Homefront

By:T.A.Y.

Propaganda

• Patriotism and Propaganda were high• Thousands of posters and magazine

advertisements were used for recruiting• Glamorous posters often enticed people to

join the war effort

Propaganda

• Many popular songs came about during this time period

• Often talked about women’s role in the war• Many women often took the motto: We can

do it!• Women’s work on the home front was

essential to the nation• Rosie the Riveter

All the day long,Whether rain or shine,She's a part of the assembly line.She's making history,Working for victory,Rosie the Riveter.Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage,Sitting up there on the fuselage.That little girl will do more than a male will do.Rosie's got a boyfriend, Charlie.Charlie, he's a Marine.Rosie is protecting Charlie,Working overtime on the riveting machine.When they gave her a production "E,"She was as proud as she could be.There's something true about,Red, white, and blue about,Rosie the Riveter.

• Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQ0M0wx00s

Changing Role of Women

• Gender roles temporarily altered• Women filled openings left by men who went to do

service– Factory workers

• Volunteer organizations with the war effort• Military Nurses• Women were not allowed to participate in battle– Were allowed during “noncombat missions”– Also, very dangerous– Ferry planes between places; required pilot training

Propaganda

• Women urged by propaganda to:– Carry groceries instead of use the car to save

rubber– To grow more of the family’s food– To raise money and contribute to bonds

• ALL FOR THE WAR CAUSE

In 1939, the average housewife hardly knew a calorie from a protein; by the end of the war, to the delight, if embarrassment of the Minister of Food, she was writing angrily to complain if her corner-shop was failing to provide her family's share of body-building and energy-giving foods..

- Norman Longmate, How we lived then (1973)

Women were involved in the war in almost every aspect

Women and…

• The Evacuation Service• The government was worried that a new war

might begin when Hitler came to power in 1933. They were afraid that cities would be targets for bombing raids by aircraft.

• Take their children to the station, wave them off, and bear most of the emotional pain of the parting.

Women and…

• Home Life• Had to keep the home going and bring up

their children• Bear the load of the extra cleaning, cooking

and problems in the host homes.

The war was the best thing that ever happened to us. I was as green as grass and terrified if anyone spoke to me... At work you did exactly as your boss told you; then you went home to do exactly what your husband told you. The war changed all that. The war made me stand on my own two feet..

Mona Marshall, a nursemaid who had become a steelworker during the war, said this in 1986.

Women and…

• Work• 97% of women thought that women should go

out to work to help the war effort• Worked in the dirty and innapropriate

conditions of factories– Many factory toilet, where men had worked didn’t

have doors.• join the Women's Land Army to help farmers – about 80,000 women became 'Land Girls'

The war affected women enormously.   The war effort required their participation and co-operation in every aspect of their lives...      By 1942 more men, women and children had been killed at home than soldiers in action.

Caroline Lang, Keep Smiling Through: Women in the Second World War (i989)One of a series of school textbooks: Women in History, about the part women have played in the past.