The “XX” Workers of WWII
On December 7, 1941, Americans experienced the bombing at Pearl Harbor, which 
served as a wake-up call that WWII was a real and urgent issue. Women, however, did not realize the pressing impact the wartime effort would have on their lives and in the workplace. One 25-year old young woman, Rosemary Sloan, began working for the General Motors (GM) plant in Syracuse, New York shortly after the war began. “I decided I would rather get into something more lucrative and maybe more patriotic,” Sloan said about accepting a position at GM. It was obvious to see that the company had begun to evolve and change in order to support a wartime cause. The new working force of women during WWII provided necessary war supplies and goods, changed family life, and gave women a new sense of pride for themselves.
Women such as Sloan were hired because companies reasoned that they could give significantly lower pay to female workers than to male workers. Women were also hired because companies could not afford to continue with the labor shortage due to the men being overseas. Thus, women were hired in droves. The common jobs for which women were hired included clerical positions, low positions in factories, and domestic work. By 1944, 6.5 million additional women were hired in the workforce. In 1945 the number of women workers peaked at 19 million (Fountain 743).
Approximately one month after Pearl Harbor, the GM plant in Syracuse put aside their steady work of making automobile parts and began making 30 and 42 caliber machine guns. Later, their focus turned onto making jet engine blades. “People couldn’t make automobiles anyways because they couldn’t get the steel, copper and chrome, the things needed for the machine guns, and other war products,” said Sloan. Americans in WWII often had to live without the luxury of automobiles; the war took priority, and sacrifices had to be made. The factories played a crucial role in the war, because the future of the world depended on the production of supplies and weapons (Carnes 737). Companies received government mandates to cease regular production and begin making items needed in war, including weapons, ammunition, packaged foods, uniforms, and military vehicles.
The new working woman brought changes to the home. A woman of the WWII era, Nancy Potter said, “I think for girls and women, and perhaps boys and men, of my generation, the war forced them to grow up prematurely. It made them far more serious about the bare realities of life: life, death, values. It robbed them, in a sense, of some childhood” (Hartman S-top). Along with a strong sense of reality, women also attained newfound responsibility. Naomi Craig, a factory worker of the time said, "Women did change. They had gotten the feeling of making their own money. Not asking anybody how to spend it"(Hartman S-top). The marriage tradition also changed during WWII. Once the depression was over, more couples could afford to get married, and many wanted to wed before the men left. However, a hurried wedding followed by a long separation caused many divorces once the men came back from the war.
Women needed money to support their families, considering that their husbands were off fighting and not bringing in a weekly salary. Oftentimes, older women offered daytime child care within the home to permit younger women to have jobs (Fountain 218). Women often became lonely when their husbands left them alone or with small children, and turned for desired companionship and understanding to their female coworkers. An increase in female workers seemed to strengthen American families by giving women the feeling of providing for their family instead of being entirely dependent on their spouses.
In 1942 the National War Labor Board (NWLB) instated the equal pay principle which demanded equivalent pay for women. However, this was not heavily enforced because business men decided that women’s work performance was of a lower caliber than that of their own. This idea was skewed because women were performing the same jobs men held before they left (Women and WWII P-A Call to arms S-bottom).
The low positions and resistance to women workers were due to a doubt that women were able to perform the work of men. A Seattle official of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers and Iron Ship builders said, “They don’t understand...If one of these girls pressed the trigger on the yard rivet guns, she’d be going one way the rivet the other” (Fountain 743). As expressed in the quote, women were viewed as too weak or too stupid to be capable of the jobs previously held by men. This opinion was soon proved wrong when some women started doubling the work production of the men who formally held the positions (Fountain 743). The symbol of this time was “Rosie the Riveter”, a fictional woman whose goal was to help her country while the men were overseas.
With an increasing number of men going off to war, women in the home front of America were relied upon heavily to keep America fully functional during this absence of a large majority of workers. Propaganda and wartime enthusiasm encouraged women to leave the house, and join the workforce as ‘heroines of the war’ by being factory workers, mechanics, or clerks (Zeinart 84). Rosemary Sloan worked as a secretary six days a week from 8 am until 5 pm, and two nights a week from 6pm until 10 pm. Jean Deis’ mother was also a secretary during this time period, and he did not always see her, as she was frequently busy with work. The work of a secretary was essential in the GM plant, because daily production reports told the factory if they were meeting their quota and how many parts were being manufactured and shipped in a given day. Her department, Purchasing, oversaw the ordering of materials to manufacture the machine guns.
Women suddenly gained new liberties and opportunities that had never before been extended to them. What many of them discovered was that they were equally as capable of accomplishing a “man’s work” as a man was. Although war materials were certainly a necessary commodity and outcome of women’s endeavors, society’s reluctant openness to employ women in the workforce inspired countless women to realize that their place did not always have to be in the household. WWII was able to truly define women, as America’s home front prospered because of the bold, daring women who cared enough to make a difference and seek independence. The new working force of women during WWII provided necessary war supplies and goods, changed family life, and gave women a new sense of pride in themselves.
Works Cited
Carnes, Mark C. and John A. Garraty. The American Nation: A History of the United States. 11th ed. New York: Longman.
“Chapter 15 Close to Home.” WWII The People’s Story. Ed. Nigel Fountain. Pleasantville, NY: The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 2003. 213-227
Deis, Jean. Personal Interview. By Siobhan Deis. 23 April 2006.
Deis, Marianne. Personal Interview. By Siobhan Deis. 23 April 2006.
“GM, Ford deny collaboration with Nazis during WWII.” CNN. 30 November 1998. http://www.cnn.com/US/9811/30/autos.holocaust/
Hartman, Sharon H. and Linda P. Wood. “Women and WWII.” 1995. Brown University. 19 April 2006. http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/WWII_Women/WomenInWWII.html
“Memories: GM Syracuse Plant.” 1993.
Sloan, Rosemary. Personal Interview. 21 April 2006.
“Women and WWII.” 29 July 2003. University of San Diego. 17 April 2006. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/st/~cg3/outline.html
Zeinart, Karen. Those Incredible Women of World War II. Brookfield: The Millbrook Press, 1994.
by Elizabeth Jamison and Siobhan Deis.