4 thoughts on “Jonathon Baker – Rosie and the G.I.”

  1. admin says:

    Some statistics: in 1940, i.e., before the U.S. entered World War II, 83 percent of men (16 and older) worked; 27 percent of women (16 and older) worked. In 2010, 59 percent of women worked outside the home.

  2. Brian Branigan says:

    Jonathan, I enjoyed your creativity surrounding post-World War Two America. This two-

    part “conversation” could take place in any machine shop after World War Two. The back

    and forth between “Peggy” and “Tom Handley,” engages the reader in their dialogue. Their

    dialogue illustrates what men thought of women in the workforce upon their return home

    from World War Two.

    With millions of men abroad in armed services, wartime production opened jobs that

    were previously unavailable to women. I can see your point; howerver it would not be

    likely that Peggy would be able to retain her factory job with millions of men returning from

    World War Two. Women were either asked to leave or fired so that the returning veterans

    could return to employment. After World War Two, women who remained at work were

    employed as waitresses, secretaries, or in other clerical jobs (May 2016). Those jobs were

    not as well paid they were not as enjoyable or challenging, but women did take those jobs

    because they either wanted or needed to keep working (Foley 2016).

    “I pledge” (175)

    Bibliography

    Foley, Tom. “Interview: May, Elaine Tyler May.” PBS. May 24, 2016.
    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
    q=cache:0ZEY7WOoxEQJ:www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/
    interview/tupperware-may/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.

  3. Brian Branigan says:

    (Please ignore the prior comment. There was and issues with the formatting)

    Jonathan, I enjoyed your creativity surrounding post-World War Two America. This two-part “conversation” could take place in any machine shop after World War Two. The back and forth between “Peggy” and “Tom Handley,” engages the reader in their dialogue. Their dialogue illustrates what men thought of women in the workforce upon their return home from World War Two.

    With millions of men abroad in armed services, wartime production opened jobs that were previously unavailable to women. I can see your point; howerver it would not be likely that Peggy would be able to retain her factory job with millions of men returning from World War Two. Women were either asked to leave or fired so that the returning veterans could return to employment. After World War Two, women who remained at work were employed as waitresses, secretaries, or in other clerical jobs (May 2016). Those jobs were not as well paid they were not as enjoyable or challenging, but women did take those jobs because they either wanted or needed to keep working (Foley 2016).

    “I pledge” (175)

    Bibliography

    Foley, Tom. “Interview: May, Elaine Tyler May.” PBS. May 24, 2016. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0ZEY7WOoxEQJ:www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/tupperware-may/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.

  4. jsmith37 says:

    Johnathon,

    The conversation that you wrote sounds just like a scene from a movie about postwar times. I believe you accurately portrayed how women felt after World War Two. It was clear that they women wanted to keep their jobs after the war. Inez Sauer, who had made plans to build B-17s, stated, “I had always been in a shell; I had always been protected, but at Boeing, I found a freedom and an independence I had never known” (Harris 97).
    It does seem men who were returning from the war wanted to get women out of the workforce, but I do not believe that men truly understood how World War Two had changed women. Many women for the first time were “Learning how to ‘make do’ on limited wartime budgets,” which “also heightened women’s sense of their own capabilities” (Litoff and Smith 356). The war had ultimately, changed the way that women thought things should be.

    (I Pledge Word Count: 157).

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