Class Notes

10.30.02

by:Shannon Smith

• Passed around Roll Sheet
• Because Prof. McBride’s cousin was one of the women involved in the horrible tragedy on Monday she’s a little bit behind on work and we probably won’t be getting the first draft of our Term Papers back on Friday as previously expected.  This shouldn’t cause a real problem though, and if you want to get started this weekend you have the comments from the peer review.

• We will be watching the video on Rosie the Riveter both today and Friday.
• The reading on the Web about Rosie the Riveter was written by students and is sited in some University libraries.  à This shows that students can do quality work.
• Rosie the Riveter is a symbol for strong women.  She is a working woman; she is working in the factories, doing a job that is considered to be a man’s job.  It is not typical work for women.

The movie
• Consists of several interviews with the women who were working during World War II, and who couldn’t get jobs after WWII was over.
• It is a sharp analysis of what was going on at the time.
• Movie:  The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter
• The movie opens with vintage pictures of Rosie the Riveter, other working women, and period music with the working woman as the subject.
• Women who were interviewed:  Lola Weikel, Margaret Wright, Lyn Childs, Gladys Belcher, and Wanita Allen.
• The late 1930’s
• Times were hard and one woman’s first job, in high school, was working in a novelty factory, where party goods were made.  It was amazing to see all the bright, happy colors on the party goods, and then the workers who made them all had sad faces.
• Another woman’s family could not afford electricity; they used oil lamps and such.  In addition her family’s diet consisted of beans.  They would eat a different type of bean each night.  The women who worked typically worked in a household and were titled Kitchen Mechanics, and typically only earned $1 a day.
• There was another woman who met her future husband when she was 14.  She said he drove a car and worked at the Oldsmobile factory, and if she’d marry him they’d have a car, this was new to her because no one in her family had ever owned a car.  The only work women could do was house work, and her mother was fortunate enough to have a job in a hotel as a Chambermaid.  But this woman didn’t want anything to do with that kind of work.
• Another woman lived on a farm and she would make molasses, but after her husband died, the farm was sold.  So she packed up and moved back home to her mother.  She did farming jobs there, and one man asked her to plow his land, after a while he asked if she was a woman, and said “If I had known you were a woman I wouldn’t have hired you, this is hard work.”  But she did a good job.
• One woman worked for a family, did the housework and such, but she was more a part of the family than a maid.  She liked that.  One day they told her to listen to the radio, and this is what she heard: “December 7, 1941, a day which will live in infamy…”  Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.
• Since the men were needed to go off to war, nobody was left to do their jobs, except the women.  A campaign was set up, the idea was for women to not be able to go anywhere without seeing a poster or something giving her the idea to go out and work.  There were women going around the neighborhoods saying “I’ll get a war job, if you do.”
• They were called the Hidden Army.
• For many women the opening of the factories to them was a Godsend.
• They were told that they must fill the jobs of the men.  If you don’t know how to do the job, we’ll train you for free.
• Welding could be taught in a short amount of time, and the work was actually easier for the women because of their small hands.
• There was an analogy about the various parts of building an airplane being like operating a sewing machine, or a juicer, or an electric washing machine.
• Even though the women were needed to fill the jobs, the men did not treat them too kindly because for every woman working it meant that a man had gone off to war, and that is something you just don’t want to think about.
• The need for women grew desperate, and thousands of women answered the call, women from all ages and all walks of life.
• Why were they working?  Because they wanted to.
• Even though every woman was trained the same, the black women found that they weren’t wanted in the elite jobs. 
• The women found it was good to work with people; it made the job easier to know that everyone around you was doing the same job.
• It was said that women were doing every job available.  They were doing a man’s job, and gaining a man’s pay.  They were doing it safely, and they were actually safer in the factory than they were at home.
• This was not true.
- One woman got hit on the back, and was knocked out.
- Another man was crushed to death.
- Two women were blown up in a factory because of a spark from one woman’s hairpin.
- They were supposed to wear special shoes on the job, they could rent them on credit, but they were told they didn’t have to.  This endangered them.
- The women were not making the same pay as the men for doing the same job, and black women were being paid even less.
• So how did they deal with this, they joined unions.  But after joining the union, attitudes towards them changed.  The women were no longer allowed to work, they were locked out of their jobs.  One employer, who had previously liked his employee, said that she was not skilled, and that women were only capable of getting married, having and raising children, and doing housework.  So, the women and the union took the employers to court, and won.  After this life became better, and they all got an increase in pay.
• Since the money was now coming in the women weren’t saving it, they were spending it on whatever they wanted.
• The women were now working 8 hours a day, and if they were asked to work overtime, they got paid for overtime.  Sometimes it was boring, but if a job didn’t workout they could always go to the union.  They got to work with other women who were doing the same jobs, so it was much better than doing housework, where you’re all alone.
• They tried to make the factories more accommodating for the women.  There were special bathrooms and locker rooms and showers for the women in the factories, but apparently the black women weren’t allowed to use them.  One colored woman went to use the shower and was told she had to leave.  This led to conflict.  The white women no longer wanted to work with the colored women.  A man from the union showed up to work it out, but they wouldn’t talk to him because he was colored.  Finally he told them do you want to do the job or not, the women responded yes we do, then go do the job the man told them.  Eventually all the women got along and laughed about the incident.
• The women began to realize that they still had all the housework to do on top of the 8+ hour job, but no respect was given to women workers who had stuff to do outside the workplace. 
• This was especially hard for women with children.  One woman had to leave her child with relatives when she moved to California to work.
• What was the solution to this problem?  Daycare, yeah right.
• Several women didn’t even know that daycare was offered, or if it was offered it was too expensive and far away.  One woman sent her daughter off to boarding school.
• The woman began to see that it was just too much to handle.  They’d work a 10 hour day and still have to go home and clean house, cook meals, do the dishes, do the laundry, etc….
• Women began dropping out of the workplace, and there was a decline in production.  They were scolded for this.
• Talking about the union too much was considered unpatriotic.  How dare you not work overtime when our boys are fighting and being killed overseas.
• One woman was very angry over the mistreatment of minorities in the workplace, so she stood up to the guy.  He told her that he was trained at boot camp that coloreds weren’t as good as whites; they were beneath whites.  She was then called into the boss’s office, many coworkers followed her; they were impressed that she did what she did.  She was accused of being a Communist for her actions.  She told them if standing up against being mistreated makes me a Communist, them I’m the biggest Communist out there.  She was told just to go back to work.
•The women were very proud when a ship they worked on was finished and sent afloat.  They said it was very thrilling.
• One woman found that the war was really getting to her, it was bringing her down.  The men were away, for who knows how long.  Her coworker said to her “Work makes life sweet,” she said that was the sweetest thing he could have said to her.  It really brightened her day.
• Women were asked “What are you going to do when the war is over?”
-“When my husband comes home I’m not going to work anymore.”
-“This job belongs to some man fighting overseas, and when he comes home he can have his job back.”
- What was the response to this?  “Good for you.”
•There was a big conference filled with women, and the speaker said:
- You are only working because the men are away at war.
- The men will be getting their jobs back after the war.

•The movie will be continued on Friday and we will discuss the movie and the readings after the movie has been finished.