Introduction
The history and background of the American women who served either directly or indirectly in the American Military during The Second World War is a convoluted interweave of cultural expectations, policy development, race relationships, citizenships, and social norms.[1] Whereas this statement may be stated for almost any era recorded in history, the sheer number of women who turned up for military aid on call during the second world war reinforced the impact of the event.[2] The war gave impetus to the women movement and changed women’s expectations for greater gender equality – even though after the war the woman was supposed to return to her “rightful” place as mothers and wives.[3] This article will explore the transformation of the isolationistic traditional views of American people on women during and post the second world war, focusing majorly on the breakthrough of women to work in male predominated areas such as military pilots and factory workers.[4]
Before commencement of the second world war, the predominant perspective of the woman was that of a housewife. The early 1800s America was characterized by women’s life centering around the family and farm.[5] Most of the part it was to labor: whereas men did jobs such as planting and harvesting crops, women, on the other hand, performed household duties, such as ironing and transforming the raw products (such as wool) into finished goods (clothes).[6] The work of a woman fell under the label “housewife,” and had a variance from one geographical location to another; despite these variations, activities carried out always remained the same.[7]
The “secret weapon” to America and the Allies winning the war was the feminine gender who were out of their free will marshalled to fulfill every hurdle presented by the conflict. Women made it possible for the American industry and government to extend in more directions to address the wartime demands.[8] As more women were required to take up the numerous customary male predominated jobs in the course of the war, various advertising propaganda was utilized to motivate women to assume these roles and jobs – these served to change the image on the roles of the women.
In the military, women joined as Navy and Army Nurse Corps to free the men to go and fight the war in oversea countries.[9] Women leaders helped shape the course and outcome of the conflict and thereafter the peace that prevailed. In their service to the military, they were inspired with confidence to enroll as “Government Girls”[10] in Washington DC to contribute their efforts towards the furtherance of the quickened expansion of the Federal Government and take part in the war efforts behind the scenes.[11] In the production sector, the American industries were retooled for war production. The setting up of new facilities helped significantly expand industrial outputs – of which women played a substantial part of the workforce.[12] At home and the community, women recycled scarce materials, collected blood, hosted the troops, contributed money toward support for war bonds and aided in civil defense.[13]
The National Propaganda
From available literature, evident is the fact that Second World War brought about the extreme necessity to marshal the national populace to support the war efforts; such mobilization was so overwhelming that the social and political principals agreed upon having both women and men alter their views on gender function – if nothing else as long as there was a national emergency.[14] Emerging propaganda advertisements urged women to join the war in various capacities: From civilian non-combatant pilots to military nurses to working in production, industries previously dominated by men.[15] Propaganda driven by the Federal Government during the war was the agent cause of much of the metamorphism that society saw in accepting women to the workplace. In the early phases of the war, the armed forces thereof launched crash recruitment programs including national campaigns, rallies, advertisements, outreach programs and appeals to college students to join the war. The National Advertising Council through the Office of War Information promised advertisements and stories for user goods that would encourage volunteerism at home and enlistment in the military.[16] Through the media, thereof, the OWI and other urgencies motivated women to volunteer and move out of their kitchens into production factories.[17]
Literature reveals that the extensive government propaganda and media campaign was crucial to the change of public views and attitudes toward women’s role that had been left over from the previous decade.[18] During the Great Depression years, the man was regarded as the head of the household, and the bedimmed; any scarce jobs available were delegated to men.[19] With the emergence of the bourgeoisie, to the contrary, this was not the case. To the middle-class group, family and home obtained a new perception as a different aspect of money and the world.[20] Women in this so called middle-class still performed their time honored orthodox doctrines but no more deemed it worthy the name work – marked by dissimilarity to men, they gained no financial income. Disassociated from monetary economies, a woman would work all day long, producing various kinds of services and goods critical to the welfare of their families and yet they were perceived in societal eyes, to the contrary, as not working. Middle-class women, with this view in mind, faced challenges in finding job opportunities; many states had even passed laws that barred middle class married women from working. As the second world war raged on, the government came to a conclusion that largest untapped resource remained the middle-class women at home. [21] This had to change.
For the government to mobilize these women, all It had to do was to communicate a central theme.[22] The OWI project rejected the idea of emphasizing high wages for fear of increasing consumer spending and thereof inflation, instead, it concentrated on emotional appeals and personal patriotism.[23] The patriotic appeal had two aspects, the positive part where women would do their parts and the negative part where a soldier might die if one never did their part. The campaign slogan coined was “The More Women at Work- The Sooner We’ll Win,” a promised contribution of women bringing their men home sooner.
Various public relations forms depicted the idealized American woman.[24] Rosie the Riveter, for example, is the label of the famed propaganda female described on many print media adverts. The very illustrious and widely known one characterizes her as adorning a white and red bandana over her hair, with a rolled blue coverall sleeve to expose well-toned flexed biceps.[25] Her face exuded this expression, thereof, of determination and confidence. Above her head was a caption reading “We Can Do It!”[26] Rosie the Riveter is one potent, appealing, competent, and symbolic woman. She symbolized the critical worth and significance that female workers played in defense of the nation.[27]
Women initially employed in areas mainly perceived as female predominated such as pink-collar secretariat assistants, lower rewarding technical posts and domestic jobs were more than eager to test their efforts at the full new possibilities that the circumstance of the war presented.[28] Soon enough, they were excelling in areas majorly predominated by men; working in still and lumber mills, making munitions, operated heavy construction machinery, became taxi drivers, built dirigibles, unloaded freight among other jobs. [29] For the first time, many women began working outside their homes.
Continued media indoctrination of efforts for the war encouraged and spurred on more women to join jobs that would help their country win the war. Over six million women successfully enrolled into the workforce, and the number continued to rise as the conflict escalated.[30] Directly, over 400,000 women abandoned their domestic roles to go and work in war industries.[31] A surpassing of eighteen million women in total were in the workforce in the course of the second world war.[32] New industrial skills, from marginal jobs to basic labor supply of munitions were learned by these women, making them classified. Thereof, for most American women, the Second World War not only brought a chance to make sacrifices for their country, but also new opportunities, skills and a myriad of jobs to explore.
Women in Armed Services
Participation of the American woman in the armed forces during World War II proved a turning point of the relationship between the military and the women. The initial response to enlisting women in the military was enormous resistance. Innumerable Americans expressed opposition to the proposition of women inclusion in the American armed service apart from non-nursing duties.[33] However, as the war took an escalation turn, the country’s resources in terms of males who had met proper standards, requirements and training for drafting was dwindled fast, and thereof it became apparent that for each woman recruited, one less male had to be drafted to non-military positions. Women who had freely enlisted for service in the military gained a view as not just a mere source of women’s skills, but also a beneficial source of superior-quality staff capable of meeting the large workforce needs for the military’s steady increment.[34]
Situations became such dire that on several occasions the American military found itself in situations of massive urgencies and intensities for women that its principals fervently took into consideration requesting the Congressional ascent to draft them. As the war escalated, the government at a point turned to readily identifiable highly educated women leaders of the Country’s academic institutions.[35] At the time, higher education for the fairer sex was a socially acceptable norm, but the use of knowledge in the society and other workplaces was limited. Women educators thereof were believed to have had interconnecting to many other academically capable women whom they enlisted for governance services in civilian and military capacities.[36]
When the Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor, the American Congress ordered that women do duty in the American Navy, Army and Coastal Guard in 1942, and then in the Marines in 1943 for a period of time during which the emergency continued and would extend up to a maximum of six months.[37] The enlistment was as to relieve male soldiers for the frontlines by inlaying posts that met the native capabilities of women – jobs that could repeatedly be done and paid attention to small details – including motor skills and clerical work. The military officials and leaders who had initially explicitly declared as fact that they would not accept women into military service soon gladly accepted them and moreover requested for more. General Eisenhower, for example, informed the Congress after the war that on the first proposition of including women units in the military, he was violently against the idea.[38] But with every record that the women team compiled after the war, he became convinced of his error to the first reaction. More than 400,000 women served in these positions thereof, of whom 432 died, and 88 became prisoners of war. [39]
Initially, women were prevented from positions that entailed the use of physical strength or working in situations then termed “inappropriate for the fairer sex” such as supervisory positions. But with the aboriginal enlisted women demonstrating their prowess, the American Army sought to recruit 1.5 million more other women. These enthusiastic recruitment attempts never came to realization amid protracted public education programs that tried proving that women in military service were capable of being feminine, pretty and an absolute necessity in helping men win the American war.[40]
Examples of American servicewomen
Edith Nourse Rogers is a pioneer legislator who served the American prole from 1925 to her death in 1960. [41] He legislative efforts are applauded for bringing equality among women and veterans. She is noted for pioneering legislative efforts that led to the creation of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs), which presented women with the chance to carry duty in the armed forces of American in a varied range of capacities through the Nursing Corps and the G.I. Bill that foresaw war veterans had opportunities to obtain job training, go to college, and receive low-interest loans to acquire homes. [42]
Mildred MacAfee, the then head of Wellesley College, was appointed the president of the Women’s Reserve of the Navy called the WAVES (Women Accepted for Emergency Volunteer Service). [43] Putting into service her interconnection with colleague academics, MacAfee is accredited to quickly developing policy programs for the recruitment, training, and deployment of over eighty thousand women officers and drafted more military workforce between the years 1943 to 1945.[44]
The first director of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAACs) – renamed to Women Army Corps (WACs)[45] – Oveta Culp Hobby helped draft and pass the legislation that authorized the participation of women in the American Army along the challenging congressional path. [46] She asked the first class of the WAAC candidates to graduate, to never forget that they had a date and debt, a date with destiny and an obligation to democracy.
Women in production
Before the industrial revolution, women worked in American factories in only tasks termed as suited for them. Females then dominated industries such as clothing, textiles, and food preparation.[47] The rapid expansion of the second world war industries necessitated the heavy dependence on the labor force of women.[48] Traditions, accompanied with taboos and restrictions that had initially been gorged up to lock out women from large scale production industries were done away with. Women found new roles as radio operators, streetcar conductors and also worked in logging camps and still mills during the war. [49] A major key highlight of the importance that women played to the war was an effort directed toward running farms to grow the much-needed food.
The war strained the economic resources available at the time, and thereof production industries were dedicated to producing products to meet the increasing military urgent preemptory requests. Factories that produced silk stockings, elegant lingerie and dresses were converted into manufacturing plants for parachutes, military uniforms, and underwear.[50] Textile industries that manufactured commodities for sale such as suits, coats and other consumer apparel transitioned into producing clothes for the soldiers at the field.[51] Carmakers made military vehicles, trucks, and tanks. Women overtook the production processes of such factories. Women also substituted men as train conductors, barbers, mechanics, and even law enforcement officers. Such women were becoming independent unaware to the knowledge of their spouses busy engrossed in military events.
Women as combatant and non-combatant pilots in the military
When America entered the second world war, women power again was demanded. By the spring of 1942, the military was experiencing an acute shortage of labor.[52] Before the second world war, demand was raging on the mainland over the inclusion of women in the military and other armed forces. The course of the World War II saw over 140,000,[53] women serving in the women’s Army Corps – that later became the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) – and the Women’s Navy Corps (WNCs). The fall on 1942 saw the Women’s Auxiliary Air Squadron (WAAS) – later called the Women’s Air Force – start activities leading to skilled women pilots who would fly different kinds of military planes around military air bases in the United States.[54] Their role also included testing airplanes in conjunction with other non-combat flight assignments. A belief among women then was that if they did not prove capable of their chosen roles, they might have never gotten to serve again.
The dwindling supply of experienced military pilots forced Nancy Love (a woman pilot) came up with a proposition for the enlistment of the women pilots who had proper standard training and requirements within the country to aid in the command of non-combatant duties such as transport in capacities of civilian workers.[55] Love’s proposition was then enacted in the summer of 1942 when twenty five additional female pilots were enlisted to join the WAAF’s pilot team with Nancy Love as their director and head. Every one of the recruited women had amassed over 1000 flight hour experiences and proved vital to the duties they had envisioned.[56] Originally designated to be pilots of single engine planes, the women demonstrated their capabilities to handle four-engine bombers on the transcontinental ferry flights as well as high-speed pursuit ships. Eventually, more than three hundred and three women pilots gained duty at the Ferrying Division, but the number was later cut down to one hundred and forty.
Jackie Cochran,[57] A pivotal woman to the American second world war took advantage of her close relations with Eleanor Roosevelt to persuade the Department of War to bring into existence a Women’s Flying Training Department; the mission of the program was to equip young women as pilots with combat skills and other heavy flight duty training with her equally as the head of the program.[58] The military then consequently saw itself in two projects that used female pilots, one being a more a beneficial and worthy assets that took vantage to benefit from the skill set of highly experienced women pilots who had the capability to make significant contributions from the commencement and the other a politically inspired project that necessitated for an across the board training. General Arnold, [59] Using his political connection managed to sway the two sections later to be merged, becoming the Women Air Force Service Pilots in August 1943, with Cochran as the Director.[60]
The project saw to women relieving their male counterparts in combat duty between 1942 and 1943; this rose from the believe that the raging war angst the War Department and the Allies would cause massive fatalities among the male pilots engaged in direct combat duties. General Arnold directed that the women who had continuously demonstrated superior abilities could be initiated into more complex and heavier planes to the maximum extent as possible.[61] The objective of the Air Force by 1942 was to substitute as many male pilots in non-combatant flying duties as it was practicable with female qualified pilots. The training program designed by Cochran saw an application of more than 25,000 women citing the over glamourized advertisements.[62] Of these, a mere 1,830 women gained admission into the program of whom only 1,074 successfully completed the program and were thereof designated for military duties.[63] The project initially took off at the Hughes Airport in Houston, Texas, but was relocated to Sweetwater, Texas citing inadequacies in the available training facilities. With the first few months seeing the relaxation of training standards, the washout rate for the female trainees clocked 26% but subsequently escalated to 47% in 1994 after the end of the war lessened the need for pilots and thereof requirements became more stringent. Over the same period, the washout for men also rose from 25% to 55%.[64]
The women, given civilization status, were denied military rights and benefits that their male counterparts enjoyed in term of percentage flight fees rendered in accordance to their service as pilots. Later, a bill was referred to the Congress in 1943 for judgement and consideration of militarizing the WASP program[65] proposing the founding of a different division of women pilots led by a woman of the position Colonel, but was opposed by the War Department. The USAAF perceived that women who were already enlisted into direct combat military service in overseas combatant theaters (Mediterranean, North Africa, England and Australia)[66] would be commissioned with the Air WAC’s. While the Congress gave though to the bill, the Civil Aeronautics Agency’s War Training Service Program was formally closed in the January of 1944 when all civilian contract flying schools and collegiate training programs had been scheduled to come to an end, thus availing scores of formerly male flight instructors who had been draft-exempted for positions in military duty.
The confining and restricting of highly experienced male pilots and the unprecedented possibilities of them being reassigned to ground combat missions fostered feelings of subordination (indignity) against female pilots making efforts at military service and status. At the same instance the war began to turn into the hands of the Allied forces, the scores of returning war pilots were ready and convenient for use in training, ferrying and other responsibilities assigned to the WASP program pilots.[67] In June 1944, The Congressional Committee on Civil Service Matters reported that the WASP was unjustifiably expensive and costly, recommending that that halting of recruitment of inexperienced pilots. The program was thereof brought to an end on December 20, 1944 when the final class from Sweetwater was allowed to graduate. In the action program, WASP pilots experience 37 fatalities, 7 women pilots sustained major injurie and 29 minor injuries. (world war II: PP 27-30, 140 and 180).
Military Nurses
As the war escalated, a critical insufficiency of military nurses forced the continuing advertisements and recruitment of military nurses. Initially in 1901, the Army Nurse Corps had been established – later the Navy Nurse Corps in 1908 – and scrambled into action as after the Japanese led attack of the Pearl Harbor to treat the wounded aboard hospital ships. [68] Whereas above highlighted most WASPS operated in noncombatant status, scores of women nurses offered their services to the United States Army Air Forces in World War II in their full military statutes.[69] These nurses are accredited to having served in the United States and throughout the world following American soldiers.[70]
Female flight nurses also faced the same dangers as did their male aircrew counterparts who followed their assigned troop carrier squadrons to all combatant theaters. By 1944, the military had employed more than six thousand five hundred nurses on a full-time call with the USAAF, of which five hundred had received training in an intense and arduous eighth-week course in Louisville, Kentucky. [71] These nurses knew the job would take them into exhausting living conditions of the overseas. The women were taught on how to load and unload injured military men onto transports well as other simple military survival skills including abandoning ship, parachute use and simulated combats as their duty would require them to fly into combat theatres.[72] The cadet nurses upon completion were posted to work in air evacuation units in oversea combat area where they were supposed to fly as crew members aboard troop carriers C-47s operating onto battlefield airfields from Sicily to Milne Bay in New guinea and later to Europe (especially in England and southern France). [73] The use of women as flight nurses exposed them to dangers in combat zones that they had never probably experienced in their lives as civilians. Their diligence and skills saved the lives of many wounded military men who have seen to their demise in battlefields.
At the end: women after the war
The introduction of women into contemporary workforce led to the surfacing of problems as to the growing influence of women threatening the work of men still within the US. Men responded with discrimination and harassment of the women, an issue that persisted even after conclusion of the war. Whereas men were outnumbered in the labor workforce one to three, they were still paid lowly, citing classification of jobs as “male” and “female.” The liberated women who had “got out of the house” or “out of hand” were seen as to be undermining the traditional family and marriage way of life.
Social commentators voiced their worries that after the men returned from the war, there would be no jobs available for them, and thereof admonished women to go back to their rightful places in their home as soon as victory was in hand. A majority of women had wished to retain their employment, but nevertheless, were forced out in-masse by men returning from war and the diminishing demand for war materials. When veteran women made efforts to take advantage of projects presented for veterans, many encountered roadblocks, exemplified by the G.I. bill that inhibited women from keeping their jobs.[74] The nation that had seemingly required their support in the time of war had turned its back, not yet prepared for whatever social equality that would follow.
Summary and Conclusion
The involvement of women in male-dominated workforces was not a welcome gesture, but rather highly resented. The trait of perseverance held by women was crucial to challenging the status quo and thereof increasing equality among females and males. An American woman was still ideally envisioned as a staying at home housewife, and thereof most American mothers followed this derogatory societal norm, never joining the labor force. Those who made greater sacrifices to safeguard their freedom enjoyed the benefit of enlistment into the military. The impact was great. Military Nurse Corps lives of men stationed at the war front in thousands. New female combatant branches led efforts of women being included in the contemporary military in various capacities as we know today. An overall theme thereof brought into life by women in the military and workforce was a huge change in gender roles and equality between men and women. Women were no longer were to be degraded or be looked down upon as it were before aiding the massive public effort to promote the well-being and freedom of the Allied Countries.
Bibliography
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Campbell, D’Ann. Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era. Vol. 2. Living Water Institute AG, 1984.
Click Magazine. Land Army Makes War on Hunger. The National Picture Monthly (September 1943), p. 4.
Click Magazine. WAACS Tackle Man-sized Jobs. The National Picture Monthly. (June 1943) Issue 6, Vol. 6, p. 8.
Click Magazine. What kind of women are the WAACS? The National Picture Monthly (November 1942), p. 19.
DeCew, Judith Wagner. The Combat exclusion and the role of women in the military. Hypatia 10, no. 1(1995), 56-73.
Dobie, Kathryn S., and Eleanor Long. Her War: American Women in WWII. New York: Universe, 2003.
Hartmann, Susan M. The home front and beyond: American women in the 1940s. Twayne Pb, 1982.
Hazen, Walter A. Everyday life: world War II. Tucson, Ariz: Good Year Books, 2006.
Honey, Maureen. Creating Rosie, the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda during World War II. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.
Kleeman, Rita H. The college girl goes to war. The independent Woman. January 1943.
Longstreet, Stephen. You’re in the Army, Mrs. Jones: women war Workers handle Tough Physical Grind in Factories. PIC. (February 16, 1943) p. 31.
Merryman, Molly. Clipped wings: the rise and fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II/cMolly Merryman. New York: New York University Press, 1998.
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Rosenfeld, Megan. ‘Government Girls’: World War II’s Army of the Potomac. The Washington century: Millennium milestones. May 10 1999. Page A1.
Think Magazine. Cadet Nurse Corps. Think Magazine’s diary of US: Participation in World War II (1946), 1.
Think Magazine. Women Air-forces Service Pilots. Think Magazine’s diary of US: Participation in World War II (1946), 1.
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Weatherford, Doris. American Women During World War II: An Encyclopedia. Routledge: Routledge, 2009.
[1] Doris Weatherford, American Women During World War II: An Encyclopedia, (Routledge: Routledge, 2009), part A.
[2] The first world war did little as to change the societal perspective of women
[3] Maureen Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender and Propaganda during World War II (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 19-20.
[4] National Association of Manufacturers (U.S.), 281-286.
[5] Maureen Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender and Propaganda during World War II (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 19-20.
[6] Megan Rosenfeld, Government Girls: World War II’s Army of the Potomac (The Washington century: Millennium milestones, 1999), Page A1.
[7] Occasionally, women would also perform typical male jobs that included becoming sail makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, silversmiths, painters, tailors, and shopkeepers. Few other also tempted to practice medicine, becoming unlicensed physicians, nurses, and midwives. This kind of doctoring involved caring for their families, and other times extended outside their homes. (Rosenfeld, Government Girls, Page A1.)
[8] Maureen Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender and Propaganda during World War II (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 19-20.
[9] Think Magazine, Women’s Army Corp, (Think Magazine’s diary of US: Participation in World War II, 1946), 2.
[10] Megan Rosenfeld, Government Girls: World War II’s Army of the Potomac (The Washington century: Millennium milestones, 1999), Page A1.
[11] Rosenfeld, Government Girls, Page A1.
[12] Stephen Longstreet, You’re in the Army, Mrs. Jones: women war Workers handle Tough Physical Grind in Factories. (PIC, 1943), 31.
[13] Click Magazine, Land Army Makes War on Hunger, (The National Picture Monthly, 1943), 4.
[14] Rosenfeld, Government Girls, Page A1; Hartmann, The home front and beyond, 20-45.
[15] The enlistment of over sixteen million men into the Army forced employers to recruit more women to fill these positions on assembly lines. The field of science, thereof, become open to women; Think Magazine, Cadet Nurse Corps, (Think Magazine’s diary of US: Participation in World War II, 1946), 1.
[16] Rosenfeld, Government Girls, Page A1.
[17] National Association of Manufacturers (U.S.), 281-286.
[18] Rosenfeld, Government Girls, Page A1; Hartmann, The home front and beyond, 20-45.
[19] Doris Weatherford, American Women During World War II: An Encyclopedia, (Routledge: Routledge, 2009), part A.
[20] Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 19-20.
[21] Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 19
[22] Rita Kleeman, The college girl goes to war. (The independent Woman. January 1943.), 2-5.
[23] Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 31-36.
[24] Kleeman, The college girl goes to war, 2-5; Rosenfeld, Government Girls, Page A1; Hartmann, The home front and beyond, 20-45.
[25] Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 8.
[26] D’Ann Campbell, Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era (Vol. 2. Living Water Institute AG, 1984), 20-21.
[27] Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 31-36.
[28] Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 31-36.
[29] Campbell, Women at War with America, 20-21.
[30] Campbell, Women at War with America, 20-21.
[31] Stephen Longstreet, You’re in the Army, Mrs. Jones, 31.
[32] Doris, “Labor Force,” in American Women During World War II, Part L.
[33] Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 31-36.
[34] Kleeman, The college girl goes to war, 2-5; Kathryn Dobie and Eleanor Long, Her War: American Women in WWII (New York: Universe, 2003), 3-4.
[35] Dobie and Long, Her War, 3-4.
[36] As exemplified below.
[37] Dobie and Loong, Her War, 3.
[38] Judith Wagner DeCew, The Combat exclusion and the role of women in the military, (Hypatia 10, no. 1,1995), 56-73
[39] Molly Merryman, Clipped wings: the rise and fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) of World War II/cMolly Merryman. (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 2-5; Judith, The Combat exclusion, 56-73.
[40] Doris, “Labor Force,” in American Women During World War II, Part L.
[41] Think Magazine, Women’s Army Corps, 2; Francoise Barnes Bonnel, Ronald Bullis, and Charlotte McGraw, Capturing the Women’s Army Corps: The World War II Photographs of Captain Charlotte T. McGraw. (Albuquerque: University of Mexico, 2013), 3
[42] Click, what kind of women are the WAACS? (The National Picture Monthly, November 1942), 19.
[43] Merryman, Clipped Wings, 5.
[44] Doris, “Aircraft Workers,” in American Women During World War II, Part L.
[45] Click Magazine, what kind of women are the WAACS? 19; Click Magazine, WAACS Tackle Man-sized Jobs, (The National Picture Monthly, 1943) Issue 6, Vol. 6, pg. 8.
[46] Click Magazine, Land Army Makes War on Hunger, 4.
[47] Click Magazine, Land Army Makes War on Hunger, 4.
[48] Longstreet, You’re in the Army, Mrs. Jones, 31; Doris, “Labor Force,” in American Women During World War II, Part L.
[49] National Association of Manufacturers (U.S.), (New York: The Association, 1951), 281-286.
[50] National Association of Manufacturers (U.S.), 281-286.
[51] National Association of Manufacturers (U.S.), 281-286.
[52] Doris, “Aircraft Workers,” in American Women During World War II, Part L.
[53] Bonnel, Bullis, and McGraw, Capturing the Women’s Army Corps, 7.
[54] Bonnel, Bullis, and McGraw, Capturing the Women’s Army Corps, 2-5.
[55] Campbell, Women at War with America, 241-243.
[56] Campbell, Women at War with America, 241-243.
[57] Jaqueline Cochran was a famed pilot who volunteered for war duty (Think Magazine, Women Air-forces Service Pilots, 1.)
[58] Campbell, Women at War with America, 73-79.
[59] Merryman, Clipped Wings, 2.
[60] Think Magazine, Women Air-forces Service Pilots, 1; Campbell, Women at War with America, 20-21.
[61] Merryman, Clipped Wings, 2-5.
[62] Rosenfeld, Government Girls, Page A1.
[63] Campbell, Women at War with America, 74-79.
[64] Campbell, Women at War with America, 75-79.
[65] Merryman, Clipped Wings, 2-5.
[66] Bonnel, Bullis, and McGraw, Capturing the Women’s Army Corps, 4.
[67] Think Magazine, Women Air-forces Service Pilots, (Think Magazine’s diary of US: Participation in World War II, 1946), 1; Merryman, Clipped Wings, 2-5.
[68] Walter Hazen, Everyday life: world War II (Tucson, Ariz: Good Year Books, 2006), 50; Think Magazine, Cadet Nurse Corps, 1.
[69] Think Magazine, Women Air-forces Service Pilots, 1.
[70] Doris, “Cadet Nurse Corps,” in American Women During World War II, Part C.
[71] Doris, “Cadet Nurse Corps,” in American Women During World War II, Part C.
[72] Doris, “Cadet Nurse Corps,” in American Women During World War II, Part C.
[73] Think Magazine, Cadet Nurse Corps, (Think Magazine’s diary of US: Participation in World War II, 1946), 1.
[74] Merryman, Clipped Wings, 5.
