Women in Baseball
The Changing Roles of
Women in WW2
Before WW2, women were in traditional
roles – wife, mother, homemaker
Women’s roles in the workforce were often
limited to nurses, teachers or domestic work
Then an event occurred on Dec 7, 1941
that changed everything
This event signaled the United
States’ entry into WW2
President Roosevelt addresses Congress after the
attack on Pearl Harbor
Thousands of
young men
volunteered or
were drafted
into the service
As time went by, more and more
men went into the service
• But this meant that the men were leaving
their jobs to go fight.
• This started to affect the war industries’
production
FDR encouraged the nation to increase the
output for the war effort in his Arsenal for
Democracy speech
He said we must
“discard the notion of
“business as usual”
Posters like these helped
to encourage women to
work- and slowly change
the negative attitude
towards women working
Women began to enter the workforce in greater
numbers, especially in heavy industries
Women soon were working in
many different fields
Pilots
As more and more men joined the war, women
were needed to fill every kind of job
From driving taxicabs
To driving milk trucks
By 1942, the draft had forced many
minor league baseball teams to fold
• Soon, major league baseball was affected by
the numbers of men being drafted
In 1943, Philip K Wrigley was able to get enough
backers to start the All American Girls’ Baseball
League
Women from highly skilled softball teams
from Canada and the US were recruited
Not only did the players have to be highly
skilled, their femininity was of utmost
importance
The players were required to attend charm school and etiquette
classes
The players’ uniforms were designed to be
ultra-feminine and modeled after figure
skaters’ outfits
The league’s popularity peaked in 1948
Ten teams attracted 910,000 paying fans.
Many of the more popular players
attracted large followings
Dottie Schroeder was the only player to
play in the league in all of its seasons
Mary “Bonnie” Baker was
featured in Life Magazine
However, the league’s popularity began to
decline in the following years
• Teams began to disband in 1950
• Part of the reason for this was the advent of
televised Major League Baseball games
The league was finally disbanded
in 1954
• Organized baseball formally banned women
from signing professional contracts with
men’s teams in 1952, and the prohibition is
still in effect.
• The All-American Girls Professional
Baseball League gave over 600 women
athletes the opportunity to play professional
baseball and to play it at a level never before
attained. The League operated from 1943 to
1954 and represents one of the most unique
aspects of our nation's baseball history.
• Created by:
Margaret Shields and Pamela Jane Leman
TAH, Spring 2009