Dorman Smith
During World War II in America, there was a need for employees to work in plants supplying the war effort. Since a large percentage of young American men were fighting in the war, the government encouraged women to work in the manufacturing plants through the “Rosie the Riveter” campaign. In America, the traditional family construct was that the husband earned the money and the wife kept the house and raised the children. As a result of the war, this concept changed.
One example of how women went to work to help the war effort was at the Bendix Scintilla Magneto Division in Sydney, New York. The New York Times reported that in December 1942, one year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 625 of 1,000 new hires at the plant were women.