Women’s Wartime Work | Inside Adams

I regularly run across items that I want to throw out into the universe in the hope that they find the right person. This is the case with something that I recently found relating to women working during war time. It comes from the Bulletin, a publication produced by the Women’s Bureau, an agency in the Department of Labor. The Bulletin covered many topics in its time, but my attention was caught by “Series of Studies on Employment of Women in Various Defense Industries,” Bulletin number 192, from 1943, a set of reports which include the following:

Women’s Employment in Aircraft Assembly Plants in 1942 (No. 192-1)
Women’s Employment in Artillery Ammunition Plants, 1942 (No. 192-2)
Employment of Women in the Manufacture of Cannon and Small Arms in 1942 (No. 192-3)
Employing Women in Shipyards (No. 192-6)
Women’s Employment in Foundries, 1943 (No. 192-70)
Employment of Women in Army Supply Depots in 1943 (No. 192-80)
Women’s Wartime Jobs in Cane-Sugar Refineries (No. 192-90)

A White woman in a work jumpsuit kneels and rivets — At work on a Consolidated bomber, Consolidated Aircraft Corp., Fort Worth, TX, 1942. (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information / Library of Congress)

In part, the series provides a perspective on the real women embodied by Rosie the Riveter, an icon of World War II. As it turns out, the topic of women who worked in government or defense-related industries seems to have been topic of interest from the very first issue of the Bulletin, which discussed the “Proposed Employment of Women During the War in the Industries of Niagara Falls, N.Y.” in 1919. Subsequent issues of the Bulletin, which cover women in government and defense production, include:

Women in the Government Service (No. 8)
Employment of Women in the Federal Government, 1923 to 1939 (No. 182)
Women’s Employment in War Industries (No. 189)
Women’s Factory Employment in an Expanding Aircraft Production Program (No. 189-1)
Employment of Women in the Manufacture of Small-Arms Ammunition (No. 189-2)
Employment of Women in the Manufacture of Artillery Ammunition (No. 189-3)
The Employment of and Demand for Women Workers in the Manufacture of Instruments – Aircraft, Optical and Fire-Control, and Surgical and Dental (No. 189-4)
Recreation and Housing for Women War Workers: A Handbook on Standards (No. 190)
Women’s Work in the War (No. 193)
“Equal Pay” for Women in War Industries (No. 196)
Women Workers in Some Expanding Wartime Industries: New Jersey, 1942 (No. 197)
Negro Women War Workers (No. 205)
Women Workers After VJ-Day in One Community: Bridgeport, Connecticut (No. 216)

A Black woman in a in a work jumpsuit with a kerchief in her hair is standing using a hand drill gun — Woman operating a hand drill at Vultee-Nashville on a “Vengeance” dive bomber, 1943. (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information / Library of Congress)

Beyond the issues on women in government and the defense industry, the Bulletin published so much on women filling other jobs. There were articles on women in individual industries and occupations like candy making, day care, retail, manufacturing industries, telephone industries, etc., as well as pieces on women in the sciences (No. 223) and medicine (No. 203). It also published pieces on state laws and comprehensive statistical compilations, such as “Women’s Occupations Through Seven Decades” (No. 218) and, “Changes in Women’s Occupations, 1940-1950” (No. 253).

If you are interested in looking at the history of women in the workforce, we have a guide, Women in Business and the Workforce, and of course, the Bulletin is an excellent resource.

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