Double Victory: How African American Women Broke Race and Gender Barriers to Help Win World War II
5 In August 1944 factories across the country were in dire need of workers to build guns bombs planes and ships for the US mili tary The country had been at war for almost three years The government contracted with factory owners to provide the mil itary with critical supplies but thousands of men had left their factory jobs to join the fighting overseas With the urgent need for skilled workers defense plants looked first to unmarried white women to fill the positions As the war effort mounted and the need for defense workers increased the plants began to recruit and hire married white women Some plants hired black men Last to be considered for employment were black women But in some plants the hiring of colored women was never 1 war workers Negroes Cannot Be Accepted I stood in line with the others but a guard came up and said it was no need to wait that there was no hiring of colored women Miss Ethel Bell
6 DOUBLE VICTORY a consideration because racial discrimination was an accepted practice in the America of the 1940s When Ethel Bell responded to a newspaper advertisement seeking workers for jobs at a plant in St Louis Missouri a guard made it clear to her that she wouldn’t be considered for employ ment because she was black In 1944 it wasn’t against the law for a factory to refuse to hire someone because of race or gender There was nothing Ethel could do to force the factory owner to look beyond the color of her skin and consider her skills and qualifications Ethel went home without a job and the factory owner continued with the profitable government contract The Negro Problem Ethel was one of the many women who were eager to get jobs in the defense plants in the war years The jobs paid well Some of the jobs required special expertise and the workers were given opportunities to learn new skills In addition the women felt they were doing something to support the war effort at home while other family members were fighting the enemy overseas The idea of women of any color working in factories was new to Americans in the 1940s It was a time when most mar ried women stayed home and worked as housewives while their husbands went to work outside the home Some women worked in professional positions as doctors lawyers teachers and writers for example but those professions were dominated by men Women with high school educations or less who worked outside the home often worked in service jobs as store clerks waitresses or house cleaners Many black women worked as maids or domestics for white families Life as a domestic included long hours and little pay A typi cal workday was 12 hours and most employers expected their
WAR WORKERS 7 domestics to be on call six days a week The job duties included cooking washing ironing cleaning and serving meals Some times domestics cared for the white families young children too The typical wage for a domestic worker was 7 a week Domestic workers in southern states made as little as 3 to 4 a week So when black women who worked as domestics heard about war jobs in defense plants that paid as much as 35 per week they were interested in applying for those positions The federal government created agencies to deal with issues related to war work The War Manpower Commission was formed to deal with the labor shortage caused by the large num ber of men entering military service The Office of War Informa tion relayed news and information about the war to the public The two agencies worked together to recruit women for the war industries A government official from the War Manpower Commis sion said in an interview with Time magazine that as the nation geared up for war it would need to look for workers in untapped sources He predicted that over 7 million people outside the paid workforce in the United States 92 percent of whom were women could be convinced to forsake kitchen or lounge for office and factory He warned that such a move would shake U S living habits He explained More women in the war effort means fewer women in the home as wives daughters or servants it means eating more meals out fewer socks darned fewer guests entertained at home and many another change in the American way of living The same official cautioned that the Negro problem was far from licked With so many white men entering the military and creating vacancies in the workforce he warned Employers had better get set for a big increase in pressure for jobs for Negroes And some white peo ple saw this as a problem Many white business owners would
8 DOUBLE VICTORY not want to hire black workers and they would resist pressure from anyone who tried to make them do so Wanted Women Workers Newspapers and magazines carried advertisements showing women working in defense plants Radio ads also encouraged women to work in war jobs The government printed posters and hung them in public places They showed women happily working for the war effort The posters carried slogans the more women at work the sooner we win do the job he left behind and women in the war we can’t win without them However the idea of women in nontraditional jobs was a new and very different idea for many Americans The gov ernment published pamphlets that revealed the beliefs of the time women were not equal to men in the workplace The pamphlets titled When You Hire Women Safety Caps for Women in War Factories Women’s Effective War Work Requires Good Pos ture and Washing and Toilet Facilities for Women in Industry indicated that women required special handling The pam phlets encouraged factory owners who were considering hiring women to first sell the idea to men Although many women did work before the war the pamphlets reminded those who were hiring that women were without work experience of any kind The pamphlets reinforced the sexist beliefs of the time by encouraging employers to hire women for certain type of work that women do particularly well work that required care and constant alertness good eyesight and use of light instruments The government also set up special divisions dedicated to black workers within the Labor Division of the War Produc tion Board The purpose of the division’s Negro Employment
