The Victory Home: 
War Work--Women

Poster image is courtesy of the Northwestern University Library poster database .

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Updated 11/12/04.
Page created by Midge Coates
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News

These stories are found in the New Deal Network collection.

Eleanor Roosevelt, “American Women in the War”

Eleanor Roosevelt, “Woman’s Place after the War”

These documents are found at HistoryMatters.

Equal pay for equal work

Continued employment after the war?

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Stories

Sybil and Shirley

Betty

Women at War (includes video and photo archives, with 1940s photos)
 

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Photos

These photos are in the American Passages collection of Thomson-Wadsworth Publishers .

Women in the Defense Industry (click on smaller photos to see whole images)
 

These photos are in the American Memory collection, America from the Great Depression to World War II:  Photographs from the FSA/OWI, 1935-1945 . Click on the small image to see a larger one.

Niagara Falls, NY. Nan Hannegan doing door to door recruiting for women to work in war plants.
Photo 1 , 2 , 3

Elderly women as well as young women find work in the aircraft industry. This North American employee assembles stringers in the sheet metal sub-assembly department.

New Britain, CT. Women workers at the Landers, Frary and Clark Company making bomb parts.

Buffalo, NY. Women workers leaving the Republic Steel plant. Open hearth furnaces in the background.

Lititz, PA. Women gauge inspectors at the Animal Trap Company of America. The girl at the right is only sixteen and couldn't have worked until a recent law was passed.

Boeing aircraft plant, Seattle, WA. Production of B-17 (Flying Fortress) bombing planes. A team of men and women workers complete assembly and fitting operations on the interior of a fuselage section.

Boeing aircraft plant, Seattle, WA. Production of B-17F (Flying Fortress) bombing planes. Women working on the fuselage framework.

Bryn Mawr, PA. Mrs. Helen Joyce, one of the many women now working for the Supplee-Wills-Jones milk company. She has one child and her husband is a seaman first class in the U.S. Army.

Long Island Railroad passenger coach manned by the first women trainmen on this line, who started work the day after an intensive training period.

This huge hydropress is operated day and night by women employees. Thousands of sheet metal parts are formed daily on this press. Worked from four sides using same die. Beds with metal to be shaped is rolled into place under hydraulic press. 3000 tons total pressure.

San Bernardino, CA. Women "suppliers" who work at the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad roundhouse. Their job is replacing lamps and oil cans on incoming locomotives.

Turkey Pond, near Concord, NH. Women workers employed by a U.S. Department of Agriculture timber salvage sawmill.

Turkey Pond, near Concord, NH. Women workers employed by a U.S. Department of Agriculture timber salvage sawmill. Employees eating their lunch in a shed.

For more images of women workers, search using keywords, women employment or women war work .

For a series of images showing protective clothing for women workers, search using keywords, safe clothing for women war workers.
 

New York, NY. A small boy enjoying his work in clay at Greenwich House where he receives day care while his mother works.

New York, NY. A small boy who receives day care at Greenwich House while his mother works being called for at the end of the day.

New Britain, CT. A child care center, opened September 15, 1942, for thirty children, age two to five, of mothers engaged in war industry. The hours are 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days per week. Playtime in the child care center.

Buffalo, NY. Lakeview nursery school for children of working mothers, operated by the Board of Education at a tuition fee of three dollars weekly. Children from outside looking into the nursery school yard longingly.

For more day care images, search using keywords, day care, child care, or nursery school .
 

These photos are in the National Archives ARC Digital Copies collection.

Secretaries, housewives, waitresses, women from all over central Florida are getting into vocational schools to learn war work. Typical are these in the Daytona Beach branch of the Volusia county vocational school.

This young lady's mother works in a war plant. The youngster passes twelve hours a day from Monday through Saturday in one of the 35 War Nurseries conducted for war workers children.

Leaving her youngster at a well-run nursery school in Oakland, CA, this war-working mother can devote all her thoughts to the job, knowing that the child will be kept busy and happy during the day.

Welder-trainee Josie Lucille Owens plies her trade

"Chippers." Women war workers of Marinship Corp

Two women helping in the war effort

Riveter at Lockheed Aircraft Corp., Burbank, CA

Line-up of some of women welders including the women's welding champion of Ingalls
 

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Posters

These posters are in the National Archives ARC Digital Copies collection.

Get a War Job!

We Can Do It!

Health Tips to Women War Workers

Keeping war workers well and fit

Maintaining War Workers' Morale

Women of All Ages Work on War Jobs

Women in War Industry

Harvest War Crops, The Women's Land Army

Scientifically Trained Women in War Jobs

Women's Hands Speed War Production

I'm glad at the chance to do something real while my husband's in the army.

Women, There's Work To Be Done and a War To Be Won Now!

You Too Are Needed in a War Job. Work in a Food Processing Plant.

I'm Proud

O.K., Soldier

This poster is in the Smithsonian Institution online exhibit of WWII posters, "Produce for Victory" .

Man for man
 

These posters are in the Northwestern University Library collection.   Click on the small image to see a larger one.

Arms and the women

Women make army and navy equipment

Women in the war

I’ve found the job

The more women at work

Women’s land army

Jenny on the Job series, 1

Jenny on the Job series, 2

Jenny on the Job series, 3

Jenny on the Job series, 4

Jenny on the Job series, 5

Jenny on the Job series, 6

Jenny on the Job series, 7

Jenny on the Job series, 8
 

This poster is in the Minneapolis Public Library's Posters of the Second World War collection.

She's a WOW

Pamphlets

You'll need Adobe Acrobat to view some of these documents.
Click here for a free download of Adobe Acrobat Reader.

These pamphlets are in the Central Libraries of Southern Methodist University collection.

Choosing women for war industry jobs

Women workers in some expanding wartime industries, New Jersey, 1942.

Women's employment in aircraft assembly plants in 1942

Women's employment in artillery ammunition plants, 1942

Night work for women and shift rotation in war plants

Employment of women in Army supply depots

Safety shoes for women workers

Safety caps for women machine operators

Safety caps for women in war factories.

Safety clothing for women in industry

Hazards to women employed in war plants on abrasive-wheel jobs

Women’s effective war work requires time for food and rest

Boarding homes for women war workers

The Women's Land Army of the U. S. Crop Corps 1944

The Women's Land Army works for victory

Pitch in and help!: the women's land army calls 800,000 women to the farm in 1944.

Women's wartime jobs in cane-sugar refineries
 

This pamphlet is in the collection of the University of Massachusetts .

Wartime Careers for Women
 

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Video

You'll need to download the RealPlayer (the free "basic" version is in the upper corner on the far right) or the QuickTime software to view this video material.

This video is in the collection of Internet Moving Pictures Archive (at archive.org). To view, under "Stream", click "Real" for the RealPlayer version or "QT" for the QuickTime version.

Supervising Women Workers
 

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Ads

This ad is in the American Passages collection of Thomson-Wadsworth Publishers .

Woman Power! (electricity)

These ads are in the Ad*Access collection of Duke University.

Hats off to Baltimore Women (Western Electric)

Voices for Victory (Western Electric)

Day for duty, night for beauty (Palmolive soap)

The sweat that builds bombers may lose a husband (Lifebuoy soap)

Reduction of absenteeism (Tampax tampons)

Boss lady (Du Barry leg makeup)

Pretty = please (Du Barry face powder)

Great Girl, Mary Purdue (Sparkies breakfast cereal)
 

This ad is in the National Archives ARC Digital Copies collection.

Women on the War Path Need Paint
 

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