"People, Progress, and Products":
The Village Economy

Women Answer the Call

Women living in Quinsigamond Village typified the variegated experiences of women throughout the United States during World War II. Some stayed home to tend to the needs of their family and household, while others were school teachers, secretaries, nurses, or volunteers. Still others answered the call of the government to fulfill their patriotic duty by either entering the industrial workforce to take the place of the men who had been called to fight in the war or by joining the women’s branches of the armed services.

Women were not initially embraced by the industrial workforce. “Unconvinced that supplies of male labor would be grossly depleted, employers were reluctant to modify their hiring practices.”(20) This mindset was buttressed by statements issued by the War Department that defense industries “should not be encouraged to utilize women on a large scale until all available male labor in the area has been employed.”(21) However, “…as millions of men entered the military services, the situation changed. From late 1942 on, both government and industry waged a concerted campaign to persuade women to work outside the home.”(22)

The campaigns to attract women into the workforce played on a variety of themes, but stressed “…the excitement of working for good wages in a patriotic cause.”(23) Women certainly responded to this call. Between 1941 and 1945, 6.5 million women joined the wartime workforce, and most of them were middle-aged and married.(24)
Why did women join the workforce? For one thing, their salaries helped to supplement their household’s income, and in some cases provided families “...usually for the first time, the chance to buy or to save in order to later buy, the conveniences, the comforts, the small luxuries that had become a part of American middle-class expectations and a mark of middle-class status.”(25) Other motivations included the desire for a change of pace, a respite from housework, and a recognition of the opportunities for independence that these new positions would provide them with. Nevertheless, most women were attracted to work because of the personal satisfaction they derived by answering their patriotic call to duty. Blum suggests women “…did not, for the most part intend to remain in the working force, although after the war many of them did not leave and others soon returned. They had in the main a special satisfaction, a continuing sense of the importance of their wartime tasks, of the nation’s need for their labor….”(26) Says Grace Butkus, “…I had to do my part, so I went to work at Reed-Prentice as a time keeper…and that was my contribution.”

Although women like Grace Butkus felt the patriotic duty to participate in the war effort at home by joining the workforce, other women in the Village were either content to stay home or were obliged to because of a lack of alternate means of childcare. In fact, over a half a million women who joined the workforce had children under the age of ten, but day care facilities were either in short supply or non-existent.(27) Says Martha Erickson, “No, I couldn’t work ‘cause I had the little boy, you know. And…I didn’t want to leave him alone.” Lack of adequate childcare exemplified the way in which the advances made by women who joined the workforce were always tempered by American society’s traditional sexual mores. On the one hand, the government was encouraging women to assume larger functions outside the home, but on the other, it refused to take the legislative steps to facilitate this process. Instead, it made concerted efforts of stressing the ephemeral nature of the phenomenon. Women had to contend with the fact that through their participation they were breaking with preconceived traditional female roles, which sometimes elicited negative reactions from men and women alike. Says Martha Erickson, “ I think it was strange to see the women go work in the factory.” Furthermore, women had the added responsibility of towing the line between efficient hard-working laborer while maintaining their femininity. The importance of maintaining one’s femininity was not only a personal decision, but one propagandized by the federal government. “The famous images of ‘Rosie the Riveter’ underscored the theme that beauty need not be lost in the accomplishment of vital tasks.”(28) As Martha Erickson recalls, she remembers seeing women walking to work at Norton Company “In heels.” Thus, Susan Hartmann argues that “…as women moved into the public sphere, they were reminded that their new positions were temporary, that retaining the traditional feminine characteristics was essential, and that their familial roles continued to take precedence over all others.”(29)

In addition to service in industry, women across the United States also joined the armed services through the female corps of the army in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), the navy’s Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve (MCWR) and the coast guard’s SPARS. Over the course of the war, “…more than 300,000 women had served in uniform…They served not only as clerks and typists, but also as radio operators, parachute riggers, and mechanics,” generally being employed in every activity short of combat.(30) Although none of our interviewees from Quinsigamond Village joined these female corps, at least two remember that their relatives joined. Evelyn Grahn remembers with pride her cousin in the WAC who “...came home all dressed up in her uniform,” and Sonja Gullbrand recalls, “My cousin Harriet was in the WAVES and I used to write to her…I remember seeing her picture you know, with her uniform on and how nice she looked with her little hat and all that.” The Villagers, like Americans, were proud of their relatives and friends who had joined the service through these female corps. Despite the fact that this was a time in which women who stepped out of accepted gender roles had to struggle to assert themselves both in society and the workforce, the War was a tremendous cause around which to rally and served to unify communities like Quinsigamond Village throughout the country.