Second front in wwii11/16/2023 READ MORE: ‘Black Rosies’: The Forgotten African American Heroines of the WWII Homefront Japanese Internment Camps By the mid-1940s, the percentage of women in the American work force had expanded from 25 percent to 36 percent. Monroe, a real-life Rosie the Riveter, was recruited to appear in Pidgeon’s film.ĭuring the war years, the decrease in the availability of men in the work force also led to an upsurge in the number of women holding non-war-related jobs in business offices, schools, factories, farms and other enterprises. One of the women employed at the factory, Rose Will Monroe, was a riveter involved in the construction of B-24 and B-29 bombers. Soon afterward, Walter Pidgeon, a Hollywood leading man, traveled to the Willow Run aircraft plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to make a promotional film encouraging the sale of war bonds. Until that time, such positions had been almost exclusively for men only.Ī woman who toiled in the defense industry came to be known as a “ Rosie the Riveter.” The term was popularized in a song of the same name that in 1942 became a hit for bandleader Kay Kyser. With tens of thousands of American men joining the armed forces and heading into training and battle, women began securing jobs as welders, electricians and riveters in defense plants. American civilian workers played a vital role in the production of such war-related materiel. This fear of attack translated into a ready acceptance by a majority of Americans of the need to sacrifice in order to achieve victory.įrom the outset of the war, it was clear that enormous quantities of airplanes, tanks, warships, rifles and other armaments would be essential to beating America’s aggressors. mainland, particularly along the Pacific coast. If the Japanese military could successfully attack Hawaii and inflict damage on the naval fleet and casualties among innocent civilians, many people wondered what was to prevent a similar assault on the U.S. In the earliest days of America’s participation in the war, panic gripped the country. By 1945, some 20 million such gardens were in use and accounted for about 40 percent of all vegetables consumed in the United States. On December 10, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.ĭid you know? During World War II, as an alternative to rationing, Americans planted victory gardens, in which they grew their own food. The following day, America and Great Britain declared war on Japan. On December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into World War II when Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor.
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