For the duration: Men, women and work in World War II

This study analyzes the experiences of women working in steel plants of the Monongahela Valley of Western Pennsylvania during the Second World War utilizing the social phenomenology perspective of Alfred Schutz. Specifically, the author wants to know why women, as a group, did not collectively challenge postwar layoffs. Before World War II women did not work in production and most clerical jobs in the steel industry. Because there was a shortage of labor for production and clerical work, women were hired to do unskilled and semiskilled jobs in production, clerical production, and clerical jobs in plant offices. Women entered the mills to work because the jobs paid very well. Most women who were working outside the home tripled their salaries when they went to the mills. One would assume women working at well-paying jobs would want to remain and if forced to leave, would organize a protest. In fact, the steel companies anticipated women would protest. Based on evidence from 31 oral histories with women who worked in the steel plants and a document analysis of archival records of U.S. Steel for the war years, the author reconstructs the life-worlds of working class women. The gender belief system changed little as a result of the war. Women in production areas regarded their jobs as men's jobs and the United Steelworkers of America, C.I.O. as a "man's organization." Women working in clerical jobs had some chance of remaining but were usually downgraded. The layoffs were justified by the steel companies as necessary because wartime waivers of protective legislation were rescinded. Finally, both married and single women believed they could manage a household on the income of a steelworker's wages. The optimism was the result of wartime raises and a postwar raise in March of 1946.