American women in three ways, were going to talk about women at home. Women at work and women at war. Were just going to kind of organize our ideas this way, and were going to look at a lot of the propaganda, weve been talking about propaganda this semester, well get a chance to talk about everybody found that video okay, the all right, its a good one on women at work during world war ii. You can find it on the National Archives website. Well talk about that in this portion, well talk about that in these different parts of american women during world war ii, were just hitting the survey of this, theres so much we could talk about throughout the entire semester. And we do all of u. S. And world war ii, except we cant do all of it, we do our bits and pieces. Weve already talked about some of these things. Some of it will be familiar, especially when we get to the women at work part. Be sure to stop me if you have any questions and well do our thi thing. Sew women at home. When we think about this, one of the biggest things i want you to do today is think about this reality for the home front, which is mainly what were talking about today. The reality of what life meant for women in the war. One of the first things that we often think about is all the men going away to war, the men are going off, that means, whos left behind. The women, right . So a lot of the women are married, weve talked about, there are all sorts of quick can i weddings going on, but people who have been married for a while as well this idea of how do you get by if youre a household with a husband and a wife in this time period, its a partnership, and each has their role, theyre much more defined roles during world war ii than they are today. How are you going to do your job as the wife and often the mother and the job of the husband, how do you do this . So this is a popular book, this came out in 1942, so your husbands gone to war. And this idea of, what do you do . How do you get through it, you can see from the cover here tackling male chores, right, because the chores were defined by male and female, whos going to do which job. Any single woman, any widow, any woman like that does everything. You guys, if you live on your own, you do your own thing, put your own light bulbs in, make your own repairs. This book gives some guidance 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 of, we have wolves that was the phrase of the day about you know what that means, right . What a wolf . They pretend to be helpful. But really, theyre not quite as nice as they seem. How do you distinguish between the wolf and the real friend. And then this part in the upper right corner is something thats porn. 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 moral of men. This is going to be a theme were going to have through this entire section especially. Women are responsible for making men remember what theyre fighting for, making men feel confident, making men feel its okay for them to be away but theyre missed and they need to come home. So this lost art of letter writing, ethel gorman writes this whole chapter about how to write your letters to your men. Theres articles in womens magazines, mainstream newspapers, all these editorials about how women should write their letters. What do you think you want to put in a letter, if youre writing to johnny whos away in europe 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, focus on getting the job done. Right, right. Dont worry about how things are, focus on getting the job done. Go do your thing, were good here. You have to realize they want you to write multiple letters a week. If you can write daily, thats best. Imagine your soldiers going to get mail every day and if theres nothing there, how depressing that is. Oh, i have to go fight my war and nobody at home cares about me. Thats the guilt, right . The pressure is to write every day, three days a week, four, five days a week at a minimum. You write that once. And then what do you write . What else do you do . We miss you. We miss you, please comb home, right . But you cant do too much of that, or it will make him too sad. A cheerful story, but focus on the war. Right, a fun story. A piece of advice that gorman puts in her book is make yourself interesting, so your letters are interesting, right . Do interesting things so your letters are interesting but dont be too interesting, because hell think youre having fun while hes at war. You have to find that war 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 . Yes, theres this whole campaign, it could be 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. The idea of writing letters, talking about what gets at home. What if your roof gets a leak . Should you write johnny about that . Its this balance between maybe you wait until the leak is fixed and then you tell johnny, the roof had a leak, but we got it fixed. But you dont want to seem too efficient, right . If the roof leaks and the plumbing breaks, and all these things and you take care of it, why does johnny need toe come home, right . Its a lot of pressure on these women to write these letters in these specific ways, high volume, positive. You can say you miss him, but you cant be too blue, right . Youve got to find this balance of being responsible and him not needing to worry, but still needing him to come home, because its just youre not good at it. Right . You can get by, but hurry home. Its this balance and this pressure on women that gets put, again, you have whole books about it, but in different forms of media, about womens responsibilities to write these letters, and the men you know, i read a lot of these letters that are coming back, we dont have as many letters of the women going overseas. These levers that the women wrote we dont see as many, because the men didnt keep them. The women kept the letters that the men wrote from overseas. 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 and 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 theyre going to steal the women. Thats actually a campaign that the germans and japanese both use in leaflet campaigns, is the men back home are stealing your girl, dont you wish the war was over. And you could go home . This idea of the letter writing, this is an incredibly popular book in 1942 says a lot, women are working on this and goingforward, right . Other responsibilities that the women had. We talked a little bit about the rationing, were going to talk about it more in another week. But this idea of weve got all this rationing. Who is the United States sporns for feeding during the war . Pretty much everybody. Lets narrow that down a little. Thats good. Who are we responsible for feeding . Our allies, right . The allies . Were going to give some food to the russians, the british and all that entails. Who else do we need to feed . 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 the soldiers that are out, we have to supply. Whos the third group were responsible for feeding . People were rescuing . Yes. Yes. The home front. The people back home need to eat as well. Weve got rationing so they can get all that manufacturing we talked about already. But then that reality of food and whos going to eat and who were responsible for feeding. So theres a lot of emphasis on women growing those Victory Gardens. And i have a slide of that. Grow those Victory Gardens. Theres a huge growth in the study of nutrition in this time period because you want to get as much nutrition in as little food as possible. And then this idea of, what are women going to do. You have to can that. Its one thing to grow a Victory Garden but if its done by the end of the summer, thats no good. This idea of canning, im plowed, im fighting famine by canning at home. Look, 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 . Very cute. As we go through these, were going to see a lot of these posters. I want you to make sure you note the race of these women being portrayed. The appearance of them . These are pretty perfect that little girl is so cute, you could pinch her cheek, right . Whos being represented, which audience are these government sponsored posters trying to reach. Now, another thing thats used so women get used in a number of different ways, right . We have this pressure to try to get women to take action. But we also have 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. Right, sacrifice. Is she a perky clean cut gal . No. Well, she might have used to have been. What is she now . Scared. Shes scared. Does she look very happy . No. The babys laughing, but the little girl is clinging to her not quite knowing whats going on. The woman looks sad and scared. I gave a man. Remember when we talked about the soviets and how the americans are like, you have to do more . We gave blood, you give money. Shes saying, i 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 . Thats the very least you can do. Look at the sacrifice my family has made. Women being used for guilt to make you feel this pressure to buy war bonds. Now, review, why do we need war bonds . What are they for . That paid for all our equipment and supplies that are going out. We need it, right . 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 the government can afford the war. This is another way women are portrayed in these things. 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 of wanted for murder. What does she look like . If she was in a movie, what character would she be . The femme fatale. Or the neighbor gossip. Because women just cant help themselves, right . Thats the impression thats given in so many of these images. And again i have about 20 of these we can look at. Women cant help themselves gossiping. But her gossip costs lives, maybe his life, right . This idea that she looks perfect, but her careless talk her thoughtlessness costs lives. This idea of women need to control themselves, to resist their natural urge to gossip. Women are used for sex. This idea of images of women as sexual. This is a whole famous series of prints that im sure you guys have seen before. You see shes a wac, shes in the military. This is mainstream, this is mainstream. This is a picture that came out of life magazine. This is a mainstream image of women as sexualized beings. You have to think about why were fighting. Were fighting so we can get home to the girl. Were fighting so we can get home and this is what all girls look like, apparently . This reality. 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. They cant be too sexual, right . Give you guys a minute to take a look at these. You like these . What do you think . What do you see in these images, how are women being portrayed in these i78ages . Theyre spreading disease. This one is one of my all time favorites. She may look clean, but theres a whole series of these images, these posters that are given to men at the different bases and overseas, whole classes on venerial disease. We want to give you posters like this to hang up, but dont touch. Because theyre probably diseased. So this idea of 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, it can theres a whole series of these that are out there, and theyre promoted among all these men. So thats our women at home. Do you guys have questions about that or okay . Well, lets switch to our next topic here, this idea of women at work. We think of this a lot. When we think of women in world war ii, we often think of these working women. And this is the point of the class, the section of the course. My favorite thing is to be a myth buster. Thats what we do. Thats what historians do, thats our job this section were going to bust some myths, im sorry. But we are 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, okay, all the women go to work do you guys remember your u. S. History class, your survey . What did you learn about women working . Did they work before world war ii . No. Not according to my survey class, no. What about in the factories at the turn of the century, what about those imgrant women about. Some, but it wasnt as widespread and it wasnt mothers or okay. 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 . I think young women. Lots of young single women. Lots of immigrant women. What about women of chore, did they work . You think so . Yeah. A lot of them were teachers. Women of color didnt get a lot of teaching jobs. Coming up to here we do. Coming out of the progressive era, we get more women of color taking middle class jobs. Youve always had working class women, immigrant women, women of color, unmarried women that have always worked. 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. And then a second group tied in there is mothers. More mothers are going to work than before world war ii. Its a shift of women working to that expansion of middle class white women. Thats what we often see portrayed in these posters. Look at these women. First of all, their teeth are perfect, which did not happen in the 1940s. They all look like movie stars. They all have their eyebrows just right, their hair just right. 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. So thats an important distinction i want to make sure 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 expanding it. 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. Its important to realize we have over 6 million agricultural laborers and farmers that leave the land during world war ii. Over 6 Million People who had been working the land, leave 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 becomes a draft deferred position. You dont have to go over to the war, your job is war critical. If you leave that job you may be eligible for the draft. If youre in that position youre draft deferred. So agricultural farmers are draft deferred. That doesnt mean you cant go work in a factory. By late in the war, there are limits on that, you have to get permission to do that. At the same moment were expanding the agricultural needs, were feeding people at home, americans abroad and were feeding all of our allies. Helping feed our allies. At the same time were doing that, the laborers are shrinking, theres a huge push to get american women involved in this. And we had seen this before, in world war i there was the Womens Land Army of america, that was around. We expand that in world war ii. There was a Womens Land Army in great britain, and we model a lot of what goes on in the United States after that. Theres this huge push to get american women as part of this. There were other organizations of the bu krf ero program. Have you read about that . What was the bacero program . It was an agreement between the United States and mexico to allow laborers to come to the United States and work. And this program goes from 1942 to 1951. This is a huge program well talk about in another class. They try that. To expand the number of laborers, they also go to convicts, right . Prison labor, which had been used some in the past, but gets expanded. They also use pows, we had pows here in texas and some 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 dink groups, and then this huge push, lets get more women. Lets get more women to do this. Some basic numbers for you. We end up with Something Like 3 1 2 million women working in the agricultural field. 3. 5 million. Which is a much bigger number than you think of. You think of world war ii, we think of rosie the riveter or the women pilots because youre here and have me as a professor. 3. 5 million women are recruited. Theres some bias against them in the beginning, you can read a lot of documents about the idea of 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. Very quickly the women prove themselves. 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. And again, this is all going to shrink back down after the war, because we arent growing as much after the war. Thats a significant amount, 3. 5 million women working on fa