Women in the 1940s

Women in the 1940s

The 1940s and especially the first half of the decade  brought a massive change to the role of women in American society. Not only did women enter the production process, but the whole perception on the capabilities of the so-called "weak gender" altered. Despite the fact that the change was short-lived, according to the National Park Service, the road taken by women in the 1940s continued into the future.

Previously women had very little say in society and were stereotyped to stay home, make babies, be a good homemaker and wife. The 1940's were different, life for women was expanding, the men were at war and some one had to step up and take the men's place.

Not only men were going to war either, the war was so big that in 1942 The Women's Army Corps (WAC) and Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES) were established. After these organizations were accepted congress authorized women to serve in the U.S. Navy. Going back to state side roles women worked factory, labor intensive jobs and become the attention of society in the entertainment industry.

1943 The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was founded. In 1945 Eleanor Roosevelt became a U.S delegate for the newly established United Nations. Through out the 1940's the amount of women in the workforce increased by 25-35 percent. In the book Born for Liberty, by Sara Evans, emphasizes on how much good Eleanor Roosevelt did in the rights of women. She supported their freedom and tried to understand the aspects of what a freed women is. This was a successful and strong time in women's history.

Women Surviving The Great Depression

Women Surviving The Great Depression


The Great Depression did not affect everyone the same way. Many rich people felt no impact at all, and were oblivious to the suffering of others.The Depression changed the family in dramatic ways. Many couples delayed marriage - the divorce rate dropped sharply (it was too expensive to pay the legal fees and support two households). As a result, women during this time abandoned their husbands completely. 

Women found their status being enhanced by their new roles and responsibilities. Black women especially found it easier to obtain work than their husbands. Either it was working as domestic servants, clerks, textiles workers and other occupations. This employment increased their status and power in the home, gaining them a new voice in domestic decisions.

The unemployment that men faced,  was a harder hit psychologically than women were. Since men were expected to provide for their families, it was humiliating to have to ask for assistance. Although some argued that women should not be given jobs when many men were unemployed. Also, in the Sara Evans text, Born for Liberty, one man wrote to his congressman " If less women were employed it would make room for the employment of many of the idle men in our country... in the last analysis women's true place is her home where she can see to the proper raising of her children while the man earns the living."(page 201) This quote supports that men were still against women working and they will always be the easy target in a crisis like this. 

Traditionally female fields of teaching and social services grew. Children started taking on more responsibilities, sometimes finding work when their parents could not. Women started taking a more important role and space in the society through hard times. Women gaining enough confidence and taking over all the jobs that are both in and outside of house is a step in more freedom.  As a result of living through the Depression, some people developed habits of careful saving and frugality, others determined to create a comfortable life for themselves.

Flappers, Freudians and All That Jazz

Flappers, Freudians and All That Jazz

The 1920s were the age of the dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities rather than living on farms. 

Most people are familiar of this era because it was called the "Roaring Twenties." During this time, there was something called the "flapper." A "flapper" women would be described as a unladylike women. Most "flappers" were northern, urban, young, single and middle class women. Young women with a hair cut that is short to an even length of neck and chin, mini short skirts, drank, smoked and were sexually "free" than previous generations. 
At night, flappers engaged in the active city nightlife. They frequented jazz clubs and the shows in the nightclubs. Speakeasies were a common destination, as the new woman of the twenties adopted the same carefree attitude toward prohibition as her male counterpart. Ironically, more young women consumed alcohol in the decade it was illegal than ever before. 

Women were able to vote at last with the 19th Amendment. The Amendment to the Constitution had guaranteed that right for women to vote in the 1920. Millions of women worked in white collar jobs and were able in affording to participate in the burgeoning consumer economy. During this time, women also had the opportunity to use birth control devices. The increased availability of birth control devices such as the diaphragm made it possible for women to have few children. 

As mentioned in the Born for Liberty text by Sara Evans, " perhaps the new freedoms and new attitudes of the twenties repsented a necessary experimentation with individualism specially on the part of young women ( p.195). " Women needed a change in the roles that they played and they reached a time were they broke free and did everything that were not allowed or prohibited from them before. This act remind me of setting a kid into a candy world with no rules and observing what happens to them. Women are finally proving who they are in society no matter what the cost is.  

Women During 1890-1920

Women During 1890-1920

During the Progressive Era, women played more active roles in the larger economic, cultural, and political transformation of American society. This growth in women's public roles allowed suffragists to be more aggressive in support of their cause as they developed stronger bases of support in the settlement houses, temperance organizations, labor unions, and reform movements that now sprang up across the country. The National American Women's Suffrage Association, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, fought for suffrage using parades, street speakers, petitions, and rallies.

In the book Born of Liberty by Sara Evans talked about 1900-1918 was the time that America was completing its rapid shift from an agrarian to an urban society. This caused major anxiety among the country's because it introduced "disturbing" changes in their society.As the growing middle class base of the woman's rights movement shifted suffrage from the periphery of women's organized activities toward mainstream, suffrage advocates increasingly with the class and race prejudices of white middle class. 

Also the Evans text mentioned that the working conditions continued to be extremely dangerous and work hours very long. Pay was also low which made the whole situation even more worst. However, as more factories opened and businesses women got the change to have work more and get paid. Trade union women brought together around thirty women's organizations in Illinois Women's Alliance between 1888 and 1894. They worked in factory inspections by women and new programs arose. Women are really trying to take every opportunity to prove themselves more and more. They are trying to become as equal as possible with men to have equal rights in voting and any decisions in and out of their homes.