Women (WWII)

Learn about Women in World War II with these old magazine articles. Find information on the working women of the 1940s.

Distributing Women Throughout Industry
(The American Magazine, 1942)

One of the seldom remembered branches of the War Production Board was the Women’s Labor Supply Services which served to eradicate the various draft deferments that were keeping too many men out of the military. Thelma McKelvey was the woman in charge of this body:

This captain of industry expects to see women workers in factories and farms increase from 700,000 today to 4,000,000 by mid-1943.

Women Worked the Railroads
(Click Magazine, 1943)

Nearly 100,000 women, from messengers aged 16 to seasoned railroaders of 55 to 65, are keeping America’s wartime trains rolling. So well do they handle their jobs that the railroad companies, once opposed to hiring any women, are adding others as fast as they can get them…

The Women of the U.S. Coast Guard
(Think Magazine, 1946)

From the icy sweeps of Alaska to the tropical Hawaiian Islands, trimly clad girls in the dark blue of the Coast Guard SPARS have served since their organization was founded in 1942 to fill the shore posts of men at sea.

Communications and radio work were an important phase of their duty. Another field in which SPARS were exceptionally active was aviation, with young women in navy blue working in control towers, instructing fledgling fliers via the Link trainer, and parachute riggers…SPARS were also required to familiarize themselves with weapons.

Ranking woman officer is Captain Dorthy C. Stratton (1899 – 2006), Director of the Women’s Reserve, appointed on November 24, 1942).

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She Worked The Graveyard Shift
(The American Magazine, 1943)

Thousands of American girls are traveling the same road as 21-year-old Dorthy Vogely, our new Cover Girl this month. No longer do they live at home waiting for a nice young man. Instead they’ve gone on their own to help win the war…

The Navy Nurse Corps
(Think Magazine, 1946)

The attached story of U.S. Navy Nurse Corps and the brave and remarkable women who gallantly served within it’s ranks throughout the Second World War is told in this brief article. It documents the selfless service of Navy Nurses who stayed behind in the Philippines to face Japanese captivity rather than desert their patients.

That was typical of the steadfast manner in which Navy Nurses adhered to duty throughout the war, forsaking personal comfort and safety to bring the benefits of their skills to the sick and wounded.

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