The changing position of women, 1917-80

THE IMPACT OF WW1
1. gave women a chance to work, wages often less than men. war ended - most fired to open jobs for returning men
2. Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the vote under the same state rules as men
  1. women could vote as long as they voted in large numbers, politicians would address the broader issue of women's rights in order to gain their votes
3. 1920 the League of Women Voters was set up to encourage women to vote
4. poor w didn't vote, or voted the way their husbands did, few black w did
  1. mainly educated white women who felt that the vote was a significant change
IMPACT OF THE ROARING TWENTIES
1. economic boom - many people better off than ever before
  1. mass production -- consumer goods cheaper & hire purchase made them easier to buy. road building - cars could travel further, faster
  2. widespread electrification - more people could run electric appliances
2. after war ended, expectation that things would return to 'normal' including w resuming their traditional roles
3. some jobs e.g. teaching were barred to married w & many employers made it a rule not to employ them
4. lives of single well-off white w that were most open to change
5. changing industries created more office jobs
6. 1920 Women's Bureau of Labour set up, to improve women's working conditions & campaign for the wider employment of w
7. 1910 - 1940 no. of working w 8.3% of population - 9.8%
8. w same job as men - paid less, 'last hired, first fired' situation similar to blacks
9. FLAPPERS
  1. young women - worked, short hair, wore short dresses, some smoked &drank alcohol, drove. 'behaved like young men'
  2. went to jazz clubs & speakeasies - seen as places not for a 'lady'
  3. shifted public perceptions of w, but were only small% of female population &many adopted a more traditional role once married
  4. Went to male dominated sporting events e.g. boxing matches without a male escort
IMPACT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION
1. brought unemployment, falling wages and rising prices
2. w looked for work to supplement husbands income or if widowed/divorced took any work they could find
3. Women's Bureau was largely ignored within the Bureau of Labor because of its focus on w, some thought it was hindering women's progress when it supported gov legislation e.g. ruling that w's working hours should be no more than 10 hours a day & when it pushed for legislation e.g. when it pressed for a minimum wage: men had no minimum wage
  1. restricting working hours often forced the poorest w to break rules/ lost their jobs
4. regulations mainly to industrial not farming/domestic service where a large proportion of the labour force was black& female
5. migrant labour pool was enormous, alll competing for badly paid jobs, back-breaking work in appalling conditions
IMPACT OF THE NEW DEAL
1. men came first in New Deal policies on unemployment& working conditions
  1. e.g. Civillian Conservative Corps 1933-42 found work for young aged men 17-23 - about 2.5 million young men were employed
2. Eleanor Roosevelt - made camps for unemployed w
  1. By 1936 - 36 camps taking about 5,000 w a year. However, only took w for 2/3 months & provided no work/or wages. Only training was in budget management
3. for every dollar a white man earned, a white w earned 61 cents & a black w 23 cents, on average
IMPACT OF WW2
1. 1940 Selective Training & Service Act prepared to draft men into the military &to train women to fill their places, including in shipbuilding &aircraft assembly
2. 1941 Lanham Act's childcare provision was extendedly 1944, there were 130,000 children in day care
3. % of married w in workforce rose from 15 to 23
4. Women's Land Army of America re-formed to provide farm workers countrywide. estimate 3 million women working in agriculture 1943
5. worker shortages meant black w could train for professions where they had previously not been welcome. However, some places refused to employ black w saying they had& spread sexual diseases
6. POST- WAR CHANGES
  1. married w left work but widowed, divorced &separated w had no choice but to work
  2. after a dip, female employment rate rose again especially for 45-54 age group
  3. Before war, married w barred from many jobs; these restrictions were lifted during the war &rarely reinstated after it, so a wider range of jobs was open to w
  4. w who had been trained - nurses etc continued to work& so moved into a wider range of work rather than domestic& farm work, which was their predominant employment pre-war
7. Generally, war significantly changed the attitudes of husbands& society to married women working. changes attitude of married w, they acquired skills during the war made them want to go to work
8. w still paid lower wages then men for same work. Work remained mainly clerical domestic or shop work. Some white w moved into main business of that office but faced hostility from the predominantly male world they had entered nothing compared to the hostility b people faced on desegregating

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The changing position of women, 1917-80

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	Created by Keanna Ki almost 9 years ago