Wis.
State Historical SocietyVisual
Materials CollectionLot 2063/1.5
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| Recruiting
poster (detail) Wis.
State Historical SocietyVisual
Materials Collection Lot 2063/1.5 |
War and Postwar
"The more
women work, the sooner we win" read this recruiting poster from World War
II.
Millions
of men were away in the military. To keep them supplied in the field, factories
hired women for jobs that had previously been only done by men.
After so many years of widespread unemployment, the enormous needs of the national war effort brought unprecedented opportunities for women and for minorities.
Just a few years before, aid to support single mothers at home had been passed as part of the Social Security Act. Now a very different public image of women was being projected. Although "Rosie the Riveter" was expected to return to homemaking after the war, seeds of social transformation were planted.
Wartime production gave way to postwar prosperity, as factories turned out consumer items for a growing middle class. But amid the apparent affluence and anti-Communist fever of the postwar era, there was a growing "Other America" – rural areas and inner cities that had not enjoyed an economic boom.
