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Working Class Rosies: Women Industrial Workers during World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Sherrie A. Kossoudji  and
Laura J. Dresser
Sherrie A. Kossoudji
Affiliation:
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109–1220.
Laura J. Dresser
Affiliation:
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109–1220.
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Abstract

After joining the industrial workforce during World War II, women disappeared from industrial employment with postwar reconversion. This article uses data from Ford Motor Company employee records to describe female industrial workers, their work histories before Ford, and their exit patterns from Ford. We draw a more complete picture of these industrial workers and discuss the differences between those who chose to leave Ford and those who left involuntarily. Contrary to popular myth it was housewives, along with African-American and older women, those with the fewest outside opportunities, who were more likely to be laid-off.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fifty-First Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 431 - 446
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1992

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References

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