The Greatest Generation of Women The WWII generation of women is well-known as the greatest generation. World War II was a major turning point for American women. They gained courage and bravery during the war and contributed in many ways. Women are recognized and perceived as mothers or caretakers who care for families. However, during WWII women elevated their roles and began to serve the military, help the homefront, join the army, and enter the workforce. Therefore, the WWII generation has pushed women throughout the years to change their representation and raise their positions. American women during the second world war served the military in many ways. Many women served the army by becoming military nurses. These nurses treated soldiers with illnesses, wounds, and psychological troubles. Nurses helped soldiers wherever they were need, in hospitals, aircrafts, transport vehicles, bases, and on or near frontlines. Military nurses risked their lives daily to help …show more content…
Women joined the Air Force and became pilots. The Women Airforce Service Pilots was an organization created in 1942. The institution trained women to fly military aircrafts that would be used throughout the war. The act of flying aircrafts was dangerous and although women were taught how to handle troubling situations many lost their lives. An eyewitness account created by Marion Hanrahan in 1943 explains the death of one of her colleagues by stating, “"I knew Mabel very well. We were both scheduled to check out on night flight in the A-24. My time preceded hers, but she offered to go first because I hadn't had dinner yet. We were in the dining room and heard the siren that indicated a crash. We ran out onto the field. We saw the front of her plane engulfed in fire, and we could hear Mabel screaming. It was a nightmare." (M. Hanrahan, 1943) Women who became pilots completed many war missions that contributed to
Throughout the twentieth century, both World War I and World War II significantly impacted American society in several ways. From 1917 to 1918, the United States’ involvement in World War I began an increase in the number of women in the workplace that would steadily continue throughout much of the twentieth century. The United States once again played a major role in World War II from 1941 to 1945, and this war is actually seen as a turning point for women in the workplace. During the two world wars, women workers were impacted by discrimination, the danger of the work they completed, and the portrayal of women in propaganda during both world wars, and yet the different time periods of the two world wars led to differences in how women were impacted in the workplace. Although there are several similarities and differences in how World War I and World War II impacted women in the workplace throughout the 20th century, both world wars played a role in challenging the accepted role of women in society.
“There was much more to women’s work during World War Two than make, do, and mend. Women built tanks, worked with rescue teams, and operated behind enemy lines” (Carol Harris). Have you ever thought that women could have such an important role during a war? In 1939 to 1945 for many women, World War II brought not only sacrifices, but also a new style of life including more jobs, opportunities and the development of new skills. They were considered as America’s “secret weapon” by the government. Women allowed getting over every challenge that was imposed by a devastating war. It is necessary to recognize that women during this period brought a legacy that produced major changes in social norms and work in America.
World War Two was the period where women came out of their shells and was finally recognized of what they’re capable of doing. Unlike World War One, men weren’t the only ones who were shined upon. Women played many significant roles in the war which contributed to the allied victory in World War Two. They contributed to the war in many different ways; some found themselves in the heat of the battle, and or at the home front either in the industries or at homes to help with the war effort as a woman.
Never before this time had women across the country been given the chance to express themselves and hold responsibilities outside their own households. They felt that they were needed and enjoyed their ability to contribute to the war effort. They were given opportunities to prove to the male society that they could be independent and financially secure on their own. These new opportunities were not only for the white women of the population but also the blacks. World War Two acted as a catalyst for change for the women of the United States. Many feel that it was the beginning of a whole new era for the Women of America.
World War II, the most destructive and devastating conflict that the globe would ever would be weighed upon, was a threat to eliminate the balance of the nations. Germany, Japan, and Italy utilized their military power, placing the world at peril in 1939 through 1945. However, the period beckoned for opportunity, also. Women desired the chance to serve for their country. They wanted others to recognize that they weren’t going to be idle during this mass era. Women to have rights and responsibilities in World War II would affect their view of their roles in history forever.
In the 1940’s World War II was the most widespread war in history. After Pearl Harbor was attacked the United States quickly became involved. Women pilots were utilized for the first time by the government. The Women AirForce Service Pilots (WASP) program freed up male pilots for combat service. The WASP’s exchanged knowledge and service for the U.S. While the program was active the 1,830 women who got accepted were given the opportunity to explore military aviation.
After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.
When they found out that each side was in need of nurses, women immediately started volunteering to “help the war efforts of their side” (Freemon, 1998). Most of the women focused on helping wounded and sick soldiers (Freeman, 1998). Women of all ages and social classes nursed both Union and Confederate soldiers (Harper, Nurses).... ... middle of paper ...
Over 5000 volunteer nurses’ north and south served in military hospitals during the Civil War. Nurses were of all sorts and came from all over. Women wanted to be involved in this national struggle in any way they could. They did not want to stay home and play their traditional domestic roles that social convention and minimal career opportunities had confined the majority of their sex to. Many women thought of nursing as an extension of their home duties, almost like taking care of “their boys.” They recall the Civil War as a time when their work as nurses made a difference. It gave them an opportunity to prove they had the ability and courage to help.
The 1940s provided a drastic change in women’s employment rates and society’s view of women. With the end of the Depression and the United States’ entrance into World War II, the number of jobs available to women significantly increased. As men were being drafted into military service, the United States needed more workers to fill the jobs left vacant by men going to war. Women entered the workforce during World War II due to the economic need of the country. The use of Patriotic rhetoric in government propaganda initiated and encouraged women to change their role in society.
Subsequently, women volunteered through national or local associations or by getting permission from a commanding officer (“Nursing”). In April 1861, Dorothea Dix assembled a collection of volunteer female nurses which staged a march on Washington, demanding that the government distinguish their desire to assist the Union’s wounded soldiers. She organized military hospitals for the care of all sick and wounded soldiers, aiding the head surgeons by supplying nurses and considerable means for the ease and aid of the suffering. After she recruited nurses; nursing was greatly improved and her nurses were taken care of under her supervision (Buhler-Wilkerson). During the Civil war, most nurses were women who took care of the ill and injured soldiers. Both male and female nurses have cared for the soldiers in every American war. The majority of nurses were recruited soldiers pressed into duty. Civil war nurses worked in hospitals, on the battlefield, and in their homes (Post). The first carnage of the war made it possible for nursing to become a professional occupation. The women who proved themselves as capable volunteers established nursing as an acceptable field of employment for women after the war. The contributions of the thousands of female nurses helped to alter the image of the professional nurse and changed American nursing from a male-dominated to a largely female profession (Woodworth). Clara Barton, one of the nurses who contributed to the Civil War, founded the American Red Cross, brought supplies and helped the battlefronts before formal relief organizations could take shape to administer such shipments (Buhler-Wilkerson). The religious orders given responded to the new opportunity for servicing the injured by sending t...
The article was published on February 6, 1943 in the midst of World War II. Women had become an asset to the war effort and were then considered "At Home Soldiers" or "Riveters". They worked in the factories constructing submarines for the Navy, planes for the Air Force, and became medics.
The images created by propaganda poster had a dramatic effected on convincing many women to choose nursing as a career and dedicate their efforts to serve their country by enlisting in the Red Cross and the United States military. “Over 350,000 American women volunteered to serve in the armed forces during World War II. More than 59,000 of those women were registered nurses, who volunteered to serve in the United States Army Nurse Corps” (Monahan and Greenlee pg.
During America’s involvement in World War Two, which spanned from 1941 until 1945, many men went off to fight overseas. This left a gap in the defense plants that built wartime materials, such as tanks and other machines for battle. As a result, women began to enter the workforce at astonishing rates, filling the roles left behind by the men. As stated by Cynthia Harrison, “By March of [1944], almost one-third of all women over the age of fourteen were in the labor force, and the numbers of women in industry had increased almost 500 percent. For the first time in history, women were in the exact same place as their male counterparts had been, even working the same jobs. The women were not dependent upon men, as the men were overseas and far from influence upon their wives.
The industry of comic books has been majority male superheroes than they have female superheros . The reason people never made a female superhero because people thought if they created a female superhero that they would be sexist . This was about the time that Wonder Women became a character and had been brought up . Wonder Women was a women who would show womens suffrage through what she did and how she did it , plus that she was a strong individual and didn't need to rely on a man .