The size and scope of the war effort meant that America’s industrial might would have to be pushed to its absolute limit. For that to happen, the nation’s factories and plants needed a full complement of labor, but millions of men who had worked previously in these industries were now serving in the armed forces. In large part, America’s women filled this labor gap. More than six million women went into the war industries to build the machinery of war. These women came from all walks of life and every socioeconomic level. Many faced sexism and discrimination from the men with whom they worked and those who simply did not see the value of their labor. In spite of the obstacles, these women helped pave the way for victory on the battlefield and changed the perception of women’s roles in American society.
The first source was written during the war by a woman who joined the Women’s Land Army, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, whose job it was to fill agricultural jobs vacated by soldiers. The excerpt appeared in a publication of the Department of Agriculture. The second source comes from an interview conducted many years after the war with a woman who left her regular life and worked in the war industries during the war. Interviews such as these provide an intimate understanding of how women on the home front experienced the war and how much they were willing to contribute to America’s ultimate victory.
Leslie Tresham, My Experience as an Emergency Farm Worker, 1943
It was with a feeling of pride and uncertainty that I started my day as a farm helper. I had promised a farmer, whose only son had enlisted in the Marines, to haul corn from a picker to the [grain] elevator. Before daylight, I prepared the tractor for the day’s work. . . .
Carefully, I hooked an empty wagon to the tractor. As I released the clutch the tractor gave a lurch, almost throwing me from the seat. As I neared the picker, standing on the field, I decided I was too close and turned the wheels sharply to the left. When I finally stopped, I was several feet from where I should have been. The farmer was considerate, and helped me push the tug on the wagon until we could fasten it to the picker.
I hooked a full load of corn to the tractor and started for the elevator. As I neared the hoist I became frightened. I knew there were only 3 or 5 inches clearance on either side of the wheels. If I made a mistake I might upset the hoist, breaking chains and glass, and possibly injure myself.
I managed to pull through without mishap. Next came the really hard part. I had to unhook from the wagon, turn the tractor around in a limited space, and line up the pulley on the tractor with the elevator pulley. I had never done anything like that before. After twisting and turning, backing and going forward, I finally decided I was in line. . . .
In a few seconds I had the front wheels of the wagon hoisted into the air . . . the yellow ears tumbled into the elevator and up and out of sight. Thinking to hasten things along, I climbed into the wagon, but I hadn’t reckoned with the steep incline, slipper floor . . . my feet slipped out from under me and I went sliding with the corn.
When the last ear had tumbled out of the wagon I was so relieved. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry! I was soon hooked back on the wagon and starting for the field. As I swung the empty wagon alongside of the picker, this time in the right place . . . the farmer shouted, “Have any trouble?” “Not a bit,” I lied, “it was easy.” And so it went load after load, day after day, until I have now hauled over 10,000 bushels of corn. Tired? Of course I get tired, but so does that boy in the foxhole. That boy, whose place I’m trying so hard to fill.
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Extension Service, Women’s Land Army, Extension Farm Labor Program, 1943, 1944, 1945 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1945), 12.
Delana Jensen Close, Working as a Machinist at a War Plant
I spent two years of the war in a small town in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the Yuba Manufacturing Company, making 155 millimeter howitzer field guns. . . . When I arrived in California from Utah, I was told that a war plant had opened up in the town of Benecia and was hiring women, so . . . I applied for work. After a battery of tests I was put to work operating one of the large boring lathes. . . .
I was later told that when I applied for a job, the plant had been testing women to find out if they were capable of running one of the big machines. I was hired and was the only woman to ever operate one of them, and in six months time I was training men for the job.
My machine was thirty-five feet long and rested in an oil pan that was thirty-eight feet long. The oil constantly lubricated and cooled the machine as it bored the metal. I spent the war years standing on the rim of that oil pan so I could look down on the section of the barrel that I was working on and be able to reach the part of the operation which I performed. My job was to bore out the inside of the barrel where the breach lock fit. It had to be perfect, the measurement within 1/1,000th of an inch.
While my girl friends worked in the shipyards at Vallejo for 65 cents an hour, I was among the elite: I made guns at Yuba, and was a machinist second class. I joined the union, paid my dues, and earned $1.31 an hour. And on that grand amount, with the help of three housemates, I bought a house and furnished it. . . .
But we were living in a special time and place. There was an energy in the air and in the people. We were wanted and needed and important to the war effort.
V-E Day, on May 8, 1945 was a day of celebration, but one of mixed emotions for us. We lost our jobs. Yuba would no longer make guns. We said our good byes, and when the foreman of my section shook my hand and said goodbye, he added, “You were the best man I had.”
Source: “Rosie the Riveter: Women Working during World War II.”
Evaluating the Evidence