Women on the Home Front in Paterson, New Jersey: A World War II Lesson

A Women's Army Auxiliary Corps recruiting poster. U.S. Army, via UNT Digital Library.

About this lesson

This lesson is part of a Park Service series on the World War II home front in Paterson, New Jersey, an American World War II Heritage City. Using wartime newspapers, it looks at women's paid war work and military service, with an extension on volunteering by the city's Jewish women. (Children's volunteering has its own lesson.)

Essential question: How did women in Paterson contribute to the war effort in industry and service?

Students will:

• explain why women entered Paterson's industrial workforce, and why it mattered;
• describe their experiences — safety, kinds of jobs, challenges and benefits;
• compare wartime views of women at work.

A map of Paterson helps throughout. The lesson's photographs are in the Park Service's Paterson gallery.

Reading 1: Building warplanes

From "Aviation Industry To Attain 'Impossible' Warplane Output in 1943," The Morning Call, January 1, 1943.

The Curtiss-Wright divisions leaned on women as men left for the services:

• Aeroplane Division: employment more than doubled; it had to replace more than 9,000 workers who joined up, and expected women to be more than 50% of its workforce by January 1, 1943. 99% of its trainees were women; it planned to send women college students to technical universities to become engineering assistants.
• Wright Engine Division: its workforce was up about 1,500% on prewar levels; it had lost more than 5,000 men to the services and was hiring more than 30,000 women in New Jersey and Ohio.
• Propeller Division: also hiring many women.

An executive, Mr. Vaughan, said women seemed "as much at home in our machine shops as they are in their own kitchens," working as machine tool operators, assemblers, coremakers, bench workers, technicians, production planners and draftsmen, and that their work had been "highly satisfactory." Training schools expanded, and the plants also trained mechanics for the Army.

By the numbers (Paterson Evening News, August 25, 1943): seven Wright Aeronautical plants in the area employed 10,912 women in August 1943 — 3,795 of them hired between January and August 25 alone. Women's absentee rate was about 3%.

On the job (Paterson Evening News, January 12, 1943): 30 employee counselors acted as guides and "house mothers" to new women workers at Wright Aeronautical, fielding questions from "What is a cylinder head?" to which lotion removes oil and where to meet people their own age.

Reading 2: Dressing for safety

From "Women War Workers Show Sensible Approach To the Problem," The News, January 28, 1943.

The Office of War Information found New Jersey's women war workers mostly sensible about clothes that protected them from jobs that had been strange to them months before. The U.S. Department of Labor's Women's Bureau advised:

• safety caps, with hair fully tucked in, to prevent scalping and other injuries;
• fireproof hair covering for welders;
• covered hair against dust, fumes, oil and grease, to prevent carrying toxins and skin infections.

At the Wright plant in Paterson, each new woman got a uniform — navy denim twill slacks, blouse, canvas apron and a transparent rayon cap. No jewelry; low-heeled leather shoes; no open toes for machine operators; goggles for grinders, and masks where there was dust. At Curtiss's Caldwell plant, women were urged to wear steel-toed shoes.

Reading 3: Joining the WAAC

From "Many Women Seek Blanks at P.O. for WAAC Training," Paterson Evening News, October 23, 1942. The article uses racial terms no longer used today — worth discussing with students.

Paterson women rushed the Post Office for Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) applications — so many that the forms ran out before 3 o'clock. The recruiter, Lt. Jean Robb, called the response "wonderful." The WAAC especially wanted musicians (trombone, French horn, cornet, clarinet, saxophone, drums), plus stenographers, switchboard operators, cooks, bookkeepers, typists, dietitians, clerks, camera and photo lab technicians and radio mechanics. Black women were urged to apply. Recruits aged 21 to 45, married or not, trained for four weeks in Des Moines, Iowa.

Discussion questions

Reading 1

• How did the aviation industry's demand for workers change during the war?
• Why did Mr. Vaughan compare machine shops to kitchens? What stereotypes were women challenging?
• What roles did women fill, and how were they trained and supported?

Reading 2

• The article says these jobs "only a short time ago, were strange to thousands" of women. How did the war widen their opportunities?
• What safety concerns did women face? Why does the writer keep mentioning attractiveness?

Reading 3

• How did Paterson women respond to the WAAC recruiter?
• Why might the Army have stressed musicians?
• Why do you think the WAAC accepted women of different ages, races and marital status?

Closing

• How did Paterson's women contribute to the war effort? What other contributions might this lesson leave out?
• How did women in traditionally male jobs change views of what women could do?

Extension: Jewish women's volunteer work

Women also volunteered. Paterson's Jewish community raised money and made goods for Jewish humanitarian needs, often through B'nai B'rith. Even before the U.S. entered the war, in March 1940, Mrs. Evelyn Levy, president of the Women's Auxiliary of B'nai B'rith of Paterson, announced its part in the American Red Cross appeal for blankets for Polish war refugees (The Morning Call, March 8, 1940). Across 325 auxiliaries and 35,000 members, women held "blanket showers" — a new blanket as the price of admission — and other fundraisers, with blankets handed in bulk to the local Red Cross chapter.

• How did the auxiliary plan to meet its quota?
• How did the partnership with the Red Cross link the home front with needs overseas?

More in the series: African American contributions on the home front in Paterson.

Sources

Based on "(H)our History Lesson: Women's Contributions to the Home Front in Paterson, New Jersey, WWII Heritage City," by Sarah Nestor Lane, an educator and consultant with the Park Service's Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education under a National Council on Public History cooperative agreement; published by the National Park Service and in the public domain; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The wartime newspaper articles are summarized rather than reprinted. Photographs credited to the Paterson Museum and the Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey are not reproduced.