Women in Wartime

For women, the economic situation was complicated by the war, with the departure of wage-earning men and the higher cost of living pushing many toward less comfortable lives. At the same time, however, wartime presented new opportunities for women in the workplace. More than one million women entered the workforce for the first time as a result of the war, while more than eight million working women found higher-paying jobs, often in the industrial sector. Many women also found employment in what were typically considered male occupations, such as work on the railroads, where the number of women tripled, and on assembly lines. After the war ended and men looked to resume their old jobs, women were fired and were expected to return home and care for their families. Furthermore, even when they were doing men’s jobs, women were typically paid lower wages than male workers, and unions were ambivalent at best—and hostile at worst—to women workers. Even under these circumstances, wartime employment familiarized women with an alternative to a life of domesticity and dependency, making a life of employment, even a career, seem plausible. When, a generation later, World War II arrived, this trend would increase dramatically.

Figure 1. The war brought new opportunities to women, such as the training offered to those who joined the Land Army (a) or the opening up of traditionally male occupations. In 1918, Eva Abbott (b) was one of many new women workers on the Erie Railroad. However, once the war ended and veterans returned home, these opportunities largely disappeared. (credit b: modification of work by U.S. Department of Labor)

One notable group of women who exploited these new opportunities was the Women’s Land Army of America. First during World War I, then again in World War II, these women stepped up to run farms and other agricultural enterprises, as men left for the armed forces. Known as Farmerettes, some twenty thousand women—mostly college-educated and from larger urban areas—served in this capacity. Their reasons for joining were manifold. For some, it was a way to serve their country during a time of war. Others hoped to capitalize on the efforts to further the fight for women’s suffrage.

Also of special note were the approximately thirty thousand American women who served in the military, as well as a variety of humanitarian organizations, such as the Red Cross and YMCA, during the war. In fact, women performed the bulk of volunteer work during the war.^[1] The admittance of women brought considerable upheaval. The War and Navy Departments authorized the enlistment of women to fill positions in several established administrative occupations. The gendered transition of these jobs freed more men to join combat units. Army women served as telephone operators (“Hello Girls”) for the Signal Corps, Navy women enlisted as yeomen (clerical workers), and the first groups of women joined the Marine Corps in July 1918. Approximately twenty-five thousand nurses served in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps for duty stateside and overseas, and about a hundred female physicians were contracted by the army. Over 18,000 American women served as Red Cross nurses, providing much of the medical support available to American troops on the front. Close to 300 nurses died during service. Many of those who returned home continued to work in hospitals and home healthcare, helping wounded veterans heal both emotionally and physically from the scars of war.

Jim Crow segregation in both the military and the civilian sector stood as a barrier for Black women who wanted to give their time to the war effort. The military prohibited Black women from serving as enlisted or appointed medical personnel. The only avenue for Black women to wear a military uniform existed with the armies of the allied nations. A few Black female doctors and nurses joined the French Foreign Legion to escape the racism in the American army. Black female volunteers faced the same discrimination in civilian wartime organizations. White leaders of the American Red Cross, YMCA/YWCA, and Salvation Army municipal chapters refused to admit Black women as equal participants. Black women were forced to charter auxiliary units as subsidiary divisions and were given little guidance on organizing volunteers. They turned instead to the community for support and recruited millions of women for auxiliaries that supported the nearly two hundred thousand Black soldiers and sailors serving in the military. While most female volunteers labored to care for Black families on the home front, three YMCA secretaries worked with the Black troops in France.^[2]

Black Americans in the Crusade for Democracy

Figure 2. African American soldiers suffered under segregation and second-class treatment in the military. Still, the 369th Infantry earned recognition and reward for its valor in service both in France and the United States.

Prevailing racial attitudes among White Americans mandated the assignment of White and Black soldiers to different units. Despite racial discrimination, many Black American leaders, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, supported the war effort and sought a place at the front for Black soldiers. Black leaders viewed military service as an opportunity to demonstrate to White society the willingness and ability of Black men to assume all duties and responsibilities of citizens, including wartime sacrifice. If Black soldiers were drafted and fought and died on equal footing with white soldiers, then White Americans would see that they deserved full citizenship. The War Department, however, barred Black troops from combat and relegated Black soldiers to segregated service units where they worked as general laborers.

Black men composed 13% of the enlisted military, with 350,000 men serving. Colonel Charles Young of the Tenth Cavalry division served as the highest-ranking Black American officer. Some Black troops were specially assigned to the French Army; these units saw combat and were commended for serving with valor. The 369th Infantry, for example, known as the Harlem Hellfighters, served on the frontline of France for six months, longer than any other American unit, fighting in the Second Battle of the Marne and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. For his valiant and brave actions, Private Henry Johnson became the first American to receive the Croix de Guerre, along with 170 other members of the 369th. The regiment marched in a homecoming parade in New York City, was remembered in paintings, and was celebrated for bravery and leadership. The accolades given to them, however, in no way extended to the bulk of Black Americans fighting in the war. Corporal Freddie Stowers of the 371st Infantry, who the Germans nicknamed the “Black Devils,” lead his troops through a German line during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, in spite of receiving mortal wounds. Shortly after his death, he was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but it was not processed and awarded until 1991.

In France, the experiences of Black soldiers during training and periods of leave proved transformative. The army often restricted the privileges of Black soldiers to ensure that the conditions they encountered in Europe did not lead them to question their place in American society. Those soldiers who were assigned to the French Army, however, found themselves with a great deal more freedom. Though the French had their own racial issues, there was no Jim Crow segregation, allowing Black soldiers to visit bars or clubs they would not have been allowed into at home and allowing them to date French women, which infuriated their White counterparts. The French soldiers were generally kind and friendly toward Black Americans, often treating them better than their own fellow American soldiers did.

However, when Black soldiers began to return from France, they were met with hostility, anger, and violence. Many Black Americans, who had fled the Jim Crow South and traveled halfway around the world to fight for the United States, would not so easily accept postwar racism. The overseas experience of Black Americans and their return triggered a dramatic change in Black communities. W. E. B. Du Bois wrote boldly of returning soldiers: “We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for Democracy!”^[3] But White Americans desired a return to the status quo, a world that did not include social, political, or economic equality for Black people.

Black Communities on the Homefront

On the home front, Black Americans saw economic opportunities increase during the war. During the Great Migration, nearly 350,000 Black Americans had fled the post-Civil War South for opportunities in northern urban areas. From 1910–1920, they moved north and found work in the steel, mining, shipbuilding, and automotive industries, among others. Black women also sought better employment opportunities beyond their traditional roles as domestic servants. By 1920, over 100,000 women had found work in diverse manufacturing industries, up from 70,000 in 1910. Despite such opportunities, racism continued to be a major force in both the North and South. Worried about the large influx of Black families into their cities, several municipalities passed residential codes designed to prohibit Black people from settling in certain neighborhoods.

In the South, White business and plantation owners feared that their cheap workforce was fleeing the region, and used violence to intimidate Black people into staying. According to NAACP statistics, recorded incidences of lynching increased from thirty-eight in 1917 to eighty-three in 1919. These numbers did not start to decrease until 1923, when the number of annual lynchings dropped below thirty-five for the first time since the Civil War. Even before the war concluded, thousands joined civil rights organizations to push for racial equality—from 1917 to 1919, the NAACP expanded its ranks sixfold. More militant veterans allied with the League for Democracy, organized by and for Black veterans as a means to promote racial equality and democracy. The government took a dim view of the organization, including it in a 1919 report entitled “Negro Subversion.”

In 1919, America suffered through the Red Summer. Race riots erupted across the country from April until October. The massive bloodshed included thousands of injuries, hundreds of deaths, and vast destruction of private and public property across the nation. The Chicago Riot, from July 27 to August 3, 1919, considered the summer’s worst, sparked a week of mob violence, murder, and arson. Race riots had rocked the nation before, but the Red Summer was something new. Recently empowered Black Americans actively defended their families and homes from hostile White rioters, often with militant force. This behavior galvanized many in Black communities, but it also shocked White Americans who alternatively interpreted Black resistance as a desire for total revolution or as a new positive step in the path toward Black civil rights. In the riots’ aftermath, James Weldon Johnson wrote, “Can’t they understand that the more Negroes they outrage, the more determined the whole race becomes to secure the full rights and privileges of freemen?”