Dec 30th, 2018 : Jenny on the Job

[xoxoxoBruce]

From 1932 to 1938 jobs got scarcer and scrambling to stay alive became the full time job of millions.
Then in 1938/39 industries geared up for the war effort supplying the allies, Britain, Russia and anyone resisting the axis.
No problem plenty on MANpower to MAN the shipyards and MAN the factories across the country.
After pearl harbor the MANpower was being siphoned off by the military*, gnashing of teeth and renting of cloth, what will we do, what, will, we, do?
No problem we’ll hire women.
What? OMG! Wailing, gnashing, renting some more. But women are frail beings, not adapted to working long hard hours.
Oh yeah? Ever do the family wash with a tub and washboard, bulldog recalcitrant kids, spend a day cooking/baking/canning
in the summer? Who had your breakfast ready when you got up, and who cleaned up after you ate supper?



But they’ll screw up the work, break the machines, and hurt themselves.
We’ll teach them like any other trainee, to do the work, not break the machines or themselves.
Teach them they did, and the results were spectacular, production went up, and women won the war…
...against the axis, not against chauvinism.

In 1943, Jenny was on ‘The Job’. A role model to American women, Jenny on The Job was the lithesome blonde doing her bit for the war effort. In a series of eight posters issued by the United States Public Health Services, artist Kula Robbins showed us Jenny at work, at home, lifting things the correct way (i.e. whilst smiling), skating, loving her “low heels” and in the shower.

I wondered why they chose Barbie for the posters. I'm thinking work clothes aren't at all stylish, kind of dowdy, so if they can look
good on Jenny they shouldn't detract from any woman. Or maybe trying to make factory work look appealing?

link

*My wife’s father had a buddy he met doing CCC work moving a cemetery for Boston’s Quabbin Reservoir. The guy was a big
strapping Irishman from Boston and after the CCC he joined the Boston Police. Because he was well over 6 ft tall and wide too, they
had him directing traffic downtown. He was just too big for people not to see him.

After Pearl Harbor he told his boss he was quitting to join the military. Boss said nope, you’re in an exempt job you aren’t going
anywhere. He tried to enlist but they rejected him because he was a cop.

Frustrated, he snuck out to Framingham, enlisted under a false name, and made it through basic training before they caught up with him.
He assumed they would bounce him out but they decided he would stay in the army. He was ordered to direct traffic in downtown Boston…
...for a lot less money.