Susan H. Horn’s Women, Work, and Fertility, 1900-1986 is a monograph that argument centers on the change between her book’s focus of 1900 through 1986, and how this occurred due to the “modernization” of the twentieth century as well as an increase in women’s desire for productivity outside the domestic sphere. The work splits into three parts, with the first one 1900-1940 and the second 1940-1960, these sub-sections able to be compared to the other historical work previously discussed. The evidence Horn uses draws from a number of disciplines to properly examine the transformation that women underwent in this time frame; however, the author does not include much of the recent work in her study that could have added to her argument, which Horn sometimes expands upon without the proper evidence to support it. …show more content…
Knaff’s historiography Beyond Rosie the Riveter: Women of World War II in American Popular Graphic Art has the aim of analyzing and explaining the impact of popular media like magazines ushered in a cultural shift within the American public, especially in regards to young women. The author explores the effects of World War II on women’s participation outside the home using evidence from the Office of War Information documents, as well as widely read magazines and newspapers. The monograph ends with the conclusion that “female masculinity” that women projected during World War II assisted in the widening of perspective of “people’s ideas” and stereotypes of what constituted proper women’s behavior. This assessment agrees with the general consensus of most historians on the topic, continuing the narrative of World War II as a “watershed” moment of transformation for American
The chapter, From Rosie to Lucy, by James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, is about how the feminine mystique changed drastically from the era of WWII to the era of the baby boom. The shift was attributed to men’s influence on the women through fashion trends, magazines, and TV shows. The main purpose of the chapter is to show that the propaganda through TV and society affected individuals, and more specifically the feminine mystique.
In the years after the Second World War, people created uncountable numbers of historiographical research on various topics related to the war, such as military tactics in battles, individual groups of men during their time in service, and other such subjects. Not much surprise exists then, that women’s actions in World War II eventually would also gain interest and publication for the public, though it did not gain an undivided focus until the advent of women’s and social history grew momentum. Women, despite being half of the world’s population, doubtlessly had acted during the war years, although limited by social gender expectations of the period. As time passes from 1945, more interest in the lives of women and their effect on the war
The most prevalent and popular stereotype of the post World war II era in America is one filled with women abandoning their wartimes jobs and retreating into the home to fulfill their womanly duties. In Joanne Meyerowitz’s Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, she shows how far women departed from this one dimensional image. While Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is reflexive and focused on the mainstream, Meyerowitz’s analysis is a broader and more inclusive exploration of media, as she draws upon multiple sources. Although Friedan effectively unveiled the thought process and reasoning behind society's belief that the message of media was to make women think that their place was to be the happy housewife, Meyerowitz expanded her media archives and found a differing message in analyzing both female responses to media and exploring their stories.
There was a time in the United States when women were told they could do anything a man was capable of, and they did. During World War II men were fighting in battlefronts and women were joining the “Rosie the Riveter” movement that had a huge impact on the ideal of women. Today many historians state that America’s war material production wasn’t going to be enough to fight World War II if Propaganda campaigns wooing women were not made, in fact over 6 million women took part to the industrial miracle of America from 1942 to 1945. To help the expansion of America’s labor force, government and industries promoted job opportunities with posters or cartoons. World War II posters helped to mobilize a nation. Inexpensive, accessible, and ever-present
The role of women in American history has evolved a great deal over the past few centuries. In less than a hundred years, the role of women has moved from housewife to highly paid corporate executive to political leader. As events in history have shaped the present world, one can find hidden in such moments, pivotal points that catapult destiny into an unforeseen direction. This paper will examine one such pivotal moment, fashioned from the fictitious character known as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ who represented the powerful working class women during World War II and how her personification has helped shape the future lives of women.
Women had different perspectives during World War 2. Many served in different branches of armed forces. Some labored in war productions plants. Most women stayed at home and had other responsibilities to raise children, balance check books, and some labored in war-related office jobs, while the men went to war. In addition to factory work and other front jobs about 350,000 women joined the Armed services, serving at home and abroad. “Rosie the Riveter,” later became a popular propaganda for women. While women worked in a variety of positions closed to them the industry saw the greatest increase in female’s workers. More than 310,000 women worked in the U.S. aircraft industry in 1943,
Rosie the Riveter was the preeminent icon for the Women’s Rights Movement. Rosie represented the idea of women working during World War Two, and she was originally created as a government campaign. Previous to the 1940s, women were often identified as the housekeepers that would take care of the children while men would do the work that ¨really mattered¨9th. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, men abandoned their jobs for the war effort and left a hole in the workforce that women were required to fill. The government used agencies such as J. Walter Thompson to make the propaganda for this purpose, and it would feature headlines like “The More Women at Work, The Sooner We Win” by Norman Rockwell to persuade women to join the cause (Harvey). Many advertisements would feature a burly yet feminine woman working, which was how Rosie the Riveter was identified. During the 1940s, the most known form of Rosie was published by the Saturday Evening Post. She captured the idea of America, with the American flag waving in the background and Adolf Hitler’s Mien Kampf beneath her feet (History.com Staff). The poster was later copyrighted, so in present day, people recognize the “We Can Do It!” Poster as Rosie instead. Not only did Rosie the Riveter improve women’s rights during the war time era, but she also did it for many more decades to come. Rosie propaganda was also often used and recognized during the early 1980s. With Rosie the Riveter, it is vital to understand how the idea was
The Changing Role and Status of Women's From 1914-1928 We are studying how far the role and status of women changed between
Between 1900 and 1920, women started taking jobs outside the home. It started with teaching, nursing, and social work but soon women began taking clerical jobs if they were native born white women with an education. Thus leading to “Rosie the Riveter”, which we will discuss later. “American Feminists, in the early 20th century included a segment of working-class women, participating alongside better-known middle-class and elite adherents of feminist ideas”, (Greenwald, 1989).
While social change has brought on more changes than what women are a custom too, at one point in history women actually felt a form of importance in fulfilling their roles not only in the home; but outside as well. “These demographic shifts account for many new or altered roles, such as increased number of duel-earner families, later and fewer marriages, fewer children, increased life expectancy, and the massive migration shifting employees across a nation and across the globe” (Lindsey, 2011, pg. 275).
In the late nineteenth century women were beginning to find a place in the more public spheres of life. Larger numbers of women than ever were in paid employment; by 1874 twenty percent of females over fifteen were employed. Many
The purpose of this paper is to analyse and see to what extent women have been depicted within typical stereotypes, how they have been objectified and only seen as a sexual sell, and what consequences and effects these depictions can have on both the female and male audiences. The analysis is over two decades where major social changes underwent. The time after the war, being a housewife and mother was heavily implemented. Whilst after a decade, women started to step away from what was considered the norm, what was considered the ideal life. They started to fight for a better future for themselves, and a life free from their husbands ruling hand. I have chosen visual analysis of magazine front covers as my method because magazines were a major resource for both women and men at the time, it was one of their sources of information about what was going on around them. Front covers often represent the magazine or the audience it is meant for, and
The war changed the lives of all Americans, especially women. They had to be self-reliant because fifteen million men were obligated to serve the country. During this time, the nation witnessed a number of women take over the industrial jobs usually occupied by men. When Hollywood generated new films they worshipped the independent woman and OWI publications urged them to work. Rosie the Riveter is recognized for being on Norman Rockwell’s magazine cover as an autonomous and powerful industrial laborer. Many of the ads seen at this time had pictures of females working on industrial machinery. In some of the pictures they still had perfect hair and makeup in place. In 1944, 350,000 women helped in military units and made up more than one-third
Paid work for women moved from principally customary female-situated employments to all the more non-conventional and already male-arranged vocations. Ladies ' support in the workforce prompted them to start careers in the field dominated by male in the 20th century. Career yearnings were affected by elements, such as sexual orientation, financial status, race, occupation and instruction level, and parental desires. This paper exhibits how women developed, changed and the challenges they faced in the 20th century in America in the workforce and the advancement of ladies ' careers, improvement and profession goals during the 20th century in United States. Also, gender issues affecting women will be discussed in details during this period and how women played their role in fighting for their rights.
During the war in the 1940s, an aggressive media campaign urged more than six million women into the workforce. It is astonishing seeing each year; there were better accomplishments that women were making. Many learned new techniques such as working in steel plants, shipyards, and lumber mills. Sports also became a new and admired era in this time. The famous “Rosie the Riveter”, “We Can Do It!” was a part of the governor campaign that brought women into the workplace during the war. Following the end of WWII, most of these jobs went back to the men, and women were encouraged to either return back home or find a “female” job. This reveals that women were used. They were only needed when most of the men were in the war. In