Slacks And Calluses: Our Summer In A Bomber Factory

In the 1940s, the United Found themselves involved with another world war. Like World War I, the need for women to do a man’s job was in higher demand. Since the United States basically fought two wars at once, one in retaliation to Japan and the other in Europe, more men were drafted and even some women. To help war efforts, some women had to take on the daily grind as some of the men who were fighting for the country. This even meant that women joined the workforce in factories. As more ladies began to work in factories, they began to make the adjustment to how a man would do his job compared to hers. In the novel, “Slacks and Calluses: Our Summer in a Bomber Factory” by Constance Bowman and Clara Marie Allen , provides great insight on two

These two school teachers would been considered ordinary in that time era. The typical woman of the 1940s was to go to work and then come home to take care of all the necessities to run the house. From doing chores and taking care of the kids, the typical woman lived a fairly simple life. This was until the war started. With a positive outlook on life, these two teachers kept a humble and modest attitude. Reid states, “Anyone can build bombers--if we could.” (pp.1). This implies that if the regular woman could do this job, anyone could. These women are very different from their coworkers. This is due to the fact of them being women and come from a completely different background. Another thing that sets them apart is that they are willing and eager to learn how to get the job done. Their teaching backgrounds might have been an obstacle of their abilities, but that did not matter because the work still needed to be done. Even though they had little experience of working in a factory, they had to learn at a very fast pace with the country in the midst of

“Slacks and Calluses” does in fact support the idea of the country embracing women joining factories for labor. This is because all the help that was possibly offered in war production was needed. With most of the men in the country being enlisted in the war, it was up to the ladies to fill that void to keep the manufacturing of goods in circulation. When the women contributed to factories, it was mostly out of sense of patriotism. The women felt the males were fighting hard for the country, so it was up to them to work just as hard to get them the equipment they needed to be victorious. The women during World War II showed pride in the United States by stepping outside their comfort zone to help aid in war