African Americans did derive benefits from the demands of war, but it certainly was not a solution to the injustices they faced. At the start of the struggle, systemic segregation shackled Black people in employment, the armed services, and in the general conduct of their lives. Their unemployment rate was twice that of White Americans, and the majority of the jobs they held were unskilled.
Perhaps the central gains for Black Americans came from the migration itself. Millions of Black families left the rural south and moved north and west. No matter what the next few years would bring, they were not going back to the poverty and oppression they were escaping.
The onset of the war brought the civil rights of Black Americans into center stage. US industry developed a voracious appetite for labor and Black workers wanted in on those (mostly) good paying jobs. The problem was segregation. Even where companies were willing to hire Black workers, the employed White labor force was resistant to the point of refusing to work.
In December of 1940, FDR was approached by Black labor leader A. Philip Randolph, with an appeal to end discrimination in the new defense employment. FDR rebuffed Randolph’s request. Americans were still divided on the issue of race, but the tide was moving in favor of inclusion. The pressure was building in the spring of 1941 when several Black leaders joined Randolph and again approach FDR, this time with the threat of a 100,000-person march in Washington, DC.
FDR’s calculations doubtless involved racial equity, fear of riots, international embarrassment, and the practical need for the defense output that required these workers. On June 25, just five days before the July 1 scheduled march, FDR issued Executive Order 8802 which forbade discrimination of any worker because of race, creed, color, or national origin in employment of government contracts. The Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) was established to investigate and monitor hiring, though it was never completely effective. The large unions did not provide any but spotty support.
EO 8802 was widely debated by the Black community. Some saw it as a huge victory and others saw it as an appeasement measure by FDR. While it cracked open the locked gate of defense opportunities, it could not completely overcome ingrained discrimination. In addition to ineffective enforcement, the order did not include the armed forces and lacked any protection against discrimination for women of any color.
In spurts, employment resistance gave way in defense plants and other employment. The jobs were often the undesirable jobs and promotions were few, but Black employees were making progress. It could be termed an “on the one hand” kind of situation. Black women were less benefitted.
Americans’ attention was drawn to Philadelphia where the Philadelphia Transit Company, acting to upgrade Black porters to drivers, was confronted with a strike of its White drivers opposed to working with Black drivers. FDR, holding that the strike was illegal and that in view of the nation’s manpower shortage Black workers were needed, ordered the US Army to take over the company. The strikers returned to work and the Black operators remained in their jobs. This was a victory not only for the FEPC, but for Black workers in general. Philadelphia opened more jobs for Black employees rather than risk more confrontations.
The unfairness in employment and resistance of White employees to work with Black employees, both in civilian work and in the military, led to a series of riots and near riots on the home front.
Detroit’s Bell Isle Amusement Park riot in June of 1943 may have been the worst, but not the only one. In 1943 more than 240 racial incidents – ranging from hate strikes and industrial conflicts to full scale race riots – occurred in 47 towns and cities. Americans read the Pittsburg Courier’s headline on June 26, 1943: “Race Riots Sweep Nation.”1
The foolishness of segregation could be seen in the situation with Washington DC streetcars where Black and White riders could sit together until the streetcar entered the state of Virginia, where Black riders were then required to move to the rear. More foolishness could be found in the rumors of “Eleanor Clubs” in which the president’s wife was purported to be to encouraging rebellion among Black maids.
In its worst form, one war-time practice was particularly hurtful. German prisoners of war were used in the south to work on farms. They were transported by train from whatever detention center held them to the farm owners’ locations by train. The German prisoners were escorted in their own rail car up front, while the era’s Jim Crow rules forbade Black passengers from even riding in the same car as the white prisoners, so they had to ride in cars behind them.
Such treatment of Black soldiers was not restricted to the South. It existed in other parts of the home front.
As we entered, the counterman hurried to the rear to get the owner, who hurried out front to tell us with urgent politeness: “You boys know we don’t serve colored here.” Of course we knew it. They didn’t serve “colored” anywhere in town…The best movie house did not admit Negroes and the other one admitted them only on the balcony. There was no room at the inn for any black visitor, and there was no place in town where we could get a cup of coffee. “You know we don’t serve colored here,” the man repeated…We ignored him, and just stood there inside of the door, staring at what we had come to see – the German prisoners of war who were having lunch at the counter. There were about ten of them…No guard was with them…We continued to stare. This was really happening. It was no jive talk. It was the Gospel truth. The people of Salina would serve these enemy soldiers and turn away black American G. I.’s…If we were untermenschen in Nazi Germany, they would break our bones. As “colored” men in Salina, they only break our hearts.2
On April 3, 1942, The New York Times called out “a sinister hypocrisy for fighting abroad for what it is not willing to accept at home.”
The situation in the armed services was dismal for Black servicemen and women. Shortly before the war, in the regular Army of nearly a half-million men, there were only 4700 Black soldiers, 2 Black officers, and 3 Black chaplains. There was not a single serving Black person in the Marine Corps or the Army Air Corps. The Navy relegated Black sailors to be messmen for officers. In the Army they were segregated from White soldiers, and they were bothered by constant slights.3
More than one and a half million African Americans served in the United States military forces during World War II. They fought in the Pacific, Mediterranean, and European war zones, including the Battle of the Bulge and the D-Day invasion. These African American service men and women constituted the largest number enlisted in the Army and Navy, and the first to serve in the Marine Corp after 1798.
However, as members of the United States military, this greatest African American generation, encountered unequal treatment and limited opportunities for promotion and transfer due to the practice of racial segregation adhered to by the US military. Black soldiers conducted their work assignments separately from White soldiers, received medical treatment from separate blood banks, hospitals, and medical staff, and socialized only in segregated settings.
If they left their stateside bases, they often experienced hostility from local White civilian communities. Moreover, the authority of African American officers was restricted to African American units only and, if there were White officers in these units, the African American officers were not allowed to have higher positions. In addition, pernicious beliefs of “race” often stalled the use of African American troops in combat units and excluded them from receiving recognition for their World War II service. It was not until 1993 that the first Medal of Honor was awarded to an African American World War II veteran.4
The rigidly segregated army into which more than a million Black men and women were inducted reflected at all levels the dominant racial attitudes of White America, including the doctrine maintained throughout the war that Black citizens were inferior to White citizens. Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, vowed that the US Army was not about to be turned into a “sociological laboratory,” General George Marshall (a Virginian) insisted that desegregation of the Army violated American customs and habit and would destroy morale. Both agreed that “leadership” was not “embedded in the Negro race.”
Yet, most Americans on the home front read with great admiration the stories of the Tuskegee Airman, the all-Black 332nd Fighter Group as it distinguished itself in Europe. That it was segregated passed notice.
This obvious irony of a Jim Crow Army fighting against racism overseas but enduring it at home sparked one much-read letter in the Pittsburgh Courier shortly after Pearl Harbor on January 31, 1942. The following is an excerpt from “Should I Sacrifice to Live ‘Half-American’” by James G. Thompson:
Being an American of dark complexion and some 26 years, these questions flash through my mind: “Should I sacrifice my life to live half American? Will things be better for the next generation in the peace to follow? Would it be demanding too much to demand full citizenship rights in exchange for the sacrificing of my life? Is the kind of America I know worth defending? Will America be a true and pure democracy after this war? Will Colored Americans suffer still the indignities that have been heaped upon them in the past? These and other questions need answering; I want to know, and I believe every colored American, who is thinking, wants to know.”5
When the Pittsburgh Courier published his letter, it launched the Double V campaign in collaboration with several other Black newspapers across the nation. One “V” stood for victory in the war against the Axis powers and the other “V” for victory over the fight against discrimination in the United States.
Two Black women led actions that produced changes for Black Americans. Singer, Lena Horne, after an event at a military base where POWs were given better seating than Black soldiers, raised the issue all the way to the top of the USO hierarchy and then quit and toured on her own assuring that Black servicemen would receive equal treatment. The academy award winning actress, Hattie McDaniel, led a battle to change discriminatory racial covenants in Los Angeles real estate transactions. Her case went all the way to the Supreme Court where those covenants were struck down.6
The use of demonstrations along with political and economic pressure plus the Double V movement would become the new means which Black Americans would use to dismantle segregation and inequality.
One piece of the war’s legacy changed everything for Black servicemen and women: The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the G.I. Bill. The Veterans’ Administration vowed to give Black servicemen the full benefits of the Bill which included education and home loans.
The G.I. Bill, the migration of Black families out of the South, and good jobs in defense work brought a permanent change in the status of Black Americans. No other segment of American society was as confident as Black communities now were that their young men (and women) now had a better chance to get ahead than their fathers had had.7 The recollection of one particular Black American is recounted below.
An interview with Mr Samuel Hyman, Civil Rights Activist (b. 1938):
Were the war time experiences of black people different from those of whites? The basis for the interview was to examine that question, at least from the viewpoint of one individual.
Sam felt that at the all-encompassing level – war, separation, rationing, fear, making do and so on – experiences were probably no different. However, he saw important differences in impact, especially in the post-war era and beyond.
For Sam, who grew up on a farm in North Carolina, one war time practice did remain vivid. German prisoners of war were used in the south to work on farms. They were transported by train from whatever detention center held them to the farm owners’ locations by train. The German prisoners were escorted in their own rail car, while the era’s Jim Crow rules forbid blacks from even riding in the same car as the white prisoners and had to ride in cars behind them.
On the civilian front, political and labor struggles for black rights kicked into high gear as the war effort wound up. The demand for labor worked as a force for gaining better conditions. Many steps forward were taken during the war.
The young black men who volunteered served in all phases of the war, but often were assigned jobs as drivers, cooks, truck drivers and even grave diggers. While some of the skills, such as cooking, working with vehicles, and cargo handling were useful in civilian life, few gained technical or administrative skills. None the less, these young men had seen new and different ways of life and their expectations and goals had been altered. The G. I. Bill gave the returnees a means to seek out other futures that they had never considered.
Many went back to high school and then moved, most often at night, to the new spate of technical and trade schools that sprang up to meet demand – and respond to the government paid tuition.
The trade schools played an important role because it led many of the veterans into trade roles as plumbers, carpenters and builders and eventually into their own businesses. Sam believes this extension into entrepreneurship simply wouldn’t have happened as quickly without the G.I. Bill.
Many black veterans who Sam remembers, used the benefits to attend college and often chose careers as teachers or in government, particularly in the post office. Many other careers still remained closed to them. The pursuit of government jobs often meant a migration to Washington DC, forming the basis of today’s heavy black population in that city.
The VA loan program that accompanied the G. I. Bill provided the funds for the veterans to become first time home owners. This higher demand, coupled with the growth in black construction and entrepreneurship, along with the VA loan program, helped to create a new community of ownership. “Without the VA loan program this would not have happened for another generation,” Sam said.
There were other spillover effects of the war on black veterans which resulted from the country’s huge surge in demand for goods and services. Many veterans were drawn to Detroit’s auto plants and to the manufacturing factories clustered around cities in the Mid-west and Northeast, adding to a general black migration already underway.
Sam explained a special by-product of blacks’ war time service – pride. “The veterans demonstrated their pride in their service by wearing their uniforms around town. They had played their role in winning the war. They felt honor in their victory. The community shared that pride just like communities all over the country. Their earned pride expanded into earned expectations to be treated just like other communities.”
“The history and impact of this era on all of us should not be forgotten,” Sam said.
Rationing, as mentioned in Chapter Four, provided a universal impact on women. A shortage of heating oil meant that her household was constantly chilly during cold times. The shortage of sugar, coffee, spices, and meat meant that women had to search around from store to store. While there was a level of hoarding, shoes included, rationing did work. Part of the reason was that the big supermarkets had yet to appear, and shopping was still a personal activity between the woman shopper and the local grocer who packed the shopping bags and who would know who was following the rules and who was attempting to cheat.
Newsweek, on September 6, 1943, stated “This week the call was clear – the nation still wants more women at work…In the next two months alone at least 3,200,000 new workers are vitally needed for industry – principally munitions work. And most of these will have to be women.”8
Washington put forth a great effort to attract women into the work force. The centerpiece evolved to be a painting of a character called “Rosie the Riveter”. Rosie first appeared in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb.
While other girls attend a favorite cocktail bar,
Sipping dry martinis, munching caviar,
There’s a girl who’s really putting them to shame —
Rosie is her name.
All day long, whether rain or shine,
She’s part of the assembly line.
She’s making history working for victory.
Rosie, Rosie, Rosie, Rosie, Rosie, Rosie the riveter.
Later that year the Westinghouse company hired artist, J. Howard Miller, to paint posters to support the war effort of its workers. Basing his painting on the song, one of his posters became the “We Can Do It” poster which much later became the red bandana-clad “Rosie the Riveter.” At the time, Miller’s poster was not widely circulated outside of Westinghouse plants.
The image the American people most associated with Rosie was the May 29, 1943, Norman Rockwell cover on The Saturday Evening Post. The post loaned the cover of the slightly burly tool-toting Rosie to the government, and it became the Rosie the Riveter icon of several propaganda efforts to attract women to defense work and the workforce generally.9
Recruiting women employed a two-pronged approach. One was the powerful, but unmentioned, appeal of money. While women were paid less than men, they were nonetheless paid far more than in former women’s jobs such as waitresses or cleaners. The other was an appeal to patriotism. A strong, slogan-filled promotional program filled the media with calls such as “Do the Job He Left Behind,” and “Longing Won’t Bring Him Back Sooner…Get a War Job.”
This below came courtesy of the Office for Emergency Management, War Manpower Commission.
If Hitler came to Mobile, Alabama
Every woman would defend her home with a knife, a gun, or her bare fingers…
BUT
Hitler and his hordes will not come if women help to build ships, more ships to transport our men, tanks, planes and munitions to the battle line on other continents – or if women take other jobs directly aiding the war effort. This folder tells every Mobile woman not now in a war job how she may help win the war. Read it carefully and pass it to your neighbor. It is an official statement from the War Manpower Commission.
The American home front underwent an earth-shaking change that would last long after the war.
More than 5 million women joined the workforce during WWII. Many of the women had children to care for and so providing childcare became necessary to support their war time efforts. Other than private nurseries, day care as we know it today did not exist. To provide a subsidized system of care the government called on provisions of the Lanham Act. Officially, it was the Defense Housing and Community Facilities and Services Act, that gave the Federal Works Agency the authority to fund the construction of houses, schools and other infrastructure for laborers in the growing defense industry. More than 4000 Lanham-funded centers served approximately 600,000 children. Some of the defense plants provided childcare for their workers on their own. Separately, Eleanor Roosevelt had urged President Roosevelt to approve US government childcare facilities under the Community Facilities Act of 1942. Seven centers servicing 105,000 children were built. With all this, there was under-utilization due to transportation issues and cost.10
The most elaborate example of company-provided childcare was instituted by, not surprisingly, Henry Kaiser at his Portland shipyard. Under some urging by Eleanor Roosevelt, Kaiser built a huge, totally modern facility with the newest play equipment and staffed with education professionals and a nutritionist. It also contained an infirmary for minor illnesses. (Later he built and staffed a complete hospital which grew into the giant health care institution Kaiser Permanente.)
At full tilt Kaiser’s center was open 6 days a week, 24 hours a day. It was also open to non-employees for 75 cents a day – which included food. Under Eleanor’s influence Kaiser offered, at cost, fully cooked meals for his tired workers to take home.11
An American standing at the gate of an aircraft factory in 1943 would see that most of the workers showing their entry badges were women. Most aircraft workers were women; however, the majority of women did not go into defense work but into other jobs vacated by men. They became truck drivers, train conductors, welders, newspaper reporters, and stockbrokers. Some entered the armed service or went into farming, which was also desperate for workers.12
All this immersion into the male dominated world of work was not accomplished without pain. Women were sometimes given the worst jobs, coupled with slow promotion. Harassment was common. Many cried themselves to sleep on their first nights. Some employers engaged “matrons” to help women adjust to the work environment, including how to deal with sexual harassment. Pay was usually less than that of male workers. Managing a household and caring for children while holding a job was even more difficult when the husband was serving at the front.
The sudden and dramatic need for women caused a sea change in society’s view of women’s ability to function under adverse conditions. Laws existed forbidding women to work nights and weekends. These were swept away. Most likely not because women deserved more equal treatment but because they were needed.
But at the same time, there were appeals for women to be proud of their work in the home, as illustrated in this ad from Swift Brands in Good Housekeeping in January 1944.
1. WIFE! She knows that her husband can carry on the war pace of his job only if she keeps his home a peaceful, happy place. She’s a loving and lovable person, doing a fine job of home-making. A salute for being that kind of wife.
2. MOTHER! She guards her youngsters’ health, body and mind. She sees they get foods from the “Basic 7” Nutritional Groups daily. Sensing their shock from wartime headlines, she calmly explains why American men go off to fight.
3. PURCHASING AGENT! She realizes rationing means fair sharing. She sympathizes with dealers – understands why she often cannot get just the cut she wants, or the Swift’s brands of beef or other meats she’d prefer to have.
4. COOK! She cooks with care to save nutritive values. She makes the most of meat; reduces shrinkage by cooking at low temperature; prepares attractive dishes from leftovers; learns to cook every kind of cut so it will taste its very best.
5. SALVAGE EXPERT! She wastes nothing, for she knows that Food Fights for Freedom. She uses every bit of leftovers, even bones are saved for soup. She regularly takes to her dealer the drippings of fat that have no further cooking use.
6. WAR WORKER! She joins wholeheartedly in the community projects of civilian defense. She sends neat bandages on far errands of mercy. And (to her it is a matter of special pride) the honor list of blood donors includes her name.
7. WAR BONDS BUYER! She does without things she wants so our men will have the things they need. Over 10% of her husband’s pay goes for war bonds, plus dollars she saves in her household budget.
Swift salutes Mrs America, Patriot!
Swift wasn’t the only one appealing to Mrs America. The government had a department dedicated to influencing the home front woman. The department issued a monthly publication called Magazine War Guide which it sent to hundreds of women’s magazine editors suggesting how their magazine’s content, focus, articles, and photographs could support the war effort. Editors were urged to show women coping with the war and its shortages and challenges.
At the outbreak of the war American women faced discrimination in the job market. They found many positions simply closed to them and in the jobs they could find, the work was less desirable, and they earned less than men. They chafed under this inequality. Their break came in 1940 as the US geared up defense production and millions of men entered the military service.
Under the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for,” women found that some Americans felt there was no reason why our women shouldn’t be equally as patriotic as our men. Dramatic headlines appeared. “Draft for Women,” proclaimed Business Week. “There Must be No Idle Women,” Independent Woman announced. “Shall We Draft Women?” proposed The Nation; even Woman’s Home Companion frightened its audience with “Should Women be Drafted?”13
The need for women workers was perceived as a national priority to the point where several bills were promoted in Congress, principally by conservative senators, to institute a draft of women. They failed, leading both government and industry to wage a concerted multi-media campaign to register women and get them to work in the factories, and, slowly, they did – in huge numbers. The number of working women rose from 14,600,000 in 1941 to 19,370,000 in 1944. These numbers include not only factory work but office work, the professions and agriculture as they replaced men in many jobs. (Chapter Ten offers more details on the iconic character Rosie the Riveter and the successful propaganda to attract women into defense work.)
As the war years went by, more than one third of all adult women were in the labor force. Conversely, women constituted more than one third of the civilian work force. The composition of women workers underwent a transformation in the early 1940s as well. Working women had been single and young, but during the war years married women came to make up nearly three quarters of the total number of female employees, and by the end of the war, half of all female workers were over thirty-five.
American women during the war did not use the modern term work-life balance, but they labored under a staggering load. The work week was six days long and the workday averaged nine hours. With the gas shortage, and overloaded public transportation, commuting required extra thought and effort. Rationing made food shopping and meal preparation a time-consuming exercise in creativity. Childcare as we know it did not exist, forcing women to cobble together friends and family to look after their children. And all this compounded life even more for home front women who worked on the off shifts! Children became very aware of the workload their mothers were shouldering. For children of the home front their mothers were an inspiration.
It isn’t often reported, but absenteeism due to these dual roles was excessive, and women left their jobs in large numbers. The turnover rate was understandably and incredibly high, in some locations exceeding 50 percent.14
Because of reports through the years about women entering the work force during the war, a false narrative about women’s preferences has arisen. Regardless of the new flow of women into the workplace, the preferred role of women as stated in a 1943 survey of both men and women, was the role of housewife.15
But the women who did work loved the work. Since economic stability breeds independence, the war acted as a profound catalyst in shaping new roles for women. Many agreed with a Baltimore advertisement that told them that working in a war plant was “a lot more exciting than polishing the family furniture.” They remained frustrated at unfair pay differentials but wanted to continue working after the war. However, some recognized, as one woman in Tacoma noted, “My husband wants a wife, not a career woman,” and complied with the propaganda campaign as the war drew to an end, to get them out of the factories so that returning servicemen could take back their jobs. Social pressure was levied on working women to do so, though many did so with reluctance. Still, their experience helped lay the groundwork for the women’s movement in later years and the war was an important step on the road to equal rights.16
Nursing, a traditional employment for women, was just as desperate to fill vacancies. By 1944 the US needed 66,000 nurses for the military and nearly 300,000 for civilian duty – 100,000 more than were available.17 The high pay of defense work put nursing jobs, with their long, unpaid training period, at a severe disadvantage. A program of training nurses’ aides offered some help, but the unglamorous nature and low pay of the work meant that quotas went unfilled.
Americans were exposed to several days of debate on bills in Congress aimed at drafting nurses, who already had shown exemplary patriotism, only to see the bills defeated.
Beginning in December 1941, 350,000 women served in the United States Armed Forces during WWII. They had their own branches of services, including:
• Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (later the Women’s Army Corps or WAC).
• Women Accepted for Volunteer Military Services (WAVES).
• Women served in a branch of the Coast Guard called (SPARS) for Semper Paratus.
• Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).
• Women also served in the Marines.18
In July 1943, an important step was taken when the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps became the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) and officially became part of the US Army. This enabled WACs to serve overseas, as they could be given proper benefits should they be wounded or killed in service. WAC members receive rank, benefits, or even pay equivalent to men in the Regular Army.
The first WAC Director was Oveta Culp Hobby. Her greatest challenge was to convince the American public that a woman could join the Army, but still be “a lady.” Despite cultural misgivings about women in uniform, by November 1942 the initial recruitment goal of 25,000 had been exceeded. A cap was set at 150,000 for WACs, which was met by the end of the war. Once the transition to WAC service was complete, African American women were accepted for service. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was the only all-Black female unit to serve in Europe during the war. They provided a vital service – sorting through a mail backlog of millions of letters that were important for maintaining morale at the front.
The establishment of the WAVES was not the first time women had served in the US Navy. During World War I, thousands of women had served as Yeomen through a loophole which opened naval service to all Americans, omitting gender as a requirement for service. Known as Yeomanettes, they were phased out after the war, and women were not able to join the US Navy until the creation of the WAVES. Under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Mildred McAfee, the WAVES grew to 27,000 in number in the first year, eventually numbering over 8,000 officers and 80,000 enlisted WAVES.
Following the lead of the other branches, the US Coast Guard’s own women reserve force was authorized in late 1942. They too had a need for women to fill roles currently filled by men, allowing those men to go to sea. The first director came from the WAVES, Lieutenant Commander Dorothy Stratton. The initial recruitment drive was successful, but recruiting for the least-known service was always a challenge. African American women were not allowed to enlist until October 1944.
Smaller than the other service branches, the SPARS as they were known, had just 10,000 women in service from 1942–1946. By the end of 1944, recruiting had stopped, save for replacements or to fill positions requiring specialized skills. Although the Coast Guard fell under the jurisdiction of the US Navy during the war, SPARS, like their male counterparts, were trained in Coast Guard camps.
Led by pilot Jacqueline Cochran, WASP were officially federal employees, and though they worked with the US Army Air Forces, were not members of any US military organization.
This group of female pilots, numbering just over 1100, was responsible for ferrying aircraft from factories to airbases, towing aerial targets for gunnery practice, and testing aircraft. They flew everything from B-17s to P-51s. WASP pilots ferried over 12,000 aircraft, even flying some to distant theaters. Two women, Dorothea Johnson and Dora Daugherty Strother, tested the B-29 Super Fortress when some male pilots refused to do so. The WASP were disbanded in 1944 due to a surplus of male pilots who were demanding their old jobs back and public pressure to do so. A bill in Congress to provide equity for the WASPS failed by nineteen votes.19
From shipyards to factories to government administrative offices, Black women also worked to battle racism abroad and on the home front. For African American women, becoming a Rosie (war worker) was not only an opportunity to aid in the war effort, but also a chance for economic empowerment. Already on the move as part of the great migration, they sought to leave behind dead-end, often demeaning work as domestics and sharecroppers. “Black people were leaving the south anyway and fanning out across the country,” says Gregory S. Cooke, director of Invisible Warriors, a documentary on the Black Rosies. “The war gave the women a more pointed motivation for leaving and an opportunity to make money in ways Black women had never dreamed before.”20
Away from the home front, Black women soldiers won respect for rapidly unsnarling the huge backlog in servicemen’s mail in Europe and in other war theaters. “The war represented this incredible opportunity, but black women really had to rally and fight for the opportunity to even be considered,” says Dr. Maureen Honey, author of Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II and Emeritus Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. “Many employers held out, attempting to only hire white women or white men, until they were forced to do otherwise.” That coercion came in the summer of 1941 when Executive Order 8802, described above, banned racial discrimination in the defense industry. The order boosted Black women’s entry into the war effort; of the one million African Americans who entered employment for the first time following 8802’s signing, 600,000 were women.
These efforts foreshadowed the protest campaign strategy of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
American women’s role as volunteers was never in doubt. The combination of women’s good hearted will and the specter of war sparked a virtual avalanche of volunteer organizations. Dutiful rationing, victory gardening, and saving fats and tin were not enough for patriotic American women. They sought to volunteer to do more. To match their desires, more than fifty cities organized volunteer defense bureaus to register women’s names to match them to needs. In some areas of the home front dozens of organizations were formed and were getting in each other’s way and doing little. Some women even joined uniformed paramilitary organizations with little chance of ever encountering the enemy.
Of course, the vast majority of women gravitated to worthwhile organizations such as the Red Cross, the USO and local Civil Defense units. One large voluntary organization, modeled after a similar one in Britain, was the American Women’s Voluntary Services, AWVS. At one point it claimed 350,000 members in 350 units. It’s training focused on direct needs of wartime: ambulance driving, fire firefighting, map reading, air raid drills and more. As time wore on and the likelihood of attacks on the home front grew remote, the AWVS found other roles, particularly in healthcare and bond sales.
American women volunteers generously gave more than just their time. They paid for their transportation, donated money and supplies, and often were required to pay dues. Women volunteers became a visible hallmark of the home front during war time.
Women who had been married before the war began, especially those who had children, had their own special problems, such as raising their children alone. But they experienced many of the same problems as the newlywed, albeit for the most part married women had a home and a degree of stability. The war years brought on a marriage boom that produced the largest number of families in the nation’s history. But these were unconventional, wartime marriages with special tribulations for both partners. The partners, instead of sharing and building a solid relationship, were facing life’s experiences separately. But where men had companionship and daily purpose, women faced the world on their own, many for the first time. Some had never had to budget money for a household, pay rent, or maintain a car. Some went protected by their father to their husband. Many had never been alone.
Some chose to follow their husbands from camp to camp until the husband shipped out overseas. They faced hardships that tried their spirit. Just finding transportation was an ordeal in the crush of war time traffic now overloaded with service men and migrating war workers. What housing was available was often poor and high priced. Connections were missed, cars broke down, and orders got changed. The August 30, 1943, edition of Time magazine described, “a strange unorganized home front battle being fought all over the US by a vast, unorganized army of women. They are the wives, mothers, sweethearts, or fiancés of servicemen. Their only plan of campaign, with the valor of ignorance, is to follow their men.”
Relief agencies such as the Red Cross, Travelers’ Aid, and Army and Navy relief funds felt a huge surge in calls for help, but they could not help the huge number of camp followers. The temporary nature of training bases meant that seldom were meaningful relationships built with other women. Women who gave birth in these camp towns had no one to support them. Still, some chose to stay in the last place they had been with their husbands and to await their return in the company of others like themselves. This choice required determination. Rentals were hard to find and the rents were exorbitant. Services such as medical care were often meager. The armed services were not overly sympathetic, and wives found little help from them, though there were exceptions.
Many women chose to go into jobs that were opened up by men vacating to service. More than just defense jobs, they also took other jobs which were left open. This is covered more in Chapter Two.
Other women chose to move back home, back into a home that was no longer really theirs. The emotional adjustment to be under another woman’s roof was difficult. The woman’s position in the home had changed. Now that she was married the dynamics were different; she wasn’t a family member as she had been, but on the other hand she wasn’t a guest either.21 One solution saw war wives living together sharing costs and experiences and proving support for each other.
Albert S. (b. 1936):
My sister, Alice Mary, had a boyfriend who joined the army. Before he went in, he bought her an engagement ring. Alice Mary didn’t want to be engaged, but she felt bad because he was going off to war. In 1945 her boyfriend was coming home and she was worried about how she was going to break the news that she didn’t want to marry him. She felt sorry for him, but that’s how she felt.
She met him at a restaurant downtown near the train station. My parents, my brother and I were all waiting for her when she came home that night. “How did he take the news?” we all asked. “I never gave him the news,” she said. “He gave me the news that he was engaged to some girl he met when he was on leave in New York. He said he was very sorry.”
Alice Mary felt she should be happy that he no longer wanted to marry her, but she felt jilted nonetheless and cried all night. The next day she was fine and was glad her pretending to him was over.
A special home front woman emerged out of the frenetic pace of wartime relationships. She was dubbed, “Allotment Annie.” She would seek out especially lonely service men and respond to their wooing, pledging a love that would last them through the war. The proof of this pledge was marriage. Along with the marriage certificate came the serviceman’s allotment check, usually $20 to $50 and a $10,000 payment if the husband was killed in action. There is no record of how many “Allotment Annies” were in operation, but the record for how many men one Annie married seemed to be seven.22
No set of expectations could be higher than those of the home front woman waiting for her man to come home on leave. And, like all extraordinary expectations, many were cause for disappointment and some were sadly, devastating. You will find more on this in Chapter Eleven.
Nothing defines home front women more than their loneliness. No matter how busy the day juggling work or dealing with rationing or single parenting, they were lonely.
by Claire Mc. (b. 1938):
My dad volunteered for the Navy right away because he didn’t want to fight in the mud like his father had done in the Army. We didn’t live way out in the country, but we were up the coast, pretty far from town. You couldn’t call it a real farm, but my dad liked to raise our own chickens and tend a big vegetable garden.
Taking care of our place pretty much by herself was a big job, and she was not a big woman. On top of that, I used to see how hard she had to work to figure out how much gasoline she had to get around and how many ration stickers she needed for this and that.
With no end to the war in sight, she became weary, but not discouraged. “Lots of people have it worse than we do,” she would repeat. I had my chores and tried to help, but a five or six-year-old can only do so much.
A memory I have is when I once found her sound asleep, with her head resting on her arms at the kitchen table. She tried to look perky when I woke her, but to me she looked so tired. That’s what I remember from the war.
PS My dad came home safely.
Letters! Whether writing letters or waiting for one in the mail, letters meant everything. Two wonderful books contain dozens of those letters sent and received.23
The government developed a special form and format for writing letters: V-mail. To use V-mail the woman would use a special form. On one side she could write her letter and on the other she would write the address. There were three giant postal centers in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. All of the mail was funneled through these centers. At the centers the letters would be censored, if needed, and photographed on microfilm. The film would be sent to microfilm equipped stations overseas and printed at 60 percent of the original size and delivered. V-mail saved thousands of tons of space for needed military transport.24
The Postal Service mounted a full campaign, complete with posters, ads, and radio spots encouraging letter writing to servicemen. Magazines and newspapers offered tips on how to write to husbands in the service. Most of the advice came down to “Keep him up to date on what you are doing but be positive and don’t lay problems on him.” A mother should talk about the children, their progress, their funny sayings and antics, and talk about the future.
One great puzzlement was what to tell home front children. Of course, age made a big difference. For very young children, “Daddy’s gone away for a while.” was sufficient. For older children “gentle truth” was prescribed: “No, we don’t know how long Daddy will be gone. Yes, we hope Daddy will come back safe and sound. Yes, people on our side get killed in war, but not everybody gets killed. No, you will not be alone. I’ll take care of you.” Older children would hear about the war outside the home so it paid for mothers to be up to date on the war’s progress so that her assurances would have the ring of credibility.25
It was important to keep the father as a presence in the child’s life. If the child was old enough, he or she might write to the father themselves or help compose an answer to him. Birthdays and holidays should be celebrated. Tell the child that he should look forward to playing ball (or some activity) with Daddy when he returns. Having a young child mail the letter could mean a lot.
Here is how one home front child remembers the mail.
R. Sharon (b. 1935):
One thing I remember when I was very young is waiting for the mailman. Once I saw him going up the other side of our street I knew it would be 20 minutes or so before he came down our side. Some days I would run across the street and ask for our mail, but my mother said she didn’t want me crossing the street alone and besides it made extra work for Mr. Graves, our mailman. Mr. Graves didn’t seem to mind at first, but then one day he said I should wait on my side of the street. It always seemed like a lot more than 20 minutes some days. Mr. Graves would tease me by taking a piece of mail and pretend he was trying to find out who it was for. He would hold it up to read the address and say, “No, that’s not for you. No, this is for the Lawtons down the street. Oh! Wait here’s one! Yep, it’s for you.”
I remember how my day would revolve around meeting the mailman. When I started to go to school my first stop when I got home was the kitchen where the mail always got put. Some days I would be happy and some days I would feel sad.
The telegram. Every service family feared the telegram that began “The Department of the (Navy, Army, Air Force) regrets…” No family suffered more from that terse news than the Sullivan family of Waterloo, Iowa. All five sons of the Sullivan family had rushed to join the Navy. Within a year they were killed when the ship in which all five were serving was sunk in the pacific. All of America mourned them. Hollywood made a feature film. And the Sullivan’s only daughter joined the Women’s Army Corps. (She survived.)
Too late for the Sullivan family, the Navy implemented a policy that family members were not to serve together.