a strange set up a prison guard coming down with hitler in a prison cell. And he is going to write how i lost the war. The name of one of the chapters is the hidden army. We watched the documentary and some of frank capras why we fight filmswhy we what piece of propaganda looked familiar . What was focused on women a little more . It was interesting that they did the interviews. Doesnt that seem very staged . They interviewed different women asking them why they were in a factory. It was definitely set out. This is not some random, walk up to a random worker on the street. The girl that wakes up in the morning and goes back to sleep. The guilt because people are dying. You get more of that attitude with this film. Definitely. There was also a sequence of women getting telegrams saying that their husband, brother was dead. And you have that moment where you see the child saying mommy, what is wrong . There is no subtlety to this film. It is definitely a propaganda piece. Everyone watching it knows that. You have to wonder if they were as cynical then as we are now. Did they watch this drama . The slacker that shuts off her alarm and goes back to sleep and then johnny dies because she went to sleep instead of going to work in the factory. Very dramatic, very on point. The telegrams. The reality is that people are dying. People are missing in action. People are receiving those telegrams. We in the past, we talked about the manufacturing chapter of david kennedys book, the idea that american stuff, our tanks and planes helped win the war. There really is a direct correlation between people not going to the factory and people not having the supplies that they need. Very dramatic. Were there other points to that film that you noticed . Or that you wanted to make sure that we talked about . It is very short, like seven minutes. But it is kind of fun. It is one of those where you do not want to giggle. But it is so overthetop. But it is something that was important. We talked a little bit when we talked about manufacturing, the idea that people were having strikes. Last week, we talked about censorship. The idea that earlier in the war, the War Department censored photos. They would not show men dead on the beach. Because it was just too hard. By 1944, they are letting those images out. They are showing more of those images, more of the drama of the families eating affected. Showing more of the violence occurring to the soldiers. Why were they doing that . People thought they had won the war so did not feel they needed to work at the factories. We were not being bombed. With some exceptions to the northwest and pearl harbor, most americans were not being impacted as they were in england, france, or elsewhere. This idea of i do not want to go to work today, there is no consequence. Another part of the film showed bombed out cities. It basically says, if you do not go to work and do this, we could get bombed here. Please take this please take this seriously we looked at some of those images of that idea that we want to stop the fighting over there. We want to stop it in europe, in the pacific before it comes here. We are next. So go to the factory. Go to the factory and get the job done. This idea of women working was important. Just to drive home the point of which women are working and how it changed. Before the war, only 13. 9 percent of american women who are married are working. That number goes up to almost 24 during the war. It is still a pretty small number. If you think about it. That is a little warped by the fact that you have so many marriages during world war ii, the quickie marriages that occurred. We have known each other for two weeks but you are about to go overseas so let us that married. It is important to note that the divorce rate between 1945 and 1952 is astronomical. The highest divorce rate in American History has everyone comes back from war saying i do not really know you. Maybe this was not a good idea. But that idea of married women working. We have got this image, this we can do it image which is so popular and so important. And the idea of rosie the riveter comes from a song comes from a 1942 song that is incredibly popular. I will try to play it for you. Let me see if i can make this work. Because it is so fun. With a ukulele is good. She is making history working for victory she is rosie the riveter it is a longer song than that but we will stop there. Wasnt that fun . It will be stuck in your head all day. [laughter] and it will be my fault and that is ok. I know, it is my fault, im sorry. It is my job to get into your brains. This is an incredibly popular song and is covered by everybody. The four vagabonds make it popular in 1940 two and then just about everyone is singing it. Music is such an important part of all of this during the war, it is so popular. This idea of rosie the riveter and wendy the welder. This idea of going and working at the factory. We have got this image and this is the myth busting portion of the class. This idea of rosie the riveter im sorry this woman was not called rosie the riveter until the 1980s. She was a poster created by Gerald Miller for Westinghouse Corporation factories and it hung up in their factories for two weeks in 1943 and that was it. This was not a poster that inspired all of america. This is not an image that made people sit up and go to work. I am very sorry. You can still love her. You can still dress up like her for halloween. But she is definitely a worker. It definitely fits. It is not dishonest to call her rosie. Look at the image from before. Very similar. We will have images of real rosies but she was not called that during the war. This is rosie the riveter. You recognize Norman Rockwell . From his own paintings of himself. It is Norman Rockwell. This is mary okeefe. She was a broke artist at the time. He paid her five dollars to come to his studio and he had a photographer take pictures of her in different poses. He liked to work off of photographs instead of live subjects. They had her come back a week later and put on a blue shirt and penny loafers so he could work off of that photo. He got she got five dollars for each session. She got 10 to be rosie the riveter. He called her afterwards to apologize for making her look so hefty with her big strong arms and she is a big girl. And mary okeefe is a slender 19yearold. He said, i just want you to know that i am sorry about that. And she was ok with it. But this is rosie. You can see her lunchbox says rosie on it. The song had come out and was popular and then he did this painting and dubbed her rosie the riveter. Another piece of trivia for you. To see how this was inspired. Michelangelo, isaiah has dropped his sandwich, i think. [laughter] this idea. How often does rockwell do this . I dont know enough rockwell history but i love how you can see the similarity between the two. It is obvious what he did and it was very popular. This is the image that gets taken all over the country. This is the image that gets turned into posters. This is the image that people have hanging up and think about as rosie the riveter. Not our we can do it girl as much as we love her and still do but she was a creation. We talk about that a lot. The idea that people use the past for Different Things. And in the 1980s, they used that image to inspire women and called her rosy. But again, we bust myths in here. This is rosie. The real rosie never actually riveted anything. She was a telephone operator. But she posed and we have this terrific image with her lunchbox and such. Just one more image of her. I just think she is great. This was very nice. A very nice and happy lady. We have that. This idea of promotion of women working we talked about the fact that the federal government had all of these different federal commissions and boards to help organize the economy and control it. This idea of women doing different jobs. This is one of my favorite posters. It is not seen quite as often. It is drawn in a different style than the others. Look at the different jobs women are doing. We often think of rosie the riveter, wendy the welder, people working in factories or shipyards building ships. But this one has a waitress on there. And there is a whole series of advertisements saying that being a waitress is a wartime job. He has someone needs to feed the workers doing the other jobs. This work is just as important. You do not have to be a mechanic. You do not have to weld. But work. I wanted to point out too you see that the one in the middle has gray hair. This is another target, women in their 40s and 50s. To help them get into the workforce doing these different jobs. You can roll bandages but we really need more people in the factories, doing these different jobs. We talked about the fact that women are working when they are married and when they are mothers. Who is going to care for their children if they are working a 10 hour shift . Down here at lockheed . Grandmothers. There is a huge push we talked about Eleanor Roosevelt and she advocates for different groups. She advocates at this time for the idea of Government Support of child care. This idea of child care. If you want women to work and be a part of this war effort, then you have to have someone watching their children. And we know that child care is a problem for families today. It is not just a problem for women but for families and affordable childcare is a problem and in the 1940s, it was an even bigger problem because there was even less infrastructure for child care. Women, once you had children, you do not work, you took care of the kids. Many women though found ways. But Eleanor Roosevelt says let us advocate for tell care some facilities were set up across the country but they are in such small numbers it is completely inadequate. So the people that are going to watch the children are going to be family. Grandmothers. Or the idea of support within the community. That gets promoted as a war job. If you work as a child caregiver, you are enabling someone else to go and work in a factory. If you have arthritis in your elbow and cannot rivet, maybe you can feed a baby a bottle and do your part. This idea that all of these jobs are important and help with the work effort and make a difference to the whole thing. We often think of rosie the riveter as the opinion me as the epitome of women working for the war but the reality is that more women typed. I want to sneak that in now. That is one of the biggest things that women do in the military. You have the civil service, women working for different parts of the government. And there are mill a and there are women in the military too. There are no computers. Everyone has orders. And they are all in triplicate or quadruplicate. Everything is typed. One of my favorite resources in my own research is when i find transcripts of phone calls. Every government official, depending on your level, would have a stenographer that would listen in and take shorthand, the ultimate secret language, they would take shorthand of the phone camera station and then type out the conversation. In the National Archives, we have transcripts of phone calls between generals, between important people making business decisions. We have transcripts of all of those phone calls. They are hard to find because they are not labeled that way. You have to look through a lot of boxes but someone typed them and it will be women. One of the things about a lot of these posters is they are sponsored by different companies. We talked about that before. The idea that they want to promote their company by sponsoring the bonds or whatever and so Royal Typewriter Company sponsored this ad. Go and serve your country but do it by typing and wouldnt you rather have a royal typewriter than any other. It is a quiet plug for their own company but supporting the war effort. This is another push. This idea that she is holding his letters and being all sad and lonely. Crying. You can see the tears. Isnt that sad . But her lipstick is perfect. What is this essentially saying for any lonely girl . Dont cry about it and get to work. Chin up. Do not be a baby. Go and do something about it. This idea that only you can bring him home. Only you can end this war. By going to work. If you are going to sit at home or shut off your alarm clock or sit around and cry, nothing will happen. You have to go to work and get the job done. Again, a similar type of thing. The men would rather be doing this work. They are probably better at it than you are. But, someone has got to do it. And do the job he left behind. What is the head wrap . Talk to me about that. We see that in the image of rosie the riveter. Why . Their hair was in pin curls. Are you going to wear your hair that way to the factory . You could get scalped. It is a safety issue. The idea that you have to keep your hair up and this is the simplest way. You can do double duty. Put your hair up in pin curls and then wrap it up and then you wont kill yourself wrapping your hair around a steel process and then you can go out and go dancing afterwards. Killing two birds with one stone. I want to point out this image. Does she look like she is sweating . She is perfect. She is beautiful. She has makeup on. Are those real lashes . I dont know. The perfect lipstick, again. This is the image being left of these women. These very perfect images. We talk about this and we look at all of these different images. This is a very serious effort. A very serious effort. This is a group of women, some of them have hairnets instead of bandannas but this is important work. These are the noses of bombers. It is important. There will be a man sitting in here and if you do not do it right, he could die. This is important work. We have got to get those numbers out there. Just to review, we have talked about the idea of the manufacturing. Remember when we talked about fdr in 1942 when he said 60,000 new airplanes. We had like 9000 airplanes before we got involved in the work. We are going to build 60 60,000 new airplanes in 1942. And more in 1943. Think about that reality. How are we going to do that . How is it even possible that we built up so quickly in theour factories . We went from 9000 to over 300,000 in the course of the war. We are supplying the british and ourselves and our completely overwhelming the germans and japanese and it is because we have women working in the factories. Women working in these factories. I want to show you some pictures of the real rosie the riveter. Anything was a lot of airplanes, you know that i love. But, this is another image of rosie the riveter. I want to make the point that most of the poster images that we see are targeting those middleclass white women and the idea that you can still be attractive and feminine if you are working in the factory. The reality is that you have a lot of women in color working in these positions and doing these different jobs. I love this. This is one of my favorites. So much so that i have it twice for you. I like this one because of the reflection on the plane. You can see her ring in the reflection. And this idea that she is still feminine, she has a beautiful ring. Look at her nails. I dont know if she knew she was going to be photographed the next day or if she just kept her nails that pretty because it made her feel feminine while she was doing this work. The idea that women are doing this work while still being famine but the target is not women of color but you can see a lot of different women taking these jobs. This is why we can still call the we can do it woman, rosie. They are having their hair held up with a bandanna. The shoes are always of interest to me. Penny loafers. Little loafers. No work boots for this generation. I like this also. What do you see up in the corner . What do you see here . They are working together. The idea of the men doing these jobs. The men on the the man on the right is a sailor. Just to remind people why you are there. Youre not just here doing a job. It gets romanticized a lot. This idea that youre building a plane and you will save a man. He will fly it and kill the germans or the japanese and we will win the war. Because you riveted that. Your rivets saved the world. But it is also boring. To do the same thing every day. It is dirty, loud, monday. How to find that balance between making people realize that you have to keep coming to work. It is important for you to keep coming to work. And getting through the boringness of doing the same thing every day. How to find that balance. How to find that balance. These are shipped fitters it is important to realize that we built tens of thousands of ships during world war ii and these are women working in one of the shipyards. I like this picture because it is diverse. You have an asian woman, probably an Asian American woman, an africanamerican woman, a white some white women and a guy in the back. I am here too. Right. Much of the workers are integrated. While the military was still segregated at this time, the workers were integrated. I think that is important. You have all different types of women working. Look at that sweater and shirt. You are going to get dirty. They all have id badges with with photo ids. These are secure facilities. You will need to have these photo ids. This idea of photo ids. I like this one. There is a limited series of color photographs during the war. Color film was fairly new and expensive but there is a series of color photographs. Wait a minute, they are real. It adds a whole mother level it adds a whole other level. This woman is painting the star on the plane. This is a fabric plane. Probably a trainer. Artists had jobs. All sorts of different jobs, not just the factory riveting. Why did it matter . That women went to work . This is the willow run factory near detroit, factory near detroit, belleville. In michigan. This of course was fords factory that god transitioned into a bomber factory. This is huge. When of my favorite photographs. Can you see the person here sticking their head out . This gives you an idea of this gale of the planes we are talking about. These are be 24s. B24s. This one factory in willow run builds 9000 of these. Inc. About the scale of that. They were built think about the scale of that. They were building one every 63 minutes by 1944. One of those is coming off the Assembly Line every 63 minutes. And about how complicated that machine is. This is and then they would go off to war. And we have talked about, previously in this class, the scale of this stuff, the planes, ships, tanks, guns, trucks, jeeps, and how we overwhelmed the enemy. And this is one example. So when you think about women at work during the war and whether they really needed to do it, this is the result. And it is not because they are women, it is because they are workers and were able to do the jobs that needed to be done, and make a real difference of the war. We are feeding everyone, ourselves here at home, our soldiers abroad, our allies overseas. We build over 300, 000 planes over the course of the war, 300, 000 planes, everything from trainers to bombers to the 50 ones, but two e51 to pp51 to p51s. We gave the soviet union 300 50, 000 trucks. We gave them 956, 000 miles of telephone cable, all those Little Things that you maybe dont think of that we had to give them, and all doing this while our population is healthy and better fed than they were in a generation. We had the study on nutrition, all the farming going on, so all those things had to come together. It really did make a difference. We looked at all these images, and this idea of it being fun, some of it sexist, some of it racist, but it all comes together, this idea of different people working. There is a lot of discussion about jobs women had before and after the war, and what happens to women after, and i want to make one final point on this idea of women at work. Everyone during world war ii is able to change their opportunities, the work that they do. So you have got women that are working at this level during, before the war, and men are working here. Well, as the men are able to move up into different positions, the women are able to move up into the positions the men were. So after the war, as men come back down in the types of positions and pay of the positions they have come of the women are going to come back down too. They will always stay a notch below when it comes to pay, when it comes to opportunity. It is going to be the same for women of color, they are going to be below white women on the pay scale, but theyre going to be higher than they were before. Women as the mystic laborers dropped by over 15 during world war ii. And that is a lot of women of color doing those jobs, a lot of immigrant women doing those jobs that during the war, are able to take betterpaying jobs. And after the war they are going to get pumped back down in terms of jobs they can have. Questions about women at work . Ok. We will switch to our third topic, and our focus is going to be women at war. One of the biggest things i want you to walk away with today is the idea that we have between 350000 and 400, 000 women serving in the American Armed forces during world war ii. It depends on how you count unto you dont, that we have that discrepancy. They were all volunteers. We talk about the millions of men that served in the armed forces during world war ii. The vast majority were drafted. Many volunteered, but every woman veteran from the beginning of time in the United States to today, every woman veteran you meet is a volunteer. That is a really important thing to remember about women in the military. So in world war ii, you have that 350, 000 to 400, 000 women serving. This is my little Public Service announcement. Have you been to Arlington National cemetery . This is the womens memorial, women in military service for america. It is right at the doorstep when you pull up to Arlington National cemetery. It says womens memorial, but it is really a museum and an archive that gathers oral histories and documents of women during world war ii. It is a terrific, Nonprofit Organization started by congress, unfortunately not funded, so it gets a lot of donations, but it is a terrific organization. It is the only place in the country that is just for women veterans, recognizing them. One of the first groups we think of when we think of women serving in the military is nurses. This is a fairly idealized promotion, there he pure, clean. Who is putting the hat on her . Uncle sam. Uncle sam. And this is a very attractive woman, very white, perfect makeup, theyre intelligent, with uncle sam saying, we need you. Becoming ours. Your country needs you. There were women doctors as well, a very small group, but we get about 74,000 women who served in the army and navy nurse go a during world war ii, 74,000. This is a lot. We had only 7000 activeduty army and navy nurses before pearl harbor, so a huge increase. And people still got sick in the United States, people still got sick on the home front, so finding that balance of adding all these additional nurses was important. I would like to contrast this image of the nurse being anointed by uncle sam with this reality of what it meant to be a nurse and world war ii. This is a group of u. S. Army nurses that landed at normandy on dday plus four. We talked about the war in europe, a lot of men were being injured. They would be taken up to the ships that were waiting, where navy nurses would be waiting for them. But then army nurses are finally landing on the beaches at normandy, dday plus four. You can see the beaches have been improved a little but it is very much a war zone. Throughout the war, nurses get closer and closer to the front lines and are always right in the thick of it, because that is where the injured soldiers are. There is a group of american women that are captured as pows. The second half of our semester we will talk about the war in the pacific read and when the philippines falls in 1942, both manila and corregidor, you have army and navy nurses who are there who get captured, about 79 women captured by the japanese. They are held as pows 437 months. Pows for 37 months. This is a couple of women who survived, eating chocolates. You can see how thin they are, starvation rations and all of that. So when we are talking about who is in combat and who is not, the line gets blurred, especially when it comes to nurses, who is captured, who is not. What happens to women as pows, what happens to men as pows, so that is important to recognize these nurses. Women serve in a number of different parts of the military. Could you get more girl next door . She is perfect, but she is a good soldier. When you think of a soldier, do you think of this . Is that the image that pops into your head . Not typically. My grandma was a wac. Your grandma was a wac . That is good. That is good. So this is something you have to get the American Public used to, say you have these images. There is a Huge Campaign against these women, i dont know if it was a campaign as much as, this idea of being in the military was a mans job so if a woman wanted to serve in the military, they just want to be around men and a sexual way, prostitutes or camp followers, or they must be lesbians and want to be a man. That is the two choices. So there is push back against the idea of women serving in the military, that you would be around unsavory people. One of the biggest efforts that the Womens Army Corps, one of their big pushes was to convince parents this was a good idea for their daughters, to serve in the military, because parents were the ones pushing back a lot. Lisa meyer has a really good book on women in the army, and the campaign against them. So you have these different branches of the military that have women. There is a fierce competition. They all have a quota of how many women that are supposed to become part of their forces, so this campaign to get women to join the navy instead of the army, Different Things like that, and theyll promote different types of jobs. This is a parachute rigor. What message are they trying to tell women with this type of message . By challenging them. Kind of like, everybody can join the wacs, but can you join the . Can you join the waves . And look at the picture of the parachute rigor. Nobody uses a parachute and world war ii for fun or entertainment. So the idea is, this is incredibly important. Can you handle it . This is a challenge to women. And this idea of patriotism, to make men free, the idea that you will be part of the gratitude, people will be thanking you, you will be able to say that you did it. This is a silly thing, the Womens Army Corps was first, first it was the Womens Auxiliary Army corps and then it got shortened to wac when it became officially a part of the army. But people made fun of their name, mainly there acronym, wack, qwack, so they really worked hard to make better names. When you are competing, youre going to work on all levels. That is nice, it is in a and him, the waves it is an acronym, waves, one of those silly things. The uniforms were important too. One woman i studied said she almost joined the navy because they had such cute hats. The army, locale brown that is, that is not pretty. That is kind of pretty, right . Here is the sparse, that is the coast guard, always ready is the English Version of their motto, spar even sounds better than wac. The marines, they were just marines. Women marines were just marines. And that is the whole thing about women in the military, the idea of, free a man to go do something more important. You cant go to combat, but the men can, so lets do it. A lot of promotions about what types of jobs you would be doing, also all a whole series of advertisements. 239 types of jobs, you would not just be a typist, you could work in a laboratory, all sorts of things, get work experience. The navy promotes that you can be promoted, that you can get these different positions. It talks about the fact you are going to get the same grade and same pay as men, so we are about equality here in the navy, you have this opportunity. And very patriotic, there is a mansized job for you in the navy. He is going to go fight, you were care. This is one of my favorites. The pioneer woman statue is on our campus, so i love this image of the pioneer woman, out there defending our wagon with her rifle. Are you as good as she is . Can you live up to this legacy . And again, in the wac you can work in a hospital, not as a nurse, but separate. This is a ladies home journal ad for ivory soap, how to win an engagement. She is in the military, she is a wac, but it is about the man, this is what you are fighting for, and you can still get your man even if you are in uniform. She does look sassy, doesnt she . And this is competition as well. You have all these efforts to get women into the military, but we need women as ordnance workers. So they have their spot, but you have yours, they are all equally important. So this competition to get women, to have women doing these different jobs. Theres a push for africanamerican women as well. Remember, we have a lot of prominent newspapers in africanamerican communities, chicago and other places, and they would hire artists to draw cartoons to promote women of color to be a part of the military, and they did. This is the postal directory battalion that was in paris, and they did stay segregated. A group of africanamerican naval nurses, they often worked with africanamerican soldiers and sailors, they kept them all segregated. And you know my Favorite Group here, the Women Air Force Service Pilots of world war ii. The archives are here at tw, in the back corner. These women worked to free men up so they could go fly in combat. We had 25 thousand women apply for the training program. The training starts in houston, you guys have been to houston, the idea that the weather is not great for flying, a lot of fog and rain, so then they moved to sweetwater on the west of fort worth and did their training there. 25, 000 women applied. When i started my research, i thought that number was made up. But i have seen them, they are in the National Archives, all these letters you can find from women saying, please, i want to fly. Only 1830 were picked. 80 of the women had at least two years in college. They could be very selective. This was at a time when only 4 of women had college degrees, so it was a selective group. They started as ferry pilots with air transport command, flying the planes from place within the continental United States. Flying the planes from place to place within the United States. They did not go overseas or fly in combat. A little peek into canada and the caribbean a few times but for the most part, just within the continent. And then they moved to other jobs. You see the target back there. If youre going to send men overseas, you have to train them how to shoot, shooting from the deck of a b17 against an airplane is different than. Com to, so you have to give them in practice. They would each get to flights before they were sent overseas as gunners, but women often flew these planes. This is a shot of two women flying ac 17 as it shoots up the target of the other plane. This is live ammunition, colorcoded bullets, they did this with a wide variety of planes. These women served as civilians until the 1970s, when they started a Grassroots Campaign to be recognized as veterans, and incredible campaign, and they finally were given veterans benefits. This is in congress after the testified in 1977, when resident carter recognized them as veterans. All of their papers are here if you guys want to serve as interns in the womens collection, and you can look through their papers directly. We could have an entire semester on women in war, and this is just a quick and dirty version. When we walk away from class as we conclude, think about women in these three ways of working in the United States, domestically and abroad, and that will help you organize her thoughts. Any questions or final thoughts . Ok. Thank you, very much. We will continue our conversation in our regular class on thursday. Good job, guys. When we last met, you will declared independence. So, that means we have to go to war. In order to do that, we need to recruit troops, train them, drill them, arm them. All those good things. Before we do that, i want to talk briefly about military history in general. We will set aside our political issues for now. The next couple of weeks, its military history. Heres the thing. There are certain challenges that folks who study military history are going to encounter. Like what . History being