Browse Items (67 total)

Toward the end of the war, recruitment levels for women were still lower than the government had expected. An ongoing debate ensued as to whether or not women should have been drafted: if men were forced into the war effort, some thought women…

In 1943, LIFE published an article that gave a behind-the-scenes look into the "life" of WAVE officers during their training; this aided in the mass understanding of women's roles during the war and brought their efforts into the limelight.

LIFE Magazine made the cover of their March 1943 issue a striking photo of women in WAVES, the Navy's women's reserve.

In order to get more women involved in the war, the Recruiting and Induction Station of the U.S. Army released an advertisement involving a Q&A about being in the WAAC. It includes the persuasive language necessary to convince women that to be…

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…

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…

At a time when a shortage of nurses was the highest concern for the country's safety and success in WWII, an abundance of aides and volunteers -- nearly 100,00 women -- came forward, unpaid, and performed routine duties in hospitals.

As the United States' involvement in WWII began, the need for nurses was at an all-time high; at an attempt to exhaust all recruitment efforts, LIFE magazine published this cover in January 1942, in hopes of reaching a more expansive audience in a…

Modine Manufacturing Co. released an advertisement in 1943 that posed the issue of women and their difference in the workplace; claiming their difference in their "strength, physiological reactions, and mental attitudes," the ad suggests that their…

Women who worked in aluminum mills during WWII were often designated the job of inspecting and testing the thickness of sheets with a gage test; this photo depicts an Alcoa woman doing so.