What effect did world war II have on the lives of women and african americans?

think about:


job oppertunities created by the war
What effect did world war II have on the lives of women and african americans?
For women, think Rosie the Riveter and flying bombers across the Atlantic to forces overseas.





For African-Americans, think the Tuskegee Airmen and this site http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2...
What effect did world war II have on the lives of women and african americans?
Many women were able to leave the poorly paid jobs they had been in before the war and take better-paid jobs in defense. As a result, a lot of restaurants and laundries had to close because of lack of help. Peggy Terry, who got a job with her mother and sister at a shell-loading plant in Kentucky said %26quot;We made the fabulous sum of thirty-two dollars a week. It was just an absolute miracle. Before that, we made nothing.%26quot; Although most unmarried women were already working when the war started, a number of college student quit school to join the war effort, and among the other early volunteers were the wives of servicemen. Rose Kaminski of Milwaukee, whose husband served in the navy, got a job as a crane operator at an ordnance plant to move the huge howitzer gun barrels. %26quot;Well, I was running one in three days%26quot; she recalled much later. %26quot;It just came to me, I loved it.%26quot;





The shortage of teachers impelled most school boards to drop their rules against married women, and some actually appealed to married ex-teachers to return. The Office of War Information suggested articles it would like to see in print in newspapers and magazines %26quot;stories showing the advent of women in logging camps, on the railroads, riding the ranges, and showing them not as weak sisters but coming through in manly style. For a few women on the home front, the war opened up opportunities that might otherwise have been unimaginable. People started dancing to all-girl bands. The owner of the Chicago Cubs started an All-American Girls league.





More than 350,000 women enlisted during the war, mostly in the Women%26#039;s Army Corps (WAC) and the nursing corps. The Women%26#039;s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) was created to free male fliers for service overseas. The 1,000 women who were accepted flew 60 million miles during the war, in every type of plane manufactured by the military.





African American women had difficulty breaking into the high-paying defense factory jobs. In 1943, at the height of the labour shortage, the United Auto Workers surveyed 280 factories that employed women workers and found only 74 that were willing to hire an African American. Most employers, when challenged, claimed they could not hire black women because white women refused to work with them. This was often true, though companies that took a firm line and forced their employees to choose between integration and loss of their lucrative jobs generally managed to overcome the problem fairly quickly.





It was not until 1944, under heavy pressure from Eleanor Roosevelt, that black women were welcomed into the military. The WAC eventually enlisted 4,000 black recruits. Despite its grave shortage of nurses, the army was reluctant to take black RNs - particularly if they would be treating white soldiers. The corps eventually took 500 and then enraged the black community by assinging some of them to work in prisoner-of-war camps.





In civilian live, black women moved into whatever slots white women left. They often took over low-paying jobs like elevator operators and car cleaners on railroads, but whatever the job, they saw it as an improvement over domestic work. %26quot;My sister always said that Hitler was the one that got us out of the white folks kitchens%26quot; said Tina Hill, a Los Angeles aircraft plant worker.