Rosie the Riveter may have been the face of working women in the United States during World War II, but there were many women of all ages pitching in to keep America’s businesses working after more than 10 million men were drafted for the war and millions more volunteered to fight.

C.H. Booth Library’s virtual program “Women’s Work In WWII,” led by John Cilio on April 19, shined a spotlight on the diverse jobs that women did, as well as the gender discrimination they had to overcome.

Cilio started off his presentation by sharing how a woman’s role in society in the late 1930s and early 1940s was quite different than it is today.

“It’s hard to imagine today, but the most common belief was that if you were married your job was to be at home with the kids and you should be having kids,” he said.

People felt so strongly about it that in 24 states it was illegal for married women to work.

“For many companies, including the US government, if the woman was working for the company and they married and their husband worked for the same company or government, the women was required to leave her role,” Cilio said.

He added, “If you were a teacher, in most states, you were required to be single if you were a woman. It was a different mentality.” Even if a woman could work, he said, many people had misconceptions about women’s abilities.

“The beliefs were that women couldn’t work long hours, so why would you want to hire her? She can’t lift heavy products, she can’t think in detail, and they certainly can’t keep secrets,” Cilio said.

People had such distorted opinions of women’s work abilities that in 1940, when there was a bill being considered to go to Congress to allow women in the military, one congressman said, “They would rather have dogs, ducks, or monkeys than have women in the military.”

After Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941, the United States was officially in a state of war with the country. Three days later, Germany and Italy also declared war on the United States.

“Suddenly men not only started to go into the military, but it was easier for them to join defense plants because there was a lot of need for workers,” Cilio said.

Womanpower

As a result, women were needed to do some jobs they were not allowed to do prior to the war, such as being ticket takers on trolley carts.

According to Cilio’s slideshow, Paul T. McNutt, chairman of the war manpower commission, told the nation, “The United States faces a ‘supreme test’ in mobilizing an additional 10,500,000 workers to more than double the war industry labor supply within the next year. American armed forces will total 4,000,000 by the end of 1942, and it is ‘a staggering problem of manpower’ to equip them with the best planes, guns, and ships.”

When women leaders wanted to take part in that commission to promote women working to help the war effort, the entire commission told President Franklin Roosevelt that they would resign if women joined the group.

Women took that response and formed the Women’s Advisory Committee to get their ideas heard. They made government policy recommendations that included basing wages on work performed, removing training barriers, and giving women the rights to have any occupation.

“In May 1942, women in the military became a reality,” Cilio said. The president signed an executive order allowing women to join the Army, originally thinking it would be just to do jobs such as typing or being a telephone operator.

Soon, the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) organizations were developed. Later, women could join the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard.

Cilio highlighted how there were women working at many Connecticut companies that oversaw national programs for the war effort.

At the Landers, Frary, and Clark plant in New Britain, women — including women of color — were hired for well-paying welding jobs and made anti-aircraft machine guns, mounts, and trailers.

Cilio said that at Remington Arms Company in Bridgeport, women would “inspect every bullet” being made, because they had better dexterity in their fingers than men. Women there got to fire the bullets to test them. Some even worked as chemists to produce the ammunition to be “stronger, faster, and more explosive.”

Women also worked at Hamilton Standard Propellers as engineer aides and at Bullard Company in Bridgeport where they made torpedoes.

Encouraged To Work

Cilio emphasized that there was a real consensus among the many women he interviewed for his research that they took jobs in WWII because they wanted their husbands or boyfriends to come home as soon as possible, so life could return to the way it was. At this point, the tables turned to where married women were now being encouraged to work.

There was one notable case where a woman took a job making life vests for war ships, only to find out that one of them saved her son’s life. The son was in the Navy and when the boat he was on exploded, he was left floating in the water waiting to be rescued — serendipitously wearing a life vest his mother made.

“For the first time in history, more married women were working than single women,” Cilio said.

By 1994, women of color were being recruited to join WAVES and WAACs. Some WAVES members were even brought to Dayton, Ohio, to help build and train on the Cryptanalytic Bombes to break German codes.

Women also worked on the United States’ highly classified navigation system in Hawaii and Alaska. In all these cases, Cilio said, “There were no secrets ever lost.”

Women proved they could work long hours, too. Cilio cited how an older woman named Emelia Gworek volunteered for the Red Cross by day and sewed parachute seams during the night shift at the Pioneer Parachute Company in Manchester.

The fact that many women were working two jobs proved they were capable of working long hours. They also did plenty of heavy lifting and laborious work.

Cilio explained how about 300,000 women went to work as Woman Ordinance Workers (WOWs) and built bombs and large shells for the United States military. “It was very dangerous work. About 10,000 women died from explosions in these factories,” Cilio said.

All of these stories and examples that Cilio told during his presentation contradicted those original, negative beliefs about women from that era.

Real Change

According to Cilio’s presentation, after the first year of war, all military branches were now recruiting women, and there were 15,000 women in WAACs and 4,000 in WAVES. He reported that, “War Labor Boards mandated company management could not discriminate pay for a job based on gender or race with government contracts.”

There were also childcare centers in 41 states that helped working women. In total, four million American women worked in the war industries at that time.

Cilio said that by 1943, businesses realized “women were going to be the future” and they began making work gear, such as hats and goggles, to actually fit women properly. He gave countless examples of specific women who worked during the war effort and made significant breakthroughs that made them an asset in so many fields.

During 1943, 36% of all working age women were employed doing jobs as warehouse workers, nurses, welders, machinists, pipe fitters, painters, electricians, laborers, tank cleaners, and coppersmiths — just to name a few.

Women with disabilities were beginning to be employed and excelled at tasks, such as Elise Ronchetti who was visually impaired and brought her guide dog to work as she masked off areas of parts that could not be painted.

With so many accomplishments made by women, it makes sense that many wanted to continue to work after the war ended. However, many women were required to leave their positions — even if they had seniority and had been paying into the union — when men returned home, so they could have jobs.

“They were furious, but there was nothing they could do. They were out of a job,” Cilio said.

The work was not for nothing, though. Women working during the war changed many people’s minds, including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who made a permanent place for women in the military in 1948. In the 1950s, many women did go back to work, but found they were menial jobs with limited pay compared to what they had during the war.

When John F. Kennedy wanted to become president, he asked for Eleanor Roosevelt’s input.

Cilio explained, “She said, ‘I’ll help you, but I need a presidential women’s commission. I need you to help reestablish women’s rights.’ He agreed to that, and he was elected. Immediately, that commission went to work helping create new laws.”

Those laws included equal pay, prohibiting employment discrimination (except if you were pregnant), rights to contraceptives, and credit equality.

“Dramatic change happened in the 60s and 70s, and a lot of that was because those myths were dispersed. No one could argue that women didn’t do good, hard, heavy work and equal to a man. The myths were shattered. The workplace was never the same. It’s not perfect, but it is a lot better than it was,” Cilio said.

Upcoming Program

Cilio’s next program with C.H. Booth Library is called, “Stories from Early Inns & Taverns across Connecticut and New England,” and is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, May 24.

Kate Sasanoff, Adult Programmer at the library, told The Newtown Bee, “John Cilio researches the subject matter of his programs in such detail and with such geniality that he opens up interviewees to a deeper, more revelatory personal level of storytelling than usual. Then, by combining each historical era’s unique perspective with our modern viewpoint and adding his own sense of humor, he always leaves us thinking, and wanting just a little more.”

For more information about Cilio’s work and to purchase his book Women’s Work in WWII, e-mail johnvintageflyer@gmail.com or visit vintageflyer.com.

The “Women’s Work in WWII” program was created thanks to funding from Friends of the C.H. Booth Library, as are many library events. For more information about registering for upcoming programs, visit chboothlibrary.org or call 203-426-4533.

Reporter Alissa Silber can be reached at alissa@thebee.com.