Last Hired, First Fired: Black Women
Workers during World War II
Karen Tucker Anderson
As a result of the increasing demand for workers in all categories of employm e n t , and especially in the high-paying m a n u f a c t u r i n g sector, the full employm e n t e c o n o m y of World War II posed the m o s t serious challenge in American
h i s t o r y to the traditional m a n a g e m e n t preference for white male labor in
primary-sector jobs. The war years were especially important for blacks, who
benefited from an expanding labor force, changing racial values, a revitalized
m i g r a t i o n out of the rural South, and the a t t e m p t e d enforcement of equal emp l o y m e n t opportunity under a presidential executive order. Although scholars
h a v e given some attention to the labor-force fortunes of blacks in the war
e c o n o m y , few have considered the impact of the w a r t i m e expansion on black
w o m e n , w h o constituted 600,000 of the 1,000,000 blacks who entered paid
e m p l o y m e n t during the war years. Those who have focused on black w o m e n
h a v e stressed the degree to which the war opened n e w job categories and
fostered mobility. William Chafe, for example, contends that the opp o r t u n i t i e s generated by the wartime e c o n o m y and the long-term changes they
fostered constituted a "second e m a n c i p a t i o n " for black w o m e n . According to
Dale L. Hiestand, occupational shifts by black w o m e n workers during the
1940s promoted substantial income i m p r o v e m e n t . 1
Karen Tucker Andersonis assistant professorof history at the University of Arizona.
Robert C. Weaver, Negro Labor: A National Problem {Port Washington, N.Y., 1969); Herbert
Hill, Black Labor and the American Legal System: Race, Work, and the Law IWashington, 1977);
Philip S. Foner, Organized Laborand the B1ack Worker, 1619-1973 {New York, 1974), 238-74;
Harvard Sitkoff, "Racial Militancy and Interracial Violence in the Second World War," Journal of
American History, 58 [Dec. 1971), 661-81; Richard R. Lingeman,Don "t You Know There's A War
On! The American Home Front, 1941-1945 INew York, 1970), 195-201; Charles C. Killingsworth, ]obs and Income/or Negros {AnnArbor, Mich., 19681, 20-48; Herbert R. Northrup, Negro
Employment in Basic Industry: A Study of Racial Policies in Six Industries IPhiladelphia, 19701,
11-18, 26-30, 61-64, 145-49; Ray Marshall, Negro Employment in the South [3 vols., Springfield,
Va., 19731, I, 8-10; Philip S. Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement: From World Warl
to the Present {New York, 1980), 344-48; William Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changing
Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970 INew York, 1972J, 142-43; Daniel O. Price,
Changing Characteristics of the Negro Population (Washington, 1969~, 6; Dale L. Hiestand,
Economic Growth and Employment Opportunities [or Minorities INew York, 19641,35; "War and
Post-War Trends in Employmentof Negroes," Monthly Labor Review, 60 Ilan. 1945~, 1.
82
The Journal of American History
Vol. 69 No. 1
June 1982
Black W o m e n Workers d u r i n g World War II
83
A careful examination of the labor-force status of black w o m e n during the
1940s brings into question such sanguine pronouncements. Focusing on the
wartime experiences of black women provides insight into the nature of prejudice as manifested and experienced by women and into the sources and
mechanisms of labor-force discrimination in a particular historical context. It
also facilitates an examination of the relative importance of managerial intransigence and coworker prejudice in perpetuating discriminatory e m p l o y m e n t
practices. In addition, it gives an indication of the importance of tight labor
markets in fostering economic mobility for minority group women. 2
Labor force statistics support the contention that the war marked an important break with the historic allocation of work by race and sex. B e t w e e n 1940
and 1944 the proportion of employed black women engaged in d o m e s t i c service declined from 59.9 percent to 44.6 percent, although their share of jobs in
this field increased because white women exited from private household w o r k
in even greater proportions. In addition, the percentage of the black female
labor force in farm work was cut in half, as many from the rural South
migrated to urban areas in response to the demand for war workers. T h e shift
of large numbers of black women from work in farms and homes to w o r k in
factories resulted in the proportion of black females employed in industrial occupations rising from 6.5 percent to 18 percent during the war. A comparable
expansion also occurred in personal service work outside of the private household, which claimed 17.9 percent of black women workers in 1944. a
To stress only the improvement wrought during the war, however, is to
understate the extent to which discrimination persisted and to ignore the fact
that the assumptions of a historically balkanized labor force continued to determine the distribution of the benefits of a full employment e c o n o m y . W h e n
faced with a shortage of white male workers, employers had various options.
They could seek workers from other areas of the country, hoping that this
would enable them to minimize the changes produced by the w a r t i m e expansion, or they could rely on underutilized elements of the local labor s u p p l y - workers in nonessential employment, women, blacks, and older and younger
workers. If unable to secure large numbers of white male in-migrants and unwilling to modify hiring patterns too dramatically, they could limit production, sacrificing output to prejudice. 4
Those who decided to employ substantially increased numbers of w o m e n
and/or minorities established a complex hierarchy of hiring preferences based
2 Marshall, Negro Employment, I, 8-45; Ronald L. Oaxaca, "Theory and Measurement in the
Economics of Discrimination," in Equal Rights and IndustrialReIations, ed. Leonard J. H a u s m a n
et al. {Madison, Wis., 1977], 1-30; Marcus Alexis, "The Political Economy of Labor Market
Discrimination: Synthesis and Exploration," in Patterns of Racial Discrimination: Employment
and Income, ed. George M. yon Furstenberg, Ann R. Horowitz, and Bennett Harrison (Lexington,
Mass., 1974J, 63-83; Duran Bell, Jr., "The Economic Basis of Employee Discrimination," in ibid.,
121-35.
a "War and Post-War Trends," 1-5.
4 "Employment of Minority Workers during Current Period of Intensive War Production,"
[1945}, box 378, Records of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice, RG 228 {National Archives); "Labor Market Problems in Selected Firms Manufacturing Machine Guns, War
Manpower Commission," March 5, 1943, box 408, ibid.; "Macon, Georgia--Group 1," [1943],
ibid.; Foner, Organized Labor, 243.
84
The Journal of American History
o n the composition of the local labor force and the nature of the work to be
done. In light industries, w o m e n workers became the first recourse of
employers unable to recruit large n u m b e r s of w h i t e males. In the airframe industry, for example, w o m e n constituted 40.6 percent of the employees by
N o v e m b e r 1943, while blacks claimed only 3.5 percent of airframe jobs.
Employers in heavy industries, by contrast, sought m i n o r i t y males as a preferred source of labor, with the result that the level of utilization of w o m e n
depended on the minority population of an area. In Baltimore, for example,
blacks comprised up to 20 percent of the shipbuilding workers while w o m e n
represented only 4 percent. Seattle, w h i c h had only a small black population,
relied on w o m e n for 16 percent of its shipyard employees, s
Whatever the hierarchy of preference, however, black w o m e n could always
be found at the bottom. The dramatic expansion of jobs for w o m e n did not
necessarily m e a n the opening up of n e w categories of e m p l o y m e n t for minori t y group w o m e n . A survey conducted by the United Auto Workers JUAW) in
April 1943 found that only 74 out of 280 e s t a b l i s h m e n t s that employed w o m e n
in production work were willing to hire black w o m e n . Similarly, a 1943 study
by the National Metal Trades Association revealed that only twenty-nine out
of sixty-two plants that used w o m e n workers had black w o m e n in their
e m p l o y . Moreover, most of t h e m used black w o m e n only in janitorial positions. Even some employers willing to hire white w o m e n and black m e n in
large numbers balked at including black w o m e n in their work forces. At the
Wagner Electric Corporation in Saint Louis, for example, 64 percent of the
employees were white w o m e n , 24 percent were black males, and 12 percent
w e r e white males. The c o m p a n y refused to hire black w o m e n throughout the
war, even in the face of a January 1945 order from the President's C o m m i t t e e
o n Fair E m p l o y m e n t Practice IFEPC) to cease all discrimination. 6
Because of the mobilization of large n u m b e r s of y o u n g m e n by the military,
t h e availability of white w o m e n for aircraft and m u n i t i o n s work, the nature of
t h e jobs being created during the war, and the depth of the prejudice against
b l a c k w o m e n , the male labor force proved to be more racially flexible than the
f e m a l e labor force. While the n u m b e r of all blacks e m p l o y e d in manufacturing
increased 135 percent between April 1940 and January 1946, the number of
b l a c k w o m e n in such work rose only 59 percent. Blacks made their greatest
w a r t i m e gains in heavily male-employing industrial fields; by January 1945
t h e y constituted 25 percent of the labor force in foundries, 11.7 percent in
s The wartime allocation of jobs thus supports to some extent Albert Szymanski's contention
that sexism and racism operate as functional substitutes in the American economy. Albert
Szymanski, "Racism and Sexism as Functional Substitutes in the Labor Market," Sociological
Quarterly, 17 [Winter 1976}, 65-73; Weaver, Negro Labor, 17, 19-20, 81, 125; "Women in the
Wartime Labor Market," August 30, 1943, box 1536, Records of the Women's Bureau, RG 86 [National Archives); "Labor Market Developments Report, Baltimore," March 1943, box 161,
Records of the Bureauof EmploymentSecurity,RG 183 {NationalArchivesl.
6 Lloyd H. Bailer, "The Negro Automobile Worker," Journal of Political Economy, 51 {Oct.
1943), 426; "Negro Women War Workers," Women's Bureau Bulletin INo. 205, 1945), 1, 19;
Decision, Case No. 58, Wagner Electric Corporation, Jan. 19, 1945, box 342, Recordsof the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice; Alonzo Nelson Smith, "Black Employmentin
the Los AngelesArea, 1938-1948" {Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 19781,34.
Black Women Workers during World War II
85
shipbuilding, and 11.8 percent in blast furnaces and steel mills. By c o n t r a s t ,
nonwhites accounted for only 5.8 percent of employees in aircraft and 2.7 percent of those in electrical equipment production. In the traditional f e m a l e
fields of clerical and sales, the gains of black w o m e n were n e g l i g i b l e - - t h e i r
share of female clerical jobs rose from 0.7 percent to 1.6 percent w h i l e t h e i r
proportion in the female sales force declined from 1.2 percent to 1.1 p e r c e n t , z
One of the m o s t i m p o r t a n t and obdurate of the industries that f o u g h t t h e
e m p l o y m e n t of black w o m e n during the war was the auto industry. Led by t h e
negative example of the Ford Motor Company, which refused to hire n o n w h i t e
w o m e n in any but token numbers, the auto companies persisted in rejecting
trained black female applicants or in limiting their e m p l o y m e n t to a few w o r k
categories u n t i l very late in the war. When referred to the a u t o m a k e r s by t h e
United States E m p l o y m e n t Service fUSES1 in response to calls for w o m e n
workers, black w o m e n found that the white w o m e n a c c o m p a n y i n g t h e m
would be hired i m m e d i a t e l y while they would be told to await a later call, a
call that would never come. When Samella Banks, along with five w h i t e
w o m e n , applied to Cadillac Motor C o m p a n y in November 1942, she was told
that there m i g h t be a janitress opening in a day or two while they were hired as
welder trainees. As a result, m u c h of the expansion of the female labor force in
industrial work occurred before economic or political pressures n e c e s s i t a t e d
the hiring of black w o m e n . By February 1943 n o n w h i t e w o m e n had c l a i m e d
only 1,000 of the 96,000 jobs held by w o m e n in major war i n d u s t r i e s in
Detroit. Consequently, m o s t n o n w h i t e females were confined to w o r k in lowpaying service and other unskilled categories, and those who landed i n d u s t r i a l
jobs had so little seniority that their postwar fate was guaranteed. 8
As was generally the case with wartime racial d i s c r i m i n a t i o n in e m p l o y m e n t , the m o s t frequent employer rationale for excluding n o n w h i t e w o m e n
was the fear that w h i t e opposition to the change might cause work s l o w d o w n s
or strikes. An e x a m i n a t i o n of the nature and goals of coworker prejudice during the war years provides some possible answers to the question of w h e t h e r
such prejudice is rooted in an aversion to social contact in a context of e q u a l i t y
or is primarily a calculated attempt on the part of w h i t e s to m a i n t a i n an exploitative e c o n o m i c advantage. When the former issue is the basic c o n c e r n , it
is manifested in a desire to exclude blacks altogether or to segregate t h e m on
the job. When the latter is the wellspring of white workplace prejudice, it is
evidenced, not in a wish to segregate black workers, but in an a t t e m p t to prez Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Final Report, June 28, 19,$6 [Washington, 1947), 63;
"Employment of Minority Workers during Current Period of Intensive War Production," box 378,
Records of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice; "War and Post-War Trends,"
1-5; "Negro Women War Workers," 1, 19; Weaver, Negro Labor, 80-81.
s Weaver, Negro Labor, 77, 285-86, 294; Bailer, "Negro Automobile Worker," 426-27; " A
Statement About the Ford Motor Company Based on Employment Service Records, Experiences,
and Observations," March 17, 1943, box 659, Records of the President's Committee on Fair
Employment Practice; "Ford Motor Company: Hiring Practices and Labor Shortage," Feb. 19,
1943, it, d.; Josephine A. Blackwell to G. James Fleming, Feb. 14, 1943, box 678, i t , d.., Complaint,
Samella Banks, Feb. 10, 1943, ibid.; U.S. Employment Service, Detroit Central Placement Office,
Report of Discriminatory Hiring Practices, Nov. 9, 1942, box 659, ibid.
86
T h e Journal of A m e r i c a n H i s t o r y
v e n t the hiring of blat~ks or to limit t h e m to particular low-paying job
categories. 9
During the war years, white male hostility to expanded job opportunities for
b l a c k m e n focused primarily on the issue of p r o m o t i o n rather than on hiring or
segregation. Although some strikes occurred w h e n black m e n were admitted
to entry-level jobs or over the issue of integrating the workplace, most whitem a l e hate strikes took place when black male workers were promoted into jobs
at higher skill and pay levels. This was a product of the fact that black m e n had
been employed as janitors and unskilled laborers in m a n y defense industries
prior to the war and sought promotions as opportunities expanded. White
males thus seemed to be concerned primarily with maintaining their advantaged e c o n o m i c position. Moreover, their resistance to the elimination of
discrimination was more tenacious and m o r e effective than was the opposition
of white w o m e n to the opening of opportunities for black women. Control
over labor unions, whose opposition to black entry into previously w h i t e jobs
proved an effective barrier to change in m a n y eases, gave white males more
p o w e r to translate prejudice into employer discrimination. 10
For w o m e n workers, on the other hand, the desire to maintain social
distance, rather than a wish to safeguard e c o n o m i c prerogatives, seemed to be
t h e dominant motivation in many eases. White female workers frequently objected to working closely with black w o m e n or sharing facilities with them
b e c a u s e they feared that blacks were dirty or diseased. Work stoppages oceurled in several places after the introduction of black w o m e n into the female
w o r k force. More than 2,000 white w o m e n e m p l o y e d at the U.S. Rubber plant
in Detroit w a l k e d off the job in March 1943, d e m a n d i n g separate b a t h r o o m
facilities. A similar w a l k o u t occurred at the Western Electric plant in
Baltimore in s u m m e r 1943. In both eases m a n a g e m e n t refused to segregate the
facilities and appealed to patriotic and egalitarian values to persuade the striking workers to return to their jobs. Significantly, the one hate strike by white
w o m e n workers that focused on upgrading as well as integration, the Dan
River strike in 1944, was in a traditional female-employing industry. 1
T h e different kinds of labor-force prejudice evidenced by men and w o m e n
during the war indicate that w o m e n w o r k e r s in nontraditional jobs felt a
9 Marshall, Negro Employment, I, 8-45; Oaxaca, "Theory and Measurement," 1-30; Alexis,
"Political Economy," 63-83; Bell, "Economic Basis," 121-35.
to In the railroads, where blacks had historically worked as porters and firemen, white opposition surfaced over their entrance into previously white job categories. Malcolm Ross, All Manner
of Men (New York, 1948}, 125-41. The same pattern prevailed in the auto industry. Weaver,
Negro Labor, 61-77. For further evidence on male resistance to upgrading of blacks, see Foner,
Organized Labor, 238-68; Allan M. Winkler, "The Philadelphia Transit Strike of 1944," Journal of
American History, 59 {June 1972J, 73-89. Herbert Hill contends that unions were even more resistant to FEPC efforts to improve the labor force status of blacks than management. Hill, Black
Labor, 181.
H Alan Gale Clive, "The Society and Economy of Wartime Michigan, 1939-1945" {Ph.D. diss.,
University of Michigan, 1976}, 443; Fleming to Lawrence Cramer, March 25, 1943, box 678,
Records of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice; Jack B. Burke to Fleming,
March 24, 1943, ibid.; Weaver, Negro Labor, 201-02. A walkout over integration occurred at the
Edgewood Arsenal near Baltimore, and many others were threatened. Baltimore Afro-American,
July 31, April 17, 1943.
Black Women Workers during World War II
87
w e a k er sense of job e n t i t l e m e n t than male workers and t hat w o m e n w ere m o r e
t h r e a t e n e d by th e d i m i n u t i o n of social distances than were m e n . Sociological
studies corroborate the fact that w o m e n of all social groups express a s t r o n g e r
wish to avoid social c o n t a c t w i t h m e m b e r s of other groups t han do m e n . According to E m o r y S. Bogardus, this can be attributed to t he i n f r e q u e n c y of
social contacts e x p e r i e n c e d by w o m e n as a result of their c o n f i n e m e n t to
h o m e m a k i n g , to the fact t h a t w o m e n ' s contacts are m o r e likely to be personal
while m e n ' s are professional, and to the c u s t o m a r y c o n s t r a i n t s on w o m e n ' s interracial contacts. 12
Although c o w o r k e r bias u n d o u b t e d l y cont ri but ed to job d i s c r i m i n a t i o n
against black w o m e n , m a n y managers shared the racist beliefs of t hei r w h i t e
e m p l o y ees and used t he t h r e a t of walkouts as a subterfuge for c o n t i n u i n g t h e i r
o w n d i s c r i m i n a t o r y b e h a v i o r and abdicating their r e s p o n s i b i l i t y for e d u c a t i n g
their e m p l o y e e s as to t he neces s i t y and justice of equal hiring practices. W h e n
an Oakland hospital refused to hire trained black w o m e n as d i e t i t i a n s ' aides,
its representatives explained their conduct to the USES w i t h the assert i on t h a t
"Negroes c o u l d n ' t pass Wasserman t e s t s . " Such an at t i t ude, shared by m a n y
in m a n a g e m e n t , deterred em pl oye r s from abandoning d i s c r i m i n a t o r y practices. T h e ease w i t h w h i c h m a n y employers c o u n t e r a c t e d e m p l o y e e r e s i s t a n c e
to the hiring of black w o m e n testifies to the centrality of m anageri al r e s o l v e in
facilitating integration. W h e n faced w i t h the al t ernat i ve of losing t h e i r
u n u s u a l l y high w a r t i m e wages or acquiescing in integration, the vast m a j o r i t y
of w h ite w o m e n r e t u r n e d qui ckl y and peacefully to w ork. T h e fact t hat m a n y
c o m p a n i e s persisted in t hei r exclusion of black w o m e n despite e x a m p l e s of t h e
h a r m o n i o u s in teg r at i on of similar industries within their o w n c o m m u n i t i e s
also attests to the i m p o r t a n c e of m a n a g e m e n t actions. ~3
As a result of the idiosyncratic nat ur e of employer practices duri ng the war,
s o m e areas and s o m e e m p l o y e r s offered greater e m p l o y m e n t o p p o r t u n i t i e s for
black w o m e n th an others. Aircraft plants in the Los Angeles area, for e x m a p l e ,
began hiring black w o m e n for production work relatively early by c o m p a r i s o n
w i t h similar o p er at i ons in o t h e r areas of the country. As a result, by 1945 b l a c k
w o m e n could be found doing industrial w or k in all Los Angeles aircraft plants;
2,000 were e m p l o y e d by N o r t h American Aviation alone. A m o n g the a u t o makers, the Briggs plant in D e t r oi t deviated from i n d u s t r y p a t t e r n s and h i r e d
12Emory S. Bogardus, "Race Reactions by Sexes," Sociology and Social Research, 43 {July-Aug.
1959}, 439-41; Judson R. Landis, Darryl Datwyeler, and Dean S. Dorn, "Race and Social Class as
Determinants of Social Distance," il~d., 51 {Oct. 1966), 81. Black women also score higher on
social distance tests. John B. Edlefsen "Social Distance Attitudes of Negro College Students,"
Phylon, 17 {No. 1, 19561, 83. White desires to maintain social distance increased, 1926-1946, but
information on attitudes by sex was not provided. Emory S. Bogardus, "Racial Distance Changes
in the United States during the Past Thirty Years," Sociology and Social Research, 43 [Nov.-Dec.
1958), 132.
~ Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Final Report, 80; Clive, "Society and Economy of
Wartime Michigan," 443; Decision, Case No. 59, Bussman Manufacturing Company, Jan. 10,
1945, box 342, Records of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice; Weaver, Negro Labor, 81-82. Saul Pleeter has suggested that resistance to hiring blacks may be a function of
managerial avoidance of risk taking as much as managerial racism. Saul Pleeter, "Uncertainty and
Discrimination," in Employment and Income, ed. yon Furstenberg, Horowitz, and Harrison, 96.
88
The Journal of American History
substantial numbers of black women. In Saint Louis, where defense industry
discrimination against black women was the general rule, the Curtiss-Wright
Company and the U.S. Cartridge Company eased the situation somewhat by
providing industrial jobs for hundreds of nonwhite women. These examples,
however, were not typical of employer response; restrictive hiring and segregation remained the rule, even in industries faced with severe labor shortages.
Nowhere was this truer than in the South, where traditional practices remained virtually unchanged, la
Even when defense employers broke with tradition and hired nonwhite
women, they generally segregated them from other women workers and
employed them only for certain kinds of work, usually that which was arduous, dirty, hot, or otherwise disagreeable. A cursory study of black women
workers done by the Women's Bureau of the United States Department of
Labor in 1945 revealed that in many cases nonwhite women were disproportionately represented among women employed in outside labor gangs, in
foundries, and in industrial service work. On the ore docks of the Great Lakes,
for example, the survey found women, predominantly black, shoveling the
leavings of ore from the bottoms of ships onto hoists. According to the USES,
the meat-packing industry in Detroit resorted to black women in large
numbers during the war years to take jobs others had spurned. On the railroads
minority group women found employment in substantial numbers as laborers,
loaders, car cleaners, and waitresses. The city of Baltimore first broke with its
policy of hiring only whites for street-cleaning work in the immediate prewar
period when it began hiring black males~ by 1943, when the black male labor
force was completely exhausted, the city turned to the only labor reserve left-the large numbers of unemployed and underemployed black females, is
The insistence by some employers on segregated work arrangements and
facilities served as a rationale for excluding black women altogether or
limiting their numbers to conform to physical plant requirements. The Glenn
Martin Aircraft Company, for example, hired the same proportion of nonwhite
w o m e n for its integrated plant in Omaha, where the black population was
quite small, as it did for its Baltimore operations, where black women constituted a substantial proportion of the local labor supply. In Baltimore,
however, their numbers were limited because they had to be assigned only to a
small separate subassembly plant. A small aircraft parts firm in Los Angeles
asserted that it could not hire black w o m e n because it separated workers by
sex as well as by race and could not further complicate its managerial and
supervisory difficulties. At the Norfolk Navy Yard, management excluded
black w o m e n from most production jobs on the grounds that women workers
14 Helen M. Gould, "The Negro and the CIO," Common Ground, 5 [Winter 19451, 73-75;
Richard R. Jefferson, "Negro Employment in St. Louis War Production," Opportunity, 22 [Summer 19441, 117; Bailer, "Negro Automobile Worker," 428; "Employment of Negroes in War Industries," May 31, 1943, box 409, Records of the President's Committee on Fair Employment
Practice.
~s "Negro Women War Workers," 5, 6, 9; "Labor Market Developments in the Detroit Area,"
Nov. 5, 1943, box 17, Records of the Bureau of Employment Security; Baltimore Alto-American,
April 24, 1943.
Black Women Workers during World War II
89
had to be segregated by race, although the racial integration of m a l e w o r k e r s
was an accomplished fact. As a result, black m e n worked in a wide variety of
jobs at all skill levels in the yard while the jobs assigned to w o m e n were virtually monopolized by whites. 16
In the major w o m a n - e m p l o y i n g industry in a peacetime e c o n o m y , the textile industry, black w o m e n registered only tentative gains late in the war. As
late as January 1943, a survey of 188 woolen mills revealed that o n l y 40
employed blacks, including 12 out of 20 southern mills and that t h e n u m b e r s
used were quite small in m o s t plants. By May 1944 s o m e barriers had b e e n toppled in southern cotton textile operations with the result that 5.3 percent of
their employees were n o n w h i t e , although most were limited to certain unskilled jobs and employed only on third shifts. Coworker opposition to the hiring of blacks in the mills was not overcome, although the strength of
managerial resolve is difficult to assess. In a Dan River cotton mill in rural
Virginia, m a n a g e m e n t agreed to fire the black w o m e n it had r e c e n t l y hired
after white w o m e n in the plant struck in protest. 17
Even major employers of w o m e n outside of the manufacturing sector, w h o
had considerable difficulty recruiting and retaining w o m e n w o r k e r s as a result
of competition from war industries, retained racial restrictions to a surprising
extent. Despite considerable pressure from the FEPC, the Bell s y s t e m eased
racial barriers only very slowly during the war years. The greatest gains c a m e
in opening up jobs as elevator operators and cafeteria workers and in o t h e r service work. In white-collar categories, small numbers of clerical p o s i t i o n s were
made available to black w o m e n , but positions as telephone operators r e m a i n e d
limited to whites in all but a few locations. American T e l e p h o n e and Telegraph C o m p a n y (ATTJ justified its continued discrimination in that area on
the grounds that operators worked in close proximity to one another, often
leaning across each other's boards. According to " M a Bell," breaching taboos
regarding social integration w o u l d provoke serious coworker resistance, is
ATT's willingness to hire black w o m e n for clerical work, w h i c h paid better
than did switchboard work, in order to accommodate the desire of s o m e w h i t e s
to maintain social distance presaged the long-term patterns by w h i c h blacks
w o u l d integrate the white-collar sector of the female labor force. In general,
employers preferred to hire blacks for clerical, stock-handling, packing, and
wrapping w o r k rather than for sales positions that involved public contact.
16 Weaver, Negro Labor, 125; Smith, "Black Employment," 253; Memo by Cramer, Daniel R.
Donovan, and Elmer W. Henderson, Sept. 29, 1942, box 64, Records of the President's C o m m i t t e e
on Fair Employment Practice.
17 "Labor Market Problems in the Woolen and Worsted Textile Industry," Jan. 5, 1943, box 408,
Records of the President's C o m m i t t e e on Fair Employment Practice; Will Maslow to All Regional
Directors, Sept. 13, 1944, ibid.; "Details of Strike at the Riverside Division of Dan River Cotton
Mills as related to C. K. Coleman by Mary Lumpkin on Saturday, June 24, 1944," box 338,
General Office file, Records of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
{Library of Congress); Norfolk Guide, June 10, 1944.
is Evelyn N. Cooper to C o m m i t t e e Members, March 7, 1945, box 303, Records of the President's C o m m i t t e e on Fair Employment Practice; Clarence M. Mitchell to Cooper, July 21, 1945,
ibid.; Final Disposition Report, Michigan Bell Telephone Company, June 23, 1944, box 674, ibid.;
C o m m i t t e e on Fair Employment Practice, First Report, July 1943-December 1944 {Washington,
1945), 44.
90
The Journal of American History
Although some small gains were registered during the war years, the process of
integrating clerical and sales work did not really begin until the late 1940s,
spurred by demographic change and black protests in m a n y urban areas. ,9
As a result of the serious shortage of nurses during the war and of the governm e n t ' s efforts to encourage the training of nurses, black w o m e n experienced
an appreciable improvement in their access to nursing education programs and
to hospital e m p l o y m e n t as nurses. In order to increase the supply of nurses,
the federal government provided scholarships through the United States Public
H e a l t h Service and the Cadet Nurse Corps, which paid for tuition and books
and provided m o n t h l y allowances for those agreeing to remain in essential
nursing w o r k for the duration of the war. Largely because of this program,
b l a c k enrollment in nursing schools j u m p e d from 1,108 in 1939 to 2,600 in
1945. Moreover, the number of n o n w h i t e nurses and student nurses doubled
b e t w e e n 1940 and 1950. 20
Beginning in the immediate prewar period, the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) worked to end the imposition of quotas and
segregation on black nurses in the Army Nurse Corps. Although the American
N u r s e s ' Association had supported the N A C G N on this issue, it made it a
higher priority in January 1943, w h e n it created a special unit within its National Nursing Council for War Service (NNCWS) to foster the integration of
b l a c k nurses into all war work. This unit, w h i c h was headed by Estelle Massey
Riddle, a past president of the NACGN, worked to encourage black schools to
create or upgrade nursing education programs and to participate in the Cadet
N u r s e Corps, to persuade white schools to admit blacks to their programs, and
to fight discrimination against black nurses by public and private hospitals. In
response to these efforts, the n u m b e r of integrated nursing programs grew from
fourteen to thirty-two, and n u m e r o u s hospitals, including twenty-six in N e w
York City, agreed to employ blacks as nurses for the first time. Under pressure
from the NNCWS, the NACGN, and other civil rights groups, the federal
g o v e r n m e n t integrated the Army and N a v y Nurse Corps late in the war. 2~
W h e t h e r in white-collar or blue-collar work, m a n y of the n e w wartime
opportunities for blacks came from g o v e r n m e n t rather than private-sector emp l o y m e n t . Even within the civil service, however, the black w o m a n found her
gains limited and her position tenuous. M o s t of the industrial work available
to blacks in government-owned shipyards and arsenals was in hot, heavy jobs
19 Gordon F. Bloom, F. Marion Fletcher, and Charles R. Perry, Negro Employment in Retail
Trade: A Study o( Racial Policies in the Department Store. Drugstore, and Supermarket Industries
(Philadelphia, 1972), 39-40; Smith, "Black Employment," 55.
2o "Negro Women War Workers," 13; Estelle Massey Riddle and Iosephine Nelson, "The Negro
Nurse Looks Toward Tomorrow," American Journal of Nursing, 45 (Aug. 1945), 628-29; U.S.
Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census o( the United States: 1940.
Population: The Labor Force (Sample Statistics), Occupational Characteristics (Washington,
1943), 21; IA.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, United States Census o[Population: 1950, vol. IV: Special Reports: Part 1, Chapter B, Occupational Characteristics (Washington,
19561, 1B-29.
21 Riddle and Nelson, "Negro Nurse Looks Toward Tomorrow," 627-29; Mabel Keaton
Staupers, "The Negro Nurse," Opportunity, 20 (Nov. 1942), 332-33; Mabel Keaton Staupers, No
T i m e / o r Prejudice: A Story o( the Integration o( Negroes in Nursing in the United States [New
York, 19611, 99-121.
Black Women Workers during World War II
91
usually reserved to men. Despite this, black w o m e n did claim s o m e i n d u s t r i a l
positions w i t h i n the government. In addition, they broke into s o m e w h i t e collar categories in federal agencies for the first time. Most of t h e s e gains occurred in departmental offices in the Washington, D.C., area rather t h a n in
field offices, where racial barriers persisted. The expansion of w o r k opportunities in the federal government offered few prospects for p e r m a n e n t
gain, however. M o s t black workers concentrated in war agencies a n d d e f e n s e
production work. Moreover, most n e w wartime appointments w e r e m a d e
under the Civil Service C o m m i s s i o n ' s War Service Regulations and c o n f e r r e d
no permanent civil service status. 22
When confronted with employer discrimination, black w o m e n t u r n e d for
help primarily to civil rights groups and the FEPC rather than relying on t h e
W o m e n ' s Bureau or other w o m e n ' s organizations. Given the p o w e r l e s s n e s s
and lack of responsiveness of w o m e n ' s groups to the problems of n o n w h i t e
w o m e n workers, such a choice is understandable. As Susan M. H a r t m a n n has
pointed out, the W o m e n ' s Bureau refused to hire a black w o m a n to i n v e s t i g a t e
the e m p l o y m e n t situation for nonwhites, indicating the low priority it accorded the question. Although the W o m e n ' s Bureau lacked the legal a u t h o r i t y
to prohibit e m p l o y m e n t discrimination on the basis of race or sex, it c o u l d
have provided the informational basis for a sustained campaign on t h e part of
the War M a n p o w e r C o m m i s s i o n {WMCI and the FEPC. Instead, in 1945, it
issued a short, vague report filled with a n o n y m o u s examples of e x p a n d i n g job
opportunities, ignoring the persistence of discrimination, and giving t h e impression of considerably greater mobility than was actually occurring. 2a
To the extent that it concerned itself with e m p l o y m e n t issues of i m p o r t a n c e
to black w o m e n , the W o m e n ' s Bureau directed m o s t of its a t t e n t i o n to
upgrading the pay, security, and working conditions of domestic s e r v a n t s . In
order to m i n i m i z e employer-employee conflict over standards and e x p e c t a tions and to prepare w o m e n more adequately for work in h o u s e h o l d service,
the W o m e n ' s Bureau considered promoting a nationwide training s y s t e m
funded under federal vocational education programs in the public s c h o o l s . T h e
agency also lobbied for the inclusion of domestic service in the social s e c u r i t y
system and for legal standards for hours, wages, and working c o n d i t i o n s for
household workers. Not surprisingly, the bureau seemed as c o n c e r n e d w i t h insuring a sufficient supply of willing workers for middle-class w o m e n as w i t h
improving the circumstances of the w o m e n who performed such w o r k . 24
22 "The Facts about Negro Employment in the Federal Government," [1944], box 396, Records
of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice; "Tables and Summary of Employment of Negroes in the Federal Government," Dec. 1943, box 405, ibid.; Alexander J. Allen to
Regional Director, U.S. Civil Service Commission, Region IV, April 11, 1944, box 448, ibid.
23 "Negro Women War Workers," 1-23; Susan M. Hartmann, "Women's Organizations during
World War II: The Interaction of Class, Race, and Feminism," in Woman "s Being, Woman "s Place:
Female Identity and Vocation in American History, ed. Mary Kelley JBoston, 1979J, 317. According to Hartmann, the actions of the Women's Bureau reflected the class and race bias of white
middle-class women's organizations at the time.
24 "Women's Bureau, Old-Age Insurance for Household Workers," Nov. 1945, box 1718,
Records of the Women's Bureau; boxes 1718 and 1719 of the Records of the Women's Bureau contain much information on wartime shortage of domestic servants; Hartmann, " W o m e n ' s Organizations," 319-20.
92
The Journal of American History
The major agency charged with enforcing equal o p p o r t u n i t y in e m p l o y m e n t
regardless of race, religion, or national origin was the FEPC, an agency created
in 1941 by executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in response to a
threatened march on Washington by civil rights groups protesting discrimina t o r y policies by war contractors. Although the FEPC could theoretically
r e c o m m e n d the removal of war contracts from those w h o continued to discriminate and the WMC could restrict work permits to enforce federal hiring
policies, the federal government was not inclined to hamper the production of
essential war materials in order to foster racial equity. As a result, the agency
had to rely on behind-the-scenes negotiations and the possibility of adverse
p u b l i c i t y generated by public hearings. Although effective in some cases, such
tools proved ineffectual against recalcitrant violators, w h o s e ranks included
s o m e major war industries. The large v o l u m e of complaints and the bureaucratic delays inherent in the situation facilitated evasion, even on the part of
blatant violators officially ordered to cease restrictive hiring practices.
Moreover, the reliance on individual, d o c u m e n t e d complaints rather than on
e m p l o y e r hiring patterns as the basis for action h a m p e r e d effective enforcem e n t . 2s
T h e decision by Roosevelt to place the FEPC under the jurisdiction of the
W M C in July 1942 also handicapped the agency in its efforts to end employm e n t discrimination. W M C head Paul M c N u t t , never enthusiastic regarding
t h e FEPC's goals and afraid that they were incompatible with his agency's
responsibility for allocating scarce m a n p o w e r within war industries, canceled
s c h e d u l e d FEPC hearings on discrimination by the railroads and generally
m a d e racial equity a low priority within WMC. Even after the FEPC was
r e m o v e d from the WMC in May 1943, it was hampered in its efforts to enforce
t h e law by the unwillingness of southern representatives of the W M C and the
USES to cooperate in reporting and seeking to change discriminatory practices.
Although the USES had agreed in September 1943 to refuse to fill employer req u e s t s for workers when they included racial restrictions, its agents in the
S o u t h frequently disregarded this directive. Thus, w h e n blacks with defense
training applied for appropriate work, they were often referred to jobs outside
t h e area. The persistence of discrimination, despite a federal c o m m i t m e n t to
eliminate it, hampered the ability of all blacks, male and female, to find industrial e m p l o y m e n t in the region that still claimed a majority of the black
population. 26
In its official policies the FEPC treated discrimination against black w o m e n
2s Richard Polenberg, War and Society: The United States, 1941-1945 (Philadelphia, 19721,
117-23; Louis Coleridge Kesselman, The Social Politics of FEPC: A Study in Reform Pressure
Movements IChapel Hill, 1948), 15-24; Herbert Garfinkel, When Negroes March: The March on
Washington Movement in the Organizational Politics for FEPC (New York, 1969}; Louis
Ruchames, Race, lobs. and Politics: The Story o[ the FEPC {New York, 1953); Foner, Organized
Labor, 238-43; Hill, Black Labor, 173-84; Winkler, "Philadelphia Transit Strike," 75-76.
2# Rough Draft, Part 1: Wartime Experience, [1943], box 66, Records of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice; Garfinkel, When Negroes March, 111; Ruchames, Race, lobs,
and Politics, 46-56, 149, 158, 190-91.
Black W o m e n W o r k e r s d u r i n g World War II
93
as seriously as d i s c r i m i n a t i o n against black males, although its rate of success
in enforcing compliance in w o m e n ' s cases lagged s o m e w h a t behind t h e rate for
men. After its 1944 hearings in St. Louis, the FEPC ruled that a c o m p a n y t h a t
hired black males while discriminating against black w o m e n was still in violation of the executive order, noting that "partial compliance is partial violat i o n . " Despite pressure from civil rights groups on behalf of black w o m e n
workers and occasional threats of strikes by black male workers, the equal opportunity m a c h i n e r y of the government proved unable to aid m i n o r i t y w o m e n
in any substantial way. By the time the agency had investigated, n e g o t i a t e d , or
held hearings, m u c h valuable time had been lost. For women, this c o u l d be
especially damaging because it m e a n t that anything beyond token c o n f o r m i t y
could be jeopardized by employer unwillingness to expand the f e m a l e w o r k
force late in the war. 2r
The Carter Carburetor C o m p a n y in Saint Louis, for example, m a n a g e d a
m i n i m a l compliance w i t h an FEPC order to cease discriminating w h e n it c a m e
to black m e n , but refused in April 1944 to hire any black w o m e n on t h e
grounds that it had no intention of hiring any more w o m e n . A l t h o u g h t h e
government c o n t i n u e d to pressure the company, it stood by its policies. T h e
Allied Tent M a n u f a c t u r i n g C o m p a n y in New Orleans claimed to h a v e instituted a n o n d i s c r i m i n a t o r y policy regarding w o m e n workers w h e n it announced its i n t e n t i o n in June 1945 to replace all its w o m e n m a c h i n e operators
with m e n (white and black), having decided that w o m e n workers had proved
themselves " u n s a t i s f a c t o r y . " Federal enforcement officials thus f o u n d t h a t
labor-market forces late in the war provided a rationale and a m e a n s for continued resistance by those employers intent on circumventing federal hiring
policies regarding black w o m e n . 2s
The organization that was most cognizant of persisting d i s c r i m i n a t i o n
against black w o m e n and most active in fighting against it was the N a t i o n a l
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As early as
August 1942, Detroit NAACP officer Gloster Current wrote to M c N u t t of the
WMC, complaining that the Ford Motor C o m p a n y was discriminating against
black females as it hired thousands of whites for work at the W i l l o w R u n
Bomber Plant. In March 1943 the Detroit NAACP cooperated w i t h t h e U n i t e d
Auto Workers Inter-Racial C o m m i t t e e in staging a large rally to p r o t e s t continued discrimination against black w o m e n in hiring and black m e n in p r o m o tion on the part of Detroit's war industries. Thereafter both groups c o n t i n u e d
to pressure employers and government officials at all levels on the issue. In a
statement prepared for presentation to the House m a n p o w e r c o m m i t t e e , t h e
NAACP evinced its awareness that the situation was not unique to D e t r o i t but
2r Committee on Fair Employment Practice, First Report, 43; Decision, Case No. 64, McQuay
Norris Manufacturing Company, Dec. 16, 1944, box 344, Records of the President's C o m m i t t e e on
Fair Employment Practice.
28 Theodore E. Brown to Roy A. Hoglund, April 29, 1944, box 342, Rccords of the President's
Committee on Fair Employment Practice; Decisions on Exceptions, Case No. 60, March 1945,
ibid.; Bi-Weekly Report, June 23, 1945, Region XIII, box 403, ibid.
94
The Journal of American History
was a national problem resulting in the serious underutilization of black
womanpower.29
By contrast, the National Urban League seemed not to have discovered the
particular difficulties encountered by black w o m e n until after the FEPC hearings in Saint Louis in August 1944. In an April 1943 issue of Opportunity
dedicated to "brown American womanpower," several articles pointed to the
widening of opportunities for black women, who, it claimed, faced m a n y fewer
problems of discrimination than black men and thus shared more fully in the
benefits of the full employment economy. Charles C. Berldey concluded, for
example, that "midst the problems of racial d i s c r i m i n a t i o n . . . Negro women
have forged ahead and have welded themselves into the semi-skilled and skilled brackets of war production work." After the Saint Louis hearings, however,
the organization took note of the systematic discrimination faced by nonwhite
w o m e n in the war industries there. The National Urban League's position on
the issue seems to have stemmed from a lack of adequate information, rather
than from a lack of concern, for the employment prerogatives of black females,
suggesting that it relied on impressionistic data to support an erroneous assumption. 30
The major organization of black women, the National Council of Negro
Women INCNWJ, was especially sanguine about the opportunities fostered by
wartime changes. In summer 1943, the A[ramerican Women's ]ournal predicted that "neither caste nor class will operate to keep us in kitchens and
laundries and other service occupations in the months to come." Although it
cooperated in the wartime coalition dedicated to strengthening the FEPC and
making it permanent, the NCNW focused its wartime efforts primarily on a
"Keep your lob" campaign directed at black w o m e n workers. Through its
publications and clinics, the NCNW sought to facilitate the integration and
retention of black women in production jobs by helping them adjust to the imperatives of industrial work--and by encouraging conformity to white-middleclass specifications regarding dress, behavior, and attitudes appropriate for
women. Thus, the NCNW publication entitled "Wake Up! Your lob Is in
Danger: A Message to Negro Women Workers" served, not as a call to organization and action to safeguard their employment rights, but rather as a warning to be careful regarding personal appearance, to avoid loud and boisterous
behavior on the job, and to be prompt and hardworking. By focusing on the
problem of job retention rather than that of job acquisition and by directing its
efforts to changing employee behavior rather than employer policies, the
NCNW adopted an accommodationist posture out of step with the growing
29 Gloster B. Current to Paul McNutt, Aug. 26, 1942, box 659, ibid.; Tentative Draft of NAACP
Statement to be Submitted to Pepper Manpower Committee, [1944], box 651, General Office file,
Records of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People~ "Along the
N.A.A.C.P. Battlefront," Crisis, 49 {Dec. 1942}, 390; "20,000 Members in 1943," ibid., 50 [May
1943}, 154.
30 Charles C. Berkley, "War Work--A Challenge to Negro Womanpower," Opportunity, 21
{April 1943), 58; Jefferson, "Negro Employment in St. Louis," 117-18.
Black Women Workers during World War II
95
m i l i t a n c e of b l a c k o r g a n i z a t i o n s d u r i n g the w a r and r e v e a l e d a c e r t a i n n a i v e t 6
r e g a r d i n g t h e r e a l p r o b l e m s faced b y b l a c k w o m e n at t h a t t i m e . a~
lob r e t e n t i o n w a s a s e r i o u s i s s u e for t h o s e w o m e n w h o l a n d e d i n d u s t r i a l
w o r k d u r i n g t h e w a r . T h e p e r s i s t e n c e of d i s c r i m i n a t i o n a n d t h e l a t e e n t r y of
black women into production work, rather than their on-the-iob conduct,
m e a n t t h a t n o n w h i t e f e m a l e s w e r e m o r e l i k e l y t h a n o t h e r s to e x p e r i e n c e l a y offs r e s u l t i n g f r o m c o n t r a c t c o m p l e t i o n s or s e a s o n a l c u t b a c k s . O n c e fired, t h e y
faced g r e a t d i f f i c u l t i e s in f i n d i n g c o m p a r a b l e w o r k . A c c o r d i n g to a n o f f i c i a l o f
the Baltimore Urban League, white women there with industrial experience
w e r e easily r e a b s o r b e d b y w a r i n d u s t r i e s w h i l e b l a c k w o m e n w e r e b e i n g r e ferred b y t h e USES to w o r k as m a i d s , c o u n t e r girls, a n d l a u n d r y p r e s s e r s . As
w o u l d be t h e c a s e for all u n e m p l o y e d w o m e n after t h e w a r , t h o s e w h o t u r n e d
d o w n s u c h iobs f a c e d t h e p o s s i b i l i t y of losing t h e i r u n e m p l o y m e n t b e n e f i t s for
refusing suitable work. Black women thus experienced a much greater degree
of job d i s c o n t i n u i t y t h a n o t h e r s d u r i n g the war, h a m p e r i n g t h e i r a b i l i t y t o acc u m u l a t e s e n i o r i t y . 32
O n c e t h e w a r w a s o v e r a n d A m e r i c a n i n d u s t r y b e g a n its p o s t w a r c o n t r a c t i o n , t h o s e b l a c k w o m e n w h o h a d h e l d i n d u s t r i a l )obs d u r i n g t h e w a r f o u n d
t h a t t h e i r c o n c e n t r a t i o n in c o n t r a c t i n g i n d u s t r i e s , t h e i r l o w s e n i o r i t y , a n d
t h e i r sex c o n t r i b u t e d to e m p l o y m e n t difficulties in t h e p o s t w a r p e r i o d . A m e r ican women, black and white, were overrepresented among those experiencing
layoffs in d u r a b l e g o o d i n d u s t r i e s . W h e n m a n a g e m e n t b e g a n r e h i r i n g w o r k e r s
in t h e r e c o n v e r s i o n p e r i o d , it r e i n s t i t u t e d m o s t p r e w a r d i s c r i m i n a t o r y p o l i c i e s
r e g a r d i n g w o r k i n g w o m e n , e v e n to t h e p o i n t of d i s r e g a r d i n g t h e i r s e n i o r i t y
rights, a p r a c t i c e f a c i l i t a t e d b y u n i o n a c q u i e s c e n c e . USES officials r e i n f o r c e d
e m p l o y e r p o l i c i e s b y d e n y i n g u n e m p l o y m e n t b e n e f i t s to t h o s e w o m e n w h o
r e f u s e d referrals to jobs in t r a d i t i o n a l f e m a l e - e m p l o y i n g fields. T o a g r e a t e r extent than white women, black women were victimized by the postwar evict i o n of w o m e n f r o m iobs in d u r a b l e goods i n d u s t r i e s . ~3
3t The posture of the National Council of Negro Women [NCNW) was probably shaped by its
middle-class membership and by the facts that it was headquartered in Washington, D.C., and
directed many of its efforts at black women recently integrated into clerical work in the federal
civil service. Mariorie McKenzie, "Against the Lean Years," A[ramerican Women "s ]ournal [Summer 1943), 6; NCNW News Release, Sept. 10, 1943, box 11, series 5, Records of the National
Council of Negro Women [National Archives of Black Women's History, Washingtonl; "Wake
Up! Your Job Is In Danger: A Message to Negro Women Workers, [1943], ibid; "Wartime Employment Clinics" [1943], ibid.; Garfinkel, When Negroes March, 179-80; Richard M. Dalfiume,
"The 'Forgotten Years' of the Negro Revolution," ]oumal of American History, 55 {June 1968),
90-106; Sitkoff, "Racial Militancy," 679-81 stresses the growing conservatism of civil rights activities toward the end of the war.
3a Allen to Lawrence B. Fenneman, May 5, 1944, box 448, Records of the President's Committee
on Fair Employment Practice; A. G. Mezerik, "Getting Rid of the Women," Atlantic, 175 (June
1945), 82.
aa Mary Pidgeon, "Employment of Women in the Early Postwar Period with Background of
Prewar and War Data," Women's Bureau Bulletin INo. 211, 1946); "Detroit," [1946], box 66,
Records of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice; Mariorie McKenzie Lawson
to leanetta Welch Brown, Oct. 23, 1945, box 11, Series 5, Records of the National Council of Negro
Women~ Committee on Fair Employment Practice, Final Report, 62.
96
The Journal of American History
Even the UAW, which had been in the vanguard of those working for
widened industrial opportunities for black w o m e n workers during the war, ignored the seniority rights of w o m e n in the postwar period and allowed
m a n a g e m e n t to determine how m a n y w o m e n workers there w o u l d be and who
t h e y should be. Such policies proved especially detrimental to black w o m e n
workers, for w h o m management had little e n t h u s i a s m . The union allowed the
auto companies to hire inexperienced male workers in preference to w o m e n
w i t h w a r t i m e seniority despite u n i o n - m a n a g e m e n t contract provisions to the
contrary. In the postwar period, the UAW and some automakers iointly agreed
that local unions would no longer be required to recognize the seniority of a
worker who had not been recalled within a specified period of time. Because
black w o m e n had been largely excluded from postwar rehiring, the arrangem e n t served to lock in the discriminatory policy. Although several protested to
the union regarding the discriminatory effects of the agreements, they had no
success in changing the situation. 34
The postwar situation at the General Cable Corporation in Saint Louis
typified the patterns affecting the opportunities of black w o m e n workers.
U n d e r pressure from the FEPC, m a n a g e m e n t at the c o m p a n y had sponsored a
belated introduction of black w o m e n into production work. After the war, the
cord assembly department, where the c o m p a n y had assigned m o s t of its
w o m e n production workers, was closed and only w o m e n with several years
seniority were retained. No black w o m e n survived the cutbacks, By contrast,
black men, w h o benefited from their ealier integration into production w o r k
and the postwar bias in favor of male workers, c o n s t i t u t e d 16 percent of male
e m p l o y e e s in 1947 and could be found working in every iob classification. 3s
In other w o r k categories black w o m e n fared s o m e w h a t better in the postwar
years. Although some apparently lost e m p l o y m e n t in service, sales, and
clerical work as a result of competition from displaced white w o m e n , most
managed to maintain their hold on lower-level iobs in the female work force.
Despite a t t e m p t s by USES officials in some local offices to force black w o m e n
to return to domestic service work by threatening to withhold u n e m p l o y m e n t
c o m p e n s a t i o n benefits, enough iob opportunities in other categories remained
available to prevent a massive return to h o u s e h o l d work. Even so, domestic
service remained the primary occupation of black w o m e n , providing employm e n t to 782,520 in 1950, 40 percent of the black female work force, a6
34 William H. Oliver to Lillian Hatcher, May 4, 1948, box 5, Fair Practices D e p a r t m e n t - W o m e n ' s Bureau Records of the United Auto Workers IWayne State University Archives of Labor
History and Urban Affairs, Detroit, Mich.I; S u m m a r y of M i n u t e s , National United Auto
W o r k e r s - C o n g r e s s of Industrial Organizations Advisory Council on Discrimination Meeting,
April 2, 1947, box 2, ibid.; Detroit News, Nov. 8, 1945; New York Times, Nov. 9, 1945; Detroit
Free Press, Nov. 9, 1945; Nancy Gabin, " W o m e n Workers and the UAW in the Post-World War II
Period: 1 9 4 5 - 1 9 5 4 / ' Labor History, 21 [Winter 1979-19801, 5-30.
as Ross, Ali Manner of Men, 302.
a6 C o m m i t t e e on Fair Employment Practice, Final Report, 54; Lawson to leanetta Welch Brown,
Oct. 23, 1945, box 11, series 5, Records of the National Council of Negro Women; U.S. Departm e n t of C o m m e r c e , Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Population: 1950, Vol. IV:
Special Reports: Part 1, Chapter B, Occupational Characteristics, 1B-34.
Black Women Workers during World War II
97
As a result of the w a r t i m e experience, black w o m e n made substantial progress in the operatives occupational category, although their position in this
area deteriorated s o m e w h a t in the late 1940s. One of the m o s t i m p o r t a n t areas
of expansion for n o n w h i t e w o m e n was the apparel industry, which w i t n e s s e d a
350 percent increase in black female e m p l o y m e n t during the 1940s. By 1950, it
offered e m p l o y m e n t to 56,910 black w o m e n and ranked second in t h e
operatives category behind laundry and dry cleaning establishments, w h e r e
105,000 black females were employed. Other major sources of industrial w o r k
for women, including textiles, remained virtually closed to blacks during the
1940s. In the durable goods industries, which had experienced t h e greatest
wartime expansion, black w o m e n were a rarity in the postwar period. In 1950,
only 60 black w o m e n held jobs as operatives in aircraft plants, w h i l e 2,730
claimed similar positions in the auto industry, a7
In the long run, the greatest benefit of the w a r t i m e experience for b l a c k
w o m e n workers derived from their m o v e m e n t in large n u m b e r s o u t of t h e
poverty of the rural South to the possibilities provided by an u r b a n , industrialized e c o n o m y . The extent to which those possibilities were realized in
the decade of the 1940s can be overstated, however. Both during and after t h e
war, black w o m e n entered the urban female labor force in large n u m b e r s o n l y
to occupy its lowest rungs. Largely excluded from clerical and sales w o r k , t h e
growth sectors of the female w o r k force, black w o m e n found w o r k p r i m a r i l y in
service jobs outside the household and in unskilled blue-collar categories.
Although m a n y experienced some upward mobility during the war, their relative position within the American e c o n o m y remained the same.
Wartime c i r c u m s t a n c e s illustrate the extent to w h i c h an e c o n o m i c s y s t e m
that had historically allocated work according to race and sex could tolerate a
high level of u n e m p l o y m e n t and u n d e r e m p l o y m e n t even in a t i m e of labor
shortage in order to m i n i m i z e the amount of change generated by t e m p o r a r y
and aberrant conditions. By stressing the modification of traditional p a t t e r n s
fostered by rapid e c o n o m i c growth, scholars ignore the degree to w h i c h prejudices inhibited change and constrained the rate of e c o n o m i c expansion e v e n
in the face of strong patriotic, political, and economic incentives favoring expanded output at all cost. For black women, especially, what is significant
about the war experience is the extent to which barriers remained intact.
37 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Negroes in the United States: Their
Employment and Economic Status (No. 1119, 1952), 15, 17; U.S. Department of Commerce,
Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census o[ the United States: 1940. Population: The Labor Force
(Sample Statistics), Occupational Characteristics, 21; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of
the Census, United States Census o[ Population: 1950. Vol. IV: Specia} Reports: Part 1, Chapter B,
Occupational Characteristics, 1B-33, 1B-34.