As World War II had emerged in Europe in 1939, the United States and its citizens had taken a hard stance on avoiding any more wars. The global community had believed that The Great War, later renamed World War I, had been the “war to end all wars”. Sadly, this was not true, as there would have been no need to rename The Great War to World War I, which indicated that there was, indeed, a World War II.
However, the United States government legislated the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. The act required that all men between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five to register for the draft, in event that the U.S. enters the war; interestingly enough, this was the first peacetime draft for the U.S ( The National WWII Museum 1). Eventually, the draft extended its criteria, now requiring men as young as eighteen to enlist in the armed forces; by 1945 fifty million men had enlisted and ten million were active in the military (The National WWII Museum 1).
As “the sleeping giant” had been awoken, following the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor, American patriotism hit a new high and the war became a national effort. With nearly thirty-eight percent of Americans enlisted in the army, the workforce was in dire need of replacement. During this period of time, employers and the U.S. government targeted a demographic that had not been a consistent part of the American workforce: Women.
The U.S. government championed women through J. Howard Miller’s celebrated, We Can Do It!”, poster. The iconic woman in the poster is most commonly referred to as, Rosie. Her namesake refers to Norman Rockwell’s wartime illustrations depicting a hardworking and patriotic female, created to inspire American women and provide them with a sense of purpose in the war effort. The inspiration for Rosie was real-life Mary Doyle, a nineteen-year-old from Vermont, at the time that the illustrations were initially produced.
By 1944, approximately thirty-five percent of all women became part of the civilian workforce (Women & WWII 1). Women were regularly being hired to fill the place of their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Incredibly, ” female employment in defense industries grew by 462 percent from 1940 to 1944″ (Women & WWII 1).
From Ancient Greek, kairos most clearly translates to an “opportune” period of time. Kairos can be most understood from idioms, such as “strike while the iron is hot” or the common idiomatic expression, “seize the day”. The United States government was faced with a labor shortage when it was most critical to produce a surplus of weaponry and essential supplies for its armed forces. It’s evident that the U.S. government campaign identified a most opportune moment to target patriotic women to join the war effort and capitalize on their patriotism, but women of the World War II-era also received their own “big break” to emerge as part of the workforce.
Prior to World War II, just twenty-some-odd years ago, women were just given the constitutional right to vote. Subsequent to the stock market crashed in 1929, it became necessary for middle-class families to become double-income homes. However, it became commonplace for employers to hire single women instead of those who were married, as their means of survival was thought to be secured by their husband’s salary. Women who filled roles in jobs once held by men, prior to World War II, were found to greatly enjoy their new careers and […] polls [even] indicated that 61 to 85 percent of women workers wanted to keep their jobs after the war (Women & WWII). Unfortunately, upon the soldier’s returns, women were cast aside and the men who had formerly held their position were rehired.
Although unfortunate for these women, they had gotten their own taste of freedom and enjoyment from finding satisfaction outside of domestic life. Despite its short life span, the “Rosie” era left a lasting impression of independence and gratification that would eventually lead to greater waves of kairos for women’s liberation, in the coming decades.
Works Cited
“Research Starters: The Draft and World War II: The National WWII Museum: New Orleans.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans, www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/draft-and-wwii.
“Women & World War II.” Women & WWII | Camp Hale | MSU Denver, www.msudenver.edu/camphale/thewomensarmycorps/womenwwii/.
I’m not sure where your rhetorical claim is.
You give a lot of the history behind this artifact, but not enough on how that history relates to the artifact and determines what choices made it so successful and iconic in its time. I’d like to hear more about that.
This is a good example of prime time kairos. Which is why I think that you could have spent even more time talking about how the timming of the poster was so powerfull.
The amount of background information I personally find useful as your analzying an advertisemnet piece from the 1940s. This helps me, as the reader, to follow the events of the time. Although with all the background I feel your analysis becomes lost as there is already so much information to take in. I’d like to know more about what you have to analzye about the time.