American women in World War II
Among the most iconic images were those depicting "Rosie the Riveter", a woman factory laborer performing what was previously considered man's work.
[1] With this added skill base channeled to paid employment opportunities, the presence of women in the American workforce continued to expand from what had occurred during World War I.
Many sought and secured jobs in the war industry, building ships, aircraft, vehicles, and munitions or other weaponry.
Others drove trucks, work as mechanics and radio operators, as well as providing vital logistical support for the soldiers.
As many as 543 died in war-related incidents, including 16 nurses who were killed from enemy fire - even though U.S. political and military leaders had decided not to use women in combat because they feared public opinion.
One, Portland, Oregon's Claire Phillips, an untrained spy, operated a clandestine ring under the cover of Club Tsubaki, a cabaret popular with Japanese officers stationed in Manila.
Earning the nickname "high-pockets" because she smuggled information in her brassiere, she also funneled food, medicine, and other supplies to prisoners in the Philippines.
Another, Elizabeth Thorpe Pack, used seduction to extract information, and was best known for helping to acquire the first Enigma machine from Polish intelligence and for securing Italian and Vichy French codebooks.
Nineteen million American women filled out the home front labor force, not only as "Rosie the Riveters" in war factory jobs, but in transportation, agricultural, and office work of every variety.
Experts speculate women were so successful at riveting because it so closely resembled sewing (assembling and seaming together a garment).
[15] Some women indeed chose more traditional female jobs such as sewing aircraft upholstery or painting radium on tiny measurements so that pilots could see the instrument panel in the dark.
They even had women inspectors to ensure any necessary adjustments were made before the planes were flown out to war often by female pilots.
The first five African-American women entered the SPARs in 1945: Olivia Hooker, D. Winifred Byrd, Julia Mosley, Yvonne Cumberbatch, and Aileen Cooke.
SPARs were assigned stateside and served as storekeepers, clerks, photographers, pharmacist's mates, cooks, and in numerous other jobs during World War II.
Recognized as an official part of the regular army, more than 150,000 women served as WACs during the war with thousands were sent to the European and Pacific theaters.
By the end of World War II, 85 percent of the enlisted personnel assigned to the Corps' U.S. headquarters were women.
[31] Several hundred women were recruited from colleges to take part in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb.
Moreover, women were not given opportunities to advance to leadership positions and existed as subordinate counterparts to the male scientists involved.
Leona Woods was the only woman working at the Hanford site and assisted John Wheeler in determining the cause of the reactor shutdown to be xenon poisoning.
Maria Goeppert Mayer developed the theory of nuclear shell structure and investigated the thermodynamic properties of uranium that allowed its isotopes, U-238 and U-235, to be separated via the gaseous diffusion process.
[33] Naomi Livesay was a mathematician who ran the IBM machines[35] and worked with Richard Feynman to calculate the shock wave that would be produced by an implosion-type bomb.
Another, an Army flight nurse who had been aboard an aircraft that was shot down behind enemy lines in Germany in 1944, was held as a POW for four months.
Before the war was over, 84,000 WAVES filled shore billets in a large variety of jobs in communications, intelligence, supply, medicine, and administration.
Roughly 120,000 Japanese-Americans and resident Japanese aliens on the West Coast were relocated to Manzanar, Heart Mountain and similar internment camps while at least 10,905 German citizens were held at more than 50 sites across the United States and Hawaii.
