Women at Home

To ensure that women were doing their part inside the home, the Consumer-Welfare Committee created the "Consumer's Pledge," a skip of paper that housewives were asked to sign to pledge being waste-free and conservative in order to help the country's economy.

Whether every woman wanted to or not, not every single woman could leave the home and enter the workforce. However, this predicament did not limit their ability to make their contributions known. Commodity shortages were a major repercussion of the United States’ entry into the war, leaving the country to ration. With many men on the battlefield, women were put up to the task in order to control the flow of goods. Along with limiting their consumption of goods and purchasing war bonds, the government encouraged women to grow produce in their own backyards. These gardens were coined as “victory gardens,” and rightfully so: the success of the United States’ war effort was its ability to keep its economy afloat, and this couldn’t have been accomplished without the consistent effort of housewives across the nation.

Additionally, although some women could not afford to make themselves available for 40+ hours a week to work in the war plants or enter the military, women also took up jobs that tied up the odds and ends that millions of men left behind. Women became postal service workers, bus drivers, cashiers, and farmers, to name a few.

In order for the everyday life of the country to maintain its peace and remain calm, women had to take on new roles on the homefront to ensure that its day-to-day functions went uninterrupted.

In Mansfield, Ohio, 350 wives of war plant employees started a campaign titled "Health for Victory," which educated war plants about health and wellness, as well as coordinated events accordingly; this initiative eventually expanded out to more regional war plants.

In 1942, American Home Magazine released a chart and outline that the deemed the "Victory Diet" chart and the "Victory Rules." Amidst the United States' involvement in WWII, health and fitness became a major priority to those on the home front, especially women entering the workforce. As a part of the War Advertising Council's many campaigns during WWII, the "Victory Diet/Rules" campaign worked to establish wellness among American citizens, an effort that would last well beyond the war.

An advertisement showing the ways that women can conserve paper for the war effort. It was created by the War Advertising Council in cooperation with the War Production Board and the Office of War Information.

Along with the push for "victory gardens," the United States' War Advertising Council produced a "vitamins for victory" campaign that pushed for agriculture, self-sufficiency, and good health on the home front.

For those who could only contribute to the war effort from the comfort of their homes, victory gardens quickly became known from household to household. During a time of rationing and food shortage, Americans were asked to grow their own as their way of helping.

In 1943, the Business and Professional's Women's Clubs chose "Living on the Home Front" as the theme for National Women's Business Week, claiming that "war and peace must be won on the home front before they can be won in the world at large."

Del Monte campaigned for food rationing in their wartime advertisements, asking women to stock up on their canned fruits but also calling to action to need for one's own victory garden and canning for the winter.