Change by the end of WW2

Why did most of the 12% of wives work in the 1920s?

because they needed to support their families, not as a means of independence

What did they make up in the workforce?

they made up 28% of the female work force, still worked as domestics or in textiles and were predominately African Americans or immigrants

What would be a likely job for a single woman by the 1930s?

overwhelmingly likely to be a secretary, a clerk, a saleswoman, a waitress or a hairdresser

What jobs would better educated woman have?

teachers or nurses 

what did the Depression put pressure on?

wages and this hit African American women hard

what was reserved by the Depression?

the small amount of progress women had made in the professions in the 1920s

What did the progressive legislation do? What was the problem?

it made more equal pay levels mandatory, however the problem in enforcing this were considerable

What are examples of this? What did unions do?

They put interests of their male members first

what did the New Deal do?

Stimulated public activity, but the 1930s saw a regression in many ways. The hard-pressed women who moved from depressed areas to find new work and African American women suffering from increasingly low wages for menial work

what was the statistic of the increase in the 1930s?

11-15% (married women pushed out)

What was there less prejudice against?

Direct participation

how many women served in the armed forces?

100,000 in the armed forces in the Women’s Army Corps, the Navy and the Women’s Air Force

What did these jobs include?

Flying and testing planes, as well as the inevitable typing, sewing,cooking and nursing

What did Propaganda urge for women to do?

Take over men’s jobs, although it was clear that this was for the duration of the war and not permanently

What was the case in 1944?

the average women’s salary was 31.21 dollars a week for manufacturing work, even though the men that still remained earned 54.65 dollars a week

what were there more women workers as?

• Taxi drivers

• Heavy industry workers

• drivers

• Workers in lumber + steel mills

how many women entered the work force?

6 million, making them over a third of the labour force as the war absorbed 16 million men