NOTES

1993 by Michael J. Lewandowski

'Historian Alice Kessler-Harris argues that historians have generally overestimated the number of new women workers who joined the labor force as a result of the war. She estimates that three million women who joined the work force during the war were unemployed and actively looking for work. An additional one million women who reentered wage work in the 1940s, she suggests, had given up looking for employment during the 1930s. The national defense drive acted to integrate these women back into the work force. Kessler-Harris also estimates that an additional 750,000 women would have joined the work force, "war or no war," in response to the population's growth and maturity, and "the continuing twentieth-century trend of women moving into the work force." Kessler-Harris conservatively places the number of additional women who entered the labor force solely in response to the war at 3,500,000. While KesslerHarris's number is significantly lower than estimates offered by other historians, it remains undeniable that the war acted to introduce many women to paid labor. All of the statistical information referred to in the first paragraph of this article and this note has been taken from Alice Kessler-Harris, Out To Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (1982), pp. 276-277.

2Information pertaining to working wives and mothers has been taken from Kessler-Harris, Out To Work, p. 177; and William H. Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970 (1978), pp. 145-147.

3For an extended discussion on the segregation of women during the depression in lower-paying occupations lacking in prestige, refer to Ruth Milkman, Gender At Work: The Dynamics of Sex Segregation During World War II (1987), pp. 27-33.

Chafe, The American Woman, pp. 147-148, 152-154. 5Kessler-Harris, Out To Work, chap. 8, pp. 250-251. "For examples of complaints sent to the Women's Bureau (WB),

refer to the General Correspondence of the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor, 1919-1948, Office of the Director, Records of the Women's Bureau, Record Group 86, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC (hereinafter cited as RG 86, NA).

'Milkman, Gender At Work, pp. 27-33.

Legislative campaigns designed to drive married women out of the work force are briefly described in Kessler-Harris, Out To Work, p. 257. The negative attitudes of most Americans toward married women left working wives and mothers vulnerable to their employers. Realizing how difficult it was for married women to find work, employers often took advantage of these workers. For example, Florence Fleming, a telephone operator from the Tri-State Telephone and Telegraph Company of St. Paul, MN, wrote to the Department of Labor protesting the treatment her employers parceled out to married women. "We are not allowed to join [the company's local] union, receive any sick benefits or vacations," she explained. Though the company increased the salaries of married women in a timely manner, it also laid them off "just as [they] were due for a vacation, thus breaking their service record." She continued, "we are immediately replaced by some other married women, [but] when we apply for unemployment compensation by the time we receive our first check we are called to work." Besides being cheated out of vacation pay, Fleming complained that married women were forced to take late shifts while single women received early hours. Evidence from the correspondence files of the Women's Bureau reveals that many married women avoided such treatment by hiding the fact that they had husbands and children. Florence Fleming to the WB, Dec. 1, 1941, General Correspondence of the WB, Office of the Director, RG 86, NA.

Theresa De Keper to Franklin Roosevelt, Sept. 5, 1940, ibid. 10 Mary Anderson to Charlotte Hughes, n.d., ibid.

11There are a number of historical works that focus on the

many methods employers used in resisting the placement women in "male" occupations. Kessler-Harris, Out To Work, chap. 10; Milkman, Gender At Work; and Karen Anderson, Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relations, and the Status of Women During World War II (1982), document the tactics used by employers to limit the status of female war workers. Each of these historians also suggests that many employers were eager to remove female workers from traditionally male occupations as the need for war materials slackened. According to all three scholars, labor unions and government agencies did little to stop this attack on the heightened status of women workers at the end of the war. 12Nelson Lichtenstein, Labor's War At Home: The CIO in World War II (1982), pp. 78-79, 182, discusses the reasons for much of the labor movement's growth during the 1940s.

13A. G. Mezerik, "Getting Rid of Women," The Atlantic Monthly, June 1945, p. 79.

14 Although Bagwell and O'Connor visited over one hundred locals in the Midwest, significant evidence exists for only seventy-one of their visits. It must also be noted that the agents occasionally asked more questions on certain visits than on others. I have taken care to indicate in the body of this article or in the notes how many locals answered a given question.

15Chafe, The American Woman, p. 144.

16Schedule Numbers 1-108, Women in Unions in Midwestern War Industry Areas, 1943–1945, Unpublished Materials, 1919– 1972, Division of Research, RG 86, NA.

17 Gladys Dickinson's observation is taken from Kessler-Harris, Out To Work, p. 291.

18The number of locals asked by the Women's Bureau to describe the attendance of women members was sixty-two. Thirtyseven locals (60 percent) indicated that the attendance of women was "poor" or "not very good." Eight locals (13 percent) described the level of women's attendance as "good." Another seven local officers (11 percent) indicated that women's attendance was "very good" or "excellent." Remaining surveys tended to compare male attendance to female. Schedules 1-108, Women in Unions in Midwestern War Industry Areas, Unpub. Materials, 1919-1972, Div. of Research, RG 86, NA.

19Twenty-five locals were asked to compare the attendance of male and female members. In eleven instances (44 percent) both genders were characterized as uninterested in union meetings. Ibid. 20Ibid.

25 Women in twenty-three out of seventy-one locals (32 percent) had little formal impact on local affairs. Ibid.

26 John J. Corson, Manpower For Victory: Total Mobilization For Total War (1943), p. 56.

27The community studies referred to can be found in Community Studies, Unpub. Materials, 1919–1972, Div. of Research, RG 86, NA.

28 In the course of conducting their study, O'Connor and Bagwell encountered two locals in which union officers complained of the difficulty of organizing inexperienced women workers. Schedules 14 and 53, Women in Unions in Midwestern War Industry Areas, Unpub. Materials, 1919–1972, Div. of Research, RG 86, NA.

29 Baltimore Postwar Study, General Comments of Workers, Unpub. Materials, 1919-1972, Div. of Research, RG 86, NA. 30One of the most effective methods historians have used to

demonstrate the lack of consideration employers and government agencies accorded American working women has been to show the sensitive attempts of British institutions to remedy the domestic burdens of female war workers. In Britain, women benefited from subsidized communal kitchens, which produced and packaged hot meals; inexpensive laundry and cleaning services; and extensive child care facilities. More tellingly, British industry showed considerably more interest in training women in skilled occupations than their American counterparts. This commitment to working women extended from the British assumption that women would continue to play an important role in heavy industry after the end of the war. For a more thorough description of the treatment British women received in war production industries, refer to M. Craig McGeachy, "The New Place of Women in Britain," in Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, ed. John A. Krout (1944), pp. 26-31; Caroline Lang, Keep Smiling Through: Women in the Second World War (1989); and KesslerHarris, Out To Work, p. 292.

31Schedules 1-108, Women in Unions in Midwestern War Industry Areas, Unpub. Materials, 1919–1972, Div. of Research, RG 86, NA.

32Schedule 74, ibid. 33Schedule 77, ibid.

34Schedule 46, ibid.

35Schedule 61, ibid. 36Schedule 54, ibid. 37 Schedule 44, ibid. 38Schedule 45, ibid. 39Schedules 1-108, ibid. 40Schedule 70, ibid.

41Schedule 81, ibid.

42 Bonnie Guthrie Smith to Frances Perkins, 1943, General Correspondence of the WB, Office of the Director, RG 86, NA. 43Schedules 1-108, Women in Unions in Midwestern War Industry Areas, Unpub. Materials, 1919-1972, Div. of Research, RG 86, NA.

44Schedule 27, ibid. 45Schedule 68, ibid. 46Schedule 30, ibid. 47 Schedule 45, ibid.

48 For more information on the CIO's commitment to women union members, consult Milkman, Gender At Work, chaps. 6–8. 49Schedule 30, Women in Unions in Midwestern War Industry Areas, Unpub. Materials, 1919-1972, Div. of Research, RG 86, NA.

50Schedule 26, ibid.

51Nell Giles, "What About the Women?" Ladies Home Journal (June 1944): 22-23. Kessler-Harris, Out To Work, pp. 286–287, offers statistical information on the number of women who voluntarily left the paid labor force in 1944 and 1945. There seems little doubt that by the end of the Second World War, most women in war production decided to leave their jobs. In the final months of the war, quit rates among women workers were more then twice as high as the number of women fired. As anthropologist Margaret Mead explained in 1946, married women, estranged from their husbands serving in the military, were particularly anxious to return home. "In Wartime, men and women get out of step and begin to wonder about each other. 'What will he be like after all of those years in the Army. . . . Will he be harder on the children and want them to toe the line too hard? After all that he has seen for years.' "' Mead, "The Women in the War," in While You Were Gone (1946), p. 274.

52Elmo Roper, "Women in America," Fortune (August 1946): 5. 53 Pearl Hacquil to Harry Truman, Sept. 20, 1945, General Correspondence of the WB, 1919-1948, Office of the Director, RG 86, NA.

54 Gladys Elliot to Harry Truman, Oct. 8, 1945, ibid.

A

n exhibition of twenty-four paintings by former Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill was on display at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, from July 6 through October 31, 1992. Some of these works, which included seascapes, still lifes, and landscapes, had never before been exhibited. Only twice before, in New York City and Washington, D.C., had such a number of Churchill's paintings been seen in the United States. For the first time, all three paintings Churchill presented to American Presidents (Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower) were in a single exhibition. The Churchill family contributed to the success of the exhibit by lending canvases from their personal collections.

Winston Churchill took up painting in 1915, at the outset of what came to be known as the "Wilderness Years." At the time, it appeared that at age forty his public career was over. He began to paint in order to escape "long hours of utterly unwonted leisure in which to comtemplate the frightful unfolding of the War." What started as a diversion became a lifelong love. "My daubs," he modestly called them.

Critics have not been so restrained. "No one can fail to have been impressed by the bravura and distinction of Sir Winston's paintings," the art historian David Coombs has written. Churchill's works have hung in London auction rooms, the Royal Academy, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "If anything," Coombs maintains, "as an artist Sir Winston is the victim of his own fame as a statesman."

"Joy Ride in a Paint-Box" is a wonderful commemoration of Winston Churchill's spirit and intensity. The vigor and passion that made him one of the most dominant personalities of the twentieth century is carried into his paintings. Churchill's artistic work stays well within the impressionistic and post-impressionistic currents. His palette is quite controlled, very low key, but his creative spirit is clearly demon

strated in the vibrant colors and bold strokes of his work. This pastime offered him a release from the trials and tribulations of his public and political life. As modern statesmen might find a few hours to play a round of golf or jog a few miles, Churchill would call for his painting things, don his leisure clothes and a widebrimmed hat, and escape with his paints and brushes. The five hundred canvases he painted in his lifetime are a prodigious effort even for a full-time artist.

Winston Churchill's work is in part a pictorial record of his life. The paintings displayed at the Roosevelt Library illustrate some of the significant places in his life: Blenheim Palace, where he was born; Laurence Farm, Belgium, where Colonel Churchill commanded the Sixth Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers; Chartwell, the beloved family estate in Kent; and Marrakech, North Africa, a city that captured his imagination and was the subject of many of his paintings.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library is a particularly appropriate place to showcase the paintings of Winston Churchill. The exhibit underscored the friendship between these two great twentieth-century leaders. Churchill was a frequent visitor to Hyde Park during the war years. Through this exhibit, it was almost as though Churchill had returned to the idyllic setting in which he had felt so at home. The thousands of visitors who viewed "Joy Ride in a Paint-Box" observed not only the artistic merits of the painter Churchill but also the extraordinary historic and personal relationship between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill.

Churchill took time to paint only once during the war years. In January 1943 he and Roosevelt met at Casablanca to map out future military strategy. In traveling to North Africa, FDR became the first American President since Abraham Lincoln to visit an active theater of war. At the end of the Casablanca Conference, Churchill