Women in American History

The rise of women in the workplace grew significantly from 1920 – 1945. To look into that further look at the images in the textbook and respond to the following questions:

1. What do the advertising images suggest about popular attitudes concerning women and work?

2. What sorts of jobs were most likely to be considered women’s work? Why is sex-segregated labor such an important concept for understanding the broader meaning of women’s increased participation in the workforce in this period?

3. When advertisements featured working women, they generally used images of young women. Why might World War II advertisements, such as the one in Figure 9.5, depict an older woman?