Space here. Today, we are going to talk about american women in world war ii. And this is, obviously, a huge talker. We could spend an entire semester just on this topic alone. We will try to break it down to three different spaces, and we will look at a lot of images to kind of fit into the other things that weve talked about. So, we are going to talk about american women in three ways. We are going to talk about women at home, okay . Women at work. And women at war. Do so, we are going to kind of organize our ideas this way. We are going to look at a lot of the propaganda weve been talking about propaganda throughout the semester, and watching videos and things like that. We will get a chance to talk about everybody found that to be okay . The all right. Its a good one on women at work during world war ii, you can find it on the National Archives of sight, right . But we will talk about that in this portion, and we will talk about these different parts of women during american women during world war ii. Again, we are just hitting the survey of this. There is so much we could talk about throughout the entire semester, and we do all of it and u. S. World war ii, so we can do all of it. We do our bits and pieces. Weve already talked about some of these things, so some of it will be familiar. Especially when we get to the room at work part but then we will go from there. Be sure to stop me if you have any questions and we will do our thing. So, women at home, all right . So, when we think about, as one of the biggest things i want you to do today, is think about this reality for the home front. Right . Which is minute what we are talking about today. And the reality of what life meant for women in the war. And one of the first things that we often think about is all of them and going away to war. The men are going off, that means whos left behind, the women. So a lot of the women are married, weve talked about there are all sorts of cookie weddings going on. People have been married for a while and this idea of how to get by, right . If you are a household with a husband and a wife in this time period its a partnership, and each has their role, and they are much more defined roles and world war ii than the, are say, today. 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, came out in 1942, so your husbands gone to war right . And this idea of what do you do . How do you get through it . You can see from the cover here, you know, tackling male chores, right . Because towards were defined by male and female, right . Whos going to do which job, and any single woman, any widow, any, you know, women like that, does everything. If you live on your own, you do your own thing, put your own light bulbs, and and you fix your own repairs. But this book give some guidance us guidebook to help women know how to do those little maintenance jobs that they needed to. This is my favorite part. The wolves in the french clothings, right . This idea of weve got wolves, right . That was the phrase of the day. You know that means, right . A wolf, right . You know. They pretend to be helpful, oh, i will come help you change a lightbulb. Let me help, let me help. But really, they are, you know, you know, not quite as nice as they say. How do you distinguish between the wolf and the real friend, right . And then theres this part up in the operate 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 obliterating. And this idea that women were responsible for keeping up the morale of man, right . As we have seen that we have through this entire section, especially and the idea that women are responsible for making men, remember what they are fighting for, making men feel confident, making men feel that its okay for them to be away, but they are missed, and need to come home, right . So, this lost art of letter writing, ethel gorham writes this whole chapter about how to write letters to your man, and there is articles in womens magazines, theres articles and mainstream newspapers, all these editorials about how women should write their letters. So, what do you think you want to put in a letter if you are writing to johnny, whos away, and in europe, fighting against the germans . What do you want to put in your letter, as you are writing from home . What would you put in there . Dont worry about what things are going here right right, dont worry about how things are, focus on getting the job done go do your thing, were good here. Now youve got to realize that they want you to write multiple letters a week. If you can write daily thats best, because imagine your soldiers going and going to get mail every day. If theres nothing there how depressing that is. No ive got to go fight my war, and nobody at home cares about me right. Thats the guilt right. So the pressure is to write every day, three days a week, for five days a week at the minimum. So you write that ones, and then what do you right . What else you do . We miss you. We miss you, please come home, right . But you cant do too much of that, or it will make him feel to side. Kind of a cheerful story. Focus on the war. Write a fun story. So a piece of advice that gorman puts in her book make yourself interesting. So your letters are interesting. Do interesting things so your letters are interesting but dont be deep to interesting, because how think youre having fun while hes at war. You have to find that balance between being interesting and not being interesting. What if they dont have a sweetheart at home . Are there women getting together to write letters to strangers . To kind of help. Out exactly theres this whole series whole campaign through the red cross or different organizations, where soldiers would give their names and women would write letters to strangers. You have romances that grow out of that, this idea of writing letters, talking about whats going on at home. What is your roof gets a leak. Should you write johnny about that . No. I dont know right, this balance between maybe you wait until the leak is fixed and then you tell johnny hey the ruth had a lead, 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 just take care of it. Why does johnny need to come home . Its a lot of pressure on these women to write these letters, and these very specific ways, high volume positive. You can say you miss him, but you cant be to blue. Youve got to find this balance of being responsible and him not needing to worry, but still needing him to come home because youre just not good at it. 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 and media about womens responsibility to write these letters. The men i read a lot of these letters coming back, you dont have as many letters of the women going overseas. These letters that the women wrote we dont see as many because the men did not keep them. Where the woman kept the letters that the men wrote from overseas. So we have more of those, we can figure out what the women were talking about by how the men respond to those letters. Thats one of the ways we can determine what went into those letters, you see a lot of anxiety from the men. Especially about the wolves. Theres a lot of ideas about the men who dont serve, who are not able to serve or have these different positions, domestically and that theyre going to try and steal the women. Thats actually a campaign that the germans in the japanese both use and leaflet campaigns, is that the men back home are stealing your girl. Dont you wish the war was over, and you could go home . Come on in common in. So this idea of their letter riding and things like this, and the fact that this is an incredibly popular book in 1940 twos says a lot i think. That women are working on this and going forward. Other responsibilities that the women had. Weve talked a little about the rationing, were going to talk about it more in another week. This idea of weve got all this rationing, because who is the United States responsible for feeding during the war . Pretty much everybody. Pretty much everybody, lets narrow that down a little. So who are responsible for feeding . Allies. Our allies right. The allies, we are going to give some food to the russians, the british and all of that entails. Who else do we need to feed . Our soldiers. Our people are soldiers right, the men and women who have gone abroad. We are responsible for feeding them, the british are not going to pull out fish and chips for soldiers that are out. We have to supply, and whos the third group that were responsible for . Feeding rescuing. 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 weve talked about already. But then that reality of food and whos going to eat and who we are responsible for feeding. Those theres a lot of emphasis on women growing those victory gardens, ive got a slide of that right. Those victory gardens, grow vitamins on your credit kitchen door, theres a huge growth of the study of nutrition during this time period. You want to get as much nutrition in as little food as possible. This idea, of what are women going to do . Youve got to canned that, its one thing to grow a victory garden, but if its done by the end of the summer thats no good. So this idea of canning, you know i am i proud, i am fighting famine. I am counting at home. Look this is hard but im doing it. I love this one, with a little girl. We will have lots to eat this winter wont we mother very cute, as we go through these were going to see a lot of these posters and different images, i want you to be sure to note things like the race of these women that are being portrayed. The appearance of them, these are pretty Perfect Little girl is so cute you could pincher little she couldnt you. And this idea of who is being represented, which audience are these government poster government sponsored posters trying to reach. Another thing thats used so women get used in a number of different ways, we have this pressure to try and 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. Sacrifice right. Is she a perky clean cut gal . No. Well she might she used to be. What is she now . Shes scared, does she look very happy . No. No right, the babies laughing right. But the little girl is clinging to her, not quite knowing whats going on. But the woman looks kind of side and scared, because i gave a man remember 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 i give 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 least you could do. So women being used to for guilt right, to make you feel this pressure to buy war bonds. Why do we need war, bones for review. What are war bonds for do you remember . Equipment and all the supplies. Right we needed, we talked about expensive the war is. War bonds are one way that we pay for it, basically loaning money to the government so that it could so that the government can afford the war. This is another way women are portrayed, information is important. Theres all sorts of campaigns out there dont talk about within joining sledders. Anybody could be listening, this idea of wanted for murder. What does she look like . If she was in a movie who would she be . What your character the villain . The fan fat, all the villain right. Or the neighbor right i cant just help themselves, . Right, right . Thats the impression thats given and so many of these images. And again ive have 20 of these that we could look at. This idea that women just cant help themselves gossiping, right . But her gossip cost lives, right . Maybe his life, right . Right . This idea that, you know, she looks perfect, but her careless top, right . Her thoughtlessness cost lives, right . So this idea of when we need to control themselves, right . To resist their natural urge to gossip. Right . Right. Women are used for sex, right . And this idea of women used is sexual, right . This whole famous series of prints that im sure you guys have seen before. You see, shes a wac, in the military, but not in this moment, shes not, right . But this is mainstream, right . This is mainstream. A picture that came out in life magazine, right . This is a mainstream image of the idea that women as the centralized being speak as youve got to think about why we are fighting. We are fighting so we can get home. We are fighting so we can get home and, because this is what all girls look like, apparently. Right . Right. Is it a reality, right . But they cant be, so women are supposed to be sexual, right . They are supposed to be pretty, there was three sexual, so the men will know what they are fighting for. But the cant be too sexual, right . Ill give you a minute to look at this. Right . You like this . What do you think, what do you think . Right . What do you see in these images. How are on being portrayed in these images. There are spreading disease. Theyre spreading disease, right . This is my alltime favorite. She may look clean, but right . There is a whole series of these images, these posters that are given to man at the different bases and overseas. You know, whole classes on venereal disease, but this idea that these good time girls, and pickups, these are a problem, right . So we want to give you posters like this to hang up, but dont touch, right . Because they are probably diseased. Right . , so this idea of women as all these different things, right . Women are mothers, women are, you know, raising the guardians, saving and feeding everyone, and women are sacrificing, women are writing letters, and be good for morale. Women are, you know, the sexual beings, and women are also diseased. Right . All these things, all at the same time, right . This idea of i just think this, is right . Right . Right . And again, there is this whole series of these that are out there, and they are promoted among all these men. Right . So, thats our women at home. Is that you guys have questions about that, or . Okay. All right, lets switch to our next topic here, this idea of women at work. One minute work. And we think of this a lot, right . When we think of women and world war ii, we often think of these working women, right . Right, and this is the point of the class, the section of the course, you know, my favorite thing is to be a myth buster, right . Thats what we do, thats what historians do, thats our job. So, this section, we are going to bust some myths and im sorry. But we are. Okay, 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. Right . Okay, all the women go to work, right . Now, do you guys remember your u. S. History class, your survey . Right . What did you learn about women working . Did women work before world war ii . No. Now . Not according to my survey class. Really . What about in the factories, at the turn of the century . What about those immigrant women . Yeah . Some, but it wasnt as widespread, and it wasnt mothers, or it was so, all of those factories that came out through the industrial revolution, and all of those children, right . That child labor. Did women outwork in those factories . Single women. Lots of young, single woman. Lots of young single women. Wasnt immigrant women, right . But about women of color . Do they work . You think so . Yeah . Teachers . Well, women of color did not get a lot of teaching jobs that, you know, coming up to here they didnt, right . Coming out of the progressive era, we get more women of color taking middle class jobs, red . But women, women have always work, right . Youve always had working class women, right . Working class women, immigrant women, women of color, unmarried women, right . They have always worked, right . So, which one are we really talking about when we say women began to work during world war ii . But across white women. Middle class white women. Right . We are talking about middle class white women, this expansion into this area that people did not work before, right . And then, a second group tied in there will be mothers. Right . More mothers are working in world war ii, than before, right . So the shift from working class women, immigrant women, women of color, working, right . To that expansion of middle class white women. So thats what we often see portrayed in these posters, right . I mean, look at these women, right . First of all, their teeth are perfect, right . Which does not happen in the 1940s, right . They all hook movie stars, they all have their eyebrows just, right the hair just right, right . They are beautiful, right . This is not what most people ever look, like little on in the forties. Right . Right. But this idea of who the target is, right . Who is the target for the working, because this is the group that we have in excess, that we can target to get to work. Right . So, thats an important distinction i want to make sure that we understand which when we are talking about when we say the work force expanded to women. Its a specific group of women that are going to be expanded, right . Now, one area that often does not get talked about in women working in world war ii is women agriculture, right . This idea of women agriculture. So, its important to realize that we have over 6 million agricultural laborers and farmers that lead the land during world war ii, right . Over 6 Million People who have been working the land, and they leave it during world war ii. And these are often going to be men who are going to work in the factories, because they are better paid. These are going to be men who are being drafted, or enlisting, right . The shortage of laborers, agricultural laborers gets about during the, war that by the middle and late 1942, it becomes a draft deferred position. Whats draft different position . Do you remember . Your job is more critical. Your job is war critical, c cannot be drafted. You cannot be drafted. If you leave that job, he may be eligible for the draft, but if you are in that position, you are draft deferred. Agricultural laborers, farmers, they become draft deferred because we need people so badly. That doesnt mean you cant and list. That doesnt mean you cant go work in a factory, right . Though, by late in the, war there are limits on that. If you get permission to do that. Right . So, at the same elements that we are expanding the agricultural needs, because we are feeding people at home, we are feeding people, americans abroad, and we are feeding all of our allies. Right . Helping feed our allies. At the same time, were doing that, the laborers are shrinking. So, there is a huge push to get american women involved in this,. Right, and weve seen this before, weve seen it in world war i. There is a volunteer Organization Called the womens planned army of america that was around we expand that and world war ii.