Six Million Workers Strong
Happy International Women’s Day!
Something I always thought was interesting. While more than 350,000 women volunteered to serve in the U.S. military in WWII across the WAACs, MCWRs, WASPS, WAVES, and SPARs, “freeing a man for combat,” and another 7.5 million volunteered with the Red Cross at all levels, their biggest impact was via the more than 6 million women who took wartime jobs in factories. At one point, an estimated 65 percent of those employed in the aviation industry in the U.S. were women.
Uncle Sam made efforts to convince women, who had no young children to raise, that they had a duty to take war jobs.
One of the biggest secrets to the Arsenal of Democracy.
Keep that in mind whenever you see a beautiful old warbird or WWII-era museum ship. They were usually built with a woman’s touch.
These period photos are from the USAF Archives.
