American Working Women in World War II: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Series in History and Culture)

American Working Women in World War II introduces students to American women’s experiences in defense work during World War II, focusing on the challenges they faced in male-dominated factories and the military, as well as their struggle to juggle work with expectations at home. An introductory essay and a rich array of primary sources―including firsthand accounts of women from diverse backgrounds, cartoons, photographs, and magazine articles―arranged in thematic chapters provides a lens through which to examine the history of women, gender, sexuality, labor, race, and ethnicity during this period, as well as the ways in which women’s participation in the war effort may have contributed toward the civil rights movement of the 1950s and the feminist movement of the 1960s. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography further enrich this work. Available in print and e-book formats.