Analysis: Women's Part in the War Effort
The topic of "Women's Part in the War Effort" explores the significant contributions of women, particularly in the context of World War II. As the United States entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor, leaders sought inspiration from British women's involvement in the conflict, where millions had joined the workforce to produce war materials and support the military. Historically, women have played vital roles in the American labor force, from colonial times through industrialization, although their contributions were often undervalued and limited by societal expectations. The document highlights that the experience of women during World War I had initially increased their employment opportunities, yet these gains were frequently reversed post-war. With the onset of World War II, economic realities necessitated women's participation in both domestic and industrial roles, as they filled jobs vacated by men who went to fight. The narrative underscores that women not only supported the war effort through productive labor but also gained access to skills and positions previously denied to them. Overall, the discussion reflects on the evolving perception of women’s roles in society and their critical impact on the wartime economy and military support.
Analysis: Women's Part in the War Effort
Date: March 21, 1942
Author: Gerald Campbell
Genre: speech
Summary Overview
As US women mobilized nationwide to contribute to World War II both on the home front and in the military, US leaders looked to the experiences of British women for inspiration in organizing women's efforts. British women had been deeply involved in the conflict since their nation entered the war in 1939. According to British official Sir Gerald Campbell, women had stepped up valiantly to protect their country amid turmoil. Millions of women joined the industrial workforce, producing war goods and freeing the men who had previously held these factory jobs for service in the British military. With the United States mobilizing its own war machine in early 1942, Campbell advised a similar strategy to ensure the United States could fight both militarily and economically.
Defining Moment
Women have always been an important part of the American labor force. Women and girls helped run family farms and staff small artisan shops during the colonial era. With the rise of industrialization in the early 1800s, young, single women left their homes to take jobs in textile mills and factories, mostly in the Northeast. For the most part, this first wave of women production workers stayed in the labor force only until they married and focused their efforts on the domestic sphere; over the following decades the expectation that women would leave their jobs remained intact. As late as the 1930s, more than 80 percent of Americans agreed that married women should not hold jobs outside the home. Economic realities, though, meant that both single and married women needed to contribute to the household coffers in working-class families. Urban immigrant women in the late 1800s and early 1900s toiled in factories or took in sewing or laundry to generate income. Middle-class women, although rarely formally involved in the workforce, became educated and lent their skills to volunteer and community organizations. Thus, since its inception, the United States has had a history of formal and informal female participation in both society and the economy, although their contributions have typically been valued below those of men.
World War I offered a boost to women's employment as factories and offices turned to civilian women to replace the fighting men called to military service. For the first time, women were seen as central to the wartime support. Their gains were short-lived, however. Millions of men who returned from the battlefields reclaimed their jobs, and a brief economic recession hampered any efforts women might have made to find new ones. The national economy roared back to life, driven by high levels of production and consumer spending. Despite low unemployment, women's workforce participation remained relatively low. Then, in 1929, the Great Depression began and all economic indicators plummeted.
As World War II began in Europe in 1939 and spread through Asia to the United States in 1941, the international economic community was still battling the lingering effects of the Great Depression. The Depression had forced declines in female employment just as it had to employment as a whole. Employers were reluctant to give jobs to women, especially married ones, and when women did find employment, it was usually poorly paid and confined to industries such as garment making. Science, medicine, engineering, law, and managerial positions remained largely closed to women, as did heavy industries, which limited women's opportunities greatly.
Author Biography
Sir Gerald Campbell was a British diplomat who served in the United States for much of his career. During the 1930s, he was the British consul general in New York; after a brief period serving in Canada, Campbell returned to the United States at the behest of British prime minister Winston Churchill for the duration of World War II. As diplomat, propagandist, and all-around British spokesperson working under the auspices of the British Ministry of Information, Campbell gave countless speeches aiming to connect the US and British national interests. His wit and storytelling verve made him popular among influential Americans, and newspapers regularly quoted his comments on international affairs. He also oversaw the expansion of Ministry of Information operations in the United States by growing existing information bureaus and opening new branches in Washington, DC, and Chicago. His wartime work, therefore, was central to the development of pro-British sentiment among the American public and to international morale as the war wore on.
Document Analysis
Campbell's speech reflects the breadth of British women's involvement in World War II as a model for what US women could achieve if they, too, were willing to serve their country on the home front to protect “the essential democratic way of life.” The speaker explores the successes of British women as industrial workers keeping British war production humming by joining the workforce and by giving up ready access to the types of consumer goods that would have been otherwise produced. Campbell's claims supported a conclusion that women were central to a hoped-for Allied victory, and were able to perform duties previously regarded as outside of their sphere. Further, he asserted that the United States could benefit even more from mobilizing women than had the beleaguered British: “with your immensely greater natural wealth and manpower and industrial capacity there is no limit to what you can produce.”
For Campbell, British home-front labor was just as vital to the possibility of victory as the battlefield, and he saw Britons' willingness to forgo some consumer and labor liberties as a mark of their commitment to broader goals. Campbell broadly applauds British women for their contributions to wartime production. Working first alongside men and then increasingly on their own, these women workers quickly gained manufacturing skills and put in long days and weeks in order to meet production needs with “an absence of friction.” Campbell credits part of this immense shift to the companies and labor organizations that agreed to follow government mandates, particularly the Essential Work Order. This law protected workers' wages and jobs in defense industries in exchange for a prohibition on striking, thus compromising between the desires of employers and labor. Nearly as significant were companies' agreement to shift production from consumer to defense goods and women workers' willingness to help one another with domestic responsibilities in order to allow more women to join the labor force or military support team.
In nearly all respects, the British government and industries treated their new women laborers as equals to men. Law required that they be paid fairly, and opportunities for training in traditionally male fields abounded. British women flocked to the chance to take jobs, drive trucks, and perform other duties. Campbell suggests several benefits of this policy. Unemployment declined, women made production possible, and men were freed to join the armed services to fight abroad. Millions of British women workers, according to Campbell, were vital to the national war effort.
Glossary
apportion: to distribute or allocate proportionally; divide and assign according to some rule of proportional distribution
arbitration: a process designed to settle of differences between opposing parties
beleaguer: to surround with military forces; to surround or beset, as with troubles
chattel: a slave; any article of tangible property other than land, buildings, and other things annexed to land
dilution: the act of diluting, which is making a liquid thinner and weaker by adding water or something similar
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Campbell, Gerald. Of True Experience. New York: Dodd, 1947. Print.
Weatherford, Doris. “British Women/American Women in Britain.” American Women during World War II: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.
“Women in the Weather Bureau during World War II.” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA, 8 June 2006. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.
Yellin, Emily. Our Mothers' War: American Women at Home and at the Front during World War II. New York: Free P., 2004. Print.