Forgotten Posters of World War II

While the "Women’s Movement" (as we know it today) really began after 1963 (the year Betty Friedan published her ground-breaking book The Feminine Mystique), women of World War II were as much a part of the war effort as men.

While they were not combat soldiers or fliers, their production skills helped the Allies to win the war. (Hitler, interestingly, forbade German women from holding industrial jobs. Consequently, the Nazi war machine lagged behind Allied production of war materiel.)

Today, reviewing the war posters created for American women, one immediately notices their patronizing tone. That paternalistic government attitude, however, is also prominent in posters created for the overseas military and the population at large.

"Women’s place in war" consisted of many types of jobs (239 to be exact) in the Women’s Army Corp. In addition:

• Women had their own branches of service, like the Women’s Marine Corp Reserves...
  
  
• ...And the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.
  
  
• A high school graduate could be a nurse
  
  
• Or a topographic draftsman...
  
  
• A weather observer
  
  
• Or a photographer for the Army Air Force.

Wives, mothers and daughters - all were "in this war too."  Posters - like "We Can Do It!" (featuring 17-year-old Geraldine Hoff Doyle) - reminded people that the fight could not be won without a joint effort.  "Rosie the Riveter," personifying the image of a wartime working woman, became so significant in American culture that a popular song was written about her.

And ... as the government made clear ... in war, as in peace, a country is no stronger than the individual loyalty of its citizens.