The Woman's Land Army of America (WLAA), later the Woman's Land Army (WLA), was a civilian organization created during the First and Second World Wars to work in agriculture replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLAA were sometimes known as farmerettes. [1] The WLAA was modeled on the British Women's Land Army. [2]
The Woman's Land Army of America (WLAA) operated from 1917 to 1919, organized in 42 states, and employing more than 20,000 women. [3] [4] It was inspired by the women of Great Britain who had organized as the Women's Land Army, also known as the Land Girls or Land Lassies. [5] The women of the WLAA were known as 'farmerettes', a term derived from suffragettes and originally used pejoratively, but ultimately becoming positively associated with patriotism and women's war efforts. Many of the women of the WLAA were college educated, and units were associated with colleges. [6] [7] Most of them had never worked on farms before. [4] The WLAA primarily consisted of college students, teachers, secretaries, and those with seasonal jobs or occupations which allowed summer vacation. They were paid equally with male farm laborers and had an eight-hour workday. [4] The WLAA workers eventually became wartime icons, much as Rosie the Riveter would in World War Two. [4]
In 1917, Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, became the director of the WLAA. [8] White, middle-upper class married women held administrative positions within the WLAA. [8] Fourteen women served as the WLAA's board of directors. [8] The president of the board of directors was Mrs. William H. Schofield. [8] The board of directors of the WLAA sought to establish labor and living standards for WLAA workers through a unit system consisting of Community Units, Single Farm Units, and Individual Units. [8] The number of women per Community Unit varied anywhere from 4 to 70 workers, who lived in a communal camp but were employed on different surrounding farms. Single Farm Units composed of women workers all employed on the same local farm. Both Community and Single Farm Units had their own captain to oversee daily productivity and management. Individual Units were less common, and they consisted of a single women worker employed on a local farm.
The WLAA operated on regional and state-levels. WLAA land units were more prevalent on the West and East Coasts than in the Mid-West or Southern regions. Due to prejudice and sexism against women in agricultural work, many Mid-Western and Southern farmers and communities rejected help from the WLAA. However, by 1918, 15,000 women across twenty states had participated in agricultural training and education programs. [8] California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia [8] offered training for agricultural work. In Bedford, New York, Mrs. Charles W. Short Jr. established the Women's Agricultural Camp to offer farm training and employment beginning on June 4, 1918. [9] The Camp provided female farm labor to not only farmers, but to estates, home, and public gardens. [9] A uniform of brimmed hats, gloves, men's overalls, and a blue work shirt was provided and required. [9] Bedford's Women's Agricultural Camp is credited with proving the efficiency of the unit system.
The WLAA did not receive government funding or assistance. Instead, the WLAA functioned with the help of non-profit organization, universities, colleges. [8] Often, universities and colleges initiated, led, and promoted their own WLAA land unit. Professor Ida H. Ogilvie and Professor Delia W. Marble of Barnard College established and ran an agricultural training program on their 680-acre farmland. [8] Vassar College's 740-acre farm provided land for students to cultivate and to train on. Vassar student farm workers earned 17 and a half cents an hour and worked an eight-hour day. [9] Additionally, Wellesley College, Blackburn College, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Pennsylvania State College, and the University of Virginia offered agricultural training and educational courses. [8]
In February 1918, The Woman's Land Army of America published a second edition of Help for the Farmer. The pamphlet aimed to answer common questions farmers had about employing women farm laborers. In addition, Help for the Farmer offered a list of the agricultural skills women could do: "Ploughing…Cultivating, Thinning, Weeding, Hoeing, Potato planting, Fruit picking, assorting, and packing for market, Mowing, both with scythe and mowing machine, [and] Hay raking and pitching". [10] While employed on farms, women also completed dairy work.
The WLAA was supported by progressives like Theodore Roosevelt, and was strongest in the West and Northeast, where it was associated with the suffrage movement. Other groups helping to organize the WLAA included the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association (WNFGA), the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, the State Council of Defense of some states, the Garden Club of America, and the YMCA. In addition to the WLAA, the U.S. government sponsored the U.S. School Garden Army and the National War Garden Commission. Opposition came from Nativists, opponents of President Woodrow Wilson, and those who questioned the women's strength and the effect on their health. [7] Due to lack of government funding and support post-World War I, the WLA dissolved in 1920. [8]
The Women's Land Army (WLA) was formed as part of the United States Crop Corps, alongside the Victory Farm Volunteers (for teenage boys and girls), and lasted from 1943 to 1947. [11] [12] [13] In the five years the WLA operated, the program employed nearly 3.5 million workers, which included both farm laborers [14] and non-laborers. Before the Women's Land Army (WLA) founding in 1943, states such as Connecticut, Vermont, California, and New York had already employed women's farm labor in 1941 and 1942 out of immediate necessity. [14] Such local initiatives provided successful examples and motivation for the United States government to establish federal labor programs, like the WLA. [14]
Beginning in 1940, the United States faced a severe shortage of agricultural labor. By the end of 1942, an estimated two million male workers had left the farms. [14] [15] In total, by 1945, six million farm workers had left the farms to enlist and join the war effort. [14] Though the United States Department of Agriculture and the Women's Bureau proposed the Women's Land Army in 1941, Congress did not formally approve the WLA until 1943. [14]
The Women's Bureau advocated for female farm employment, a wage of thirty cents per hour, physical ability requirement, and standard housing conditions. [14] The Women's Bureau treated urban women workers as a last resort and preferred local and rural women workers, who could immediately help their local farms. Women who were hired from the WLA did not work much in the fields but assisted the wives of farmers in their daily chores. [16] Town women that helped on farms were seen as too green and generally not wanted for agricultural labor. [16]
In 1942, The United States Department of Agriculture further considered farm labor programs which included both woman and urban labor. The Department of Agriculture officially proposed in 1943 a national agricultural labor program, which included provisions for establishment of the Women's Land Army. [14] The WLA was allotted $150,000 for its first year of operation. Florence Hall was appointed as the head of the Women's Land Army. [14] Though federally funded, the WLA operated on state and local levels, rather than through the national organization. State and local WLA organizations recruited and placed women on farms, while the national WLA organization produced promotions, conferences, and propaganda encouraging women to become farmerettes. In 1943, the WLA gained 600,000 women workers, 250,000 of whom who had relied on local WLA units and administration for employment. [14] The goal was to recruit as many women and girls as possible.
In 1943, Florence Hall had secured WLA agents in 43 of the 50 states. [15] California employed nearly 28,000; New York employed 6,000; Mississippi employed 43,000; Oregon employed more than 15,00, and Texas employed 75,000. [14] States such as Iowa and Minnesota remained hostile to women working on farms. [14] Similar to the training women received during the Woman's Land Army of America, women of the Woman's Land Army gained skills through agricultural college or farm-led programs. Nine of the 43 states offered special programs. Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science offered a 25-day intensive course on milking, egg grading, food packing, maintaining horses, and operating machinery. [15] The majority of WLA workers were seasonal labor consisting of White urban students, soldier's spouses, clerks, teachers, secretaries and other office workers. A uniform of denim overalls, a blue shirt, blue jacket, and a cap was encouraged, but not required. [14] Women could purchase the uniform or wear their own work clothing, thus uniforms varied from state to state. Women were paid an unskilled worker's wage, ranging from 25 to 50 cents per hour. [15] To save on costs, which included paying for their own meals, [17] many lived at home and commuted to their farm jobs. [15] However, women from distant urban areas lived in communal camps or buildings near their farm. Working in shifts allowed women to maintain their primary occupations.
Other emergency farm worker programs in the U.S. included the Bracero Program (1942–1947), an agreement with Mexico.
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer might own the farmland or might work as a laborer on land owned by others. In most developed economies, a "farmer" is usually a farm owner (landowner), while employees of the farm are known as farm workers. However, in other older definitions a farmer was a person who promotes or improves the growth of plants, land, or crops or raises animals by labor and attention.
Agriculture is a major industry in the United States, which is a net exporter of food. As of the 2017 census of agriculture, there were 2.04 million farms, covering an area of 900 million acres (1,400,000 sq mi), an average of 441 acres per farm.
The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLA were commonly known as Land Girls. The Land Army placed women with farms that needed workers, the farmers being their employers. The members picked crops and did all the labour to feed the country. Notable members include Joan Quennell, later a Member of Parliament; John Stewart Collis, Irish author and pioneer ecologist; the archaeologist Lily Chitty and the botanist Ethel Thomas. It was disbanded in 1919 but revived in June 1939 under the same name to again organise new workers to replace workers that served in the military during the Second World War.
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be confused with tenant farming, providing the tenant a higher economic and social status.
Rosie the Riveter is an allegorical cultural icon in the United States who represents the women who worked in factories and shipyards during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who joined the military. She is widely recognized in the "We Can Do It!" poster as a symbol of American feminism and women's economic advantage. Similar images of women war workers appeared in other countries such as Britain and Australia. The idea of Rosie the Riveter originated in a song written in 1942 by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. Images of women workers were widespread in the media in formats such as government posters, and commercial advertising was heavily used by the government to encourage women to volunteer for wartime service in factories. Rosie the Riveter became the subject and title of a Hollywood film in 1944.
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II. In wartime, governments encouraged people to plant victory gardens not only to supplement their rations but also to boost morale. They were used along with rationing stamps and cards to reduce pressure on the food supply. Besides indirectly aiding the war effort, these gardens were also considered a civil "morale booster" in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. This made victory gardens a part of daily life on the home front.
Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The program was implemented in June 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century and some who were naturalized citizens who were once native, Operation Wetback was designed to send them to Mexico.
Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park is a United States national historical park located in Richmond, California, near San Francisco. The park preserves and interprets the legacy of the United States home front during World War II, including the Kaiser Richmond Shipyards, the Victory ship SS Red Oak Victory, a tank factory, housing developments and other facilities built to support America's entry into World War II. In particular, the role of women and African-Americans in war industries is explored and honored.
The Bracero Program was a U.S. Government-sponsored program that imported Mexican farm and railroad workers into the United States between the years 1942 and 1964.
The history of agriculture in the United States covers the period from the first English settlers to the present day. In Colonial America, agriculture was the primary livelihood for 90% of the population, and most towns were shipping points for the export of agricultural products. Most farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use. The rapid growth of population and the expansion of the frontier opened up large numbers of new farms, and clearing the land was a major preoccupation of farmers. After 1800, cotton became the chief crop in southern plantations, and the chief American export. After 1840, industrialization and urbanization opened up lucrative domestic markets. The number of farms grew from 1.4 million in 1850, to 4.0 million in 1880, and 6.4 million in 1910; then started to fall, dropping to 5.6 million in 1950 and 2.2 million in 2008.
The United States home front during World War II supported the war effort in many ways, including a wide range of volunteer efforts and submitting to government-managed rationing and price controls. There was a general feeling of agreement that the sacrifices were for the national good during the war.
During American involvement in World War II (1941–45), propaganda was used to increase support for the war and commitment to an Allied victory. Using a vast array of media, propagandists instigated hatred for the enemy and support for America's allies, urged greater public effort for war production and victory gardens, persuaded people to save some of their material so that more material could be used for the war effort, and sold war bonds.
The four Richmond Shipyards, in the city of Richmond, California, United States, were run by Permanente Metals and part of the Kaiser Shipyards. In World War II, Richmond built more ships than any other shipyard, turning out as many as three ships in a single day. The shipyards are part of the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, whose Rosie the Riveter memorial honors the shipyard workers. Shipyard #3 is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a California Historical Landmark # 1032.
"We Can Do It!" is an American World War II wartime poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost female worker morale.
American women in World War II became involved in many tasks they rarely had before; as the war involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale, the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women inevitable. Their services were recruited through a variety of methods, including posters and other print advertising, as well as popular songs. Among the most iconic images were those depicting "Rosie the Riveter", a woman factory laborer performing what was previously considered man's work.
The Harvest Gypsies, by John Steinbeck, is a series of feature-story articles written on commission for The San Francisco News about the lives and times of migrant workers in California's Central Valley. Published daily from October 5 to 12, 1936, Steinbeck explores and explains the hardships and triumphs of American migrant workers during the Great Depression, tracing their paths and the stories of their lives and travels from one crop harvest to the next crop harvest as they eked out a stark existence as temporary farmhands.
The Woman's National Farm & Garden Association (WNF&GA) is an American non-profit organization dedicated to promoting agriculture and horticulture. Membership is open to men and women; chapters are active in the Northeastern United States and the East North Central States.
The Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women was one of the first horticultural schools to be established by and for women in the United States, opening on February 10, 1911. As the second institution to provide women with a practical education in horticulture and landscape architecture, it made possible their entry into a professional field. Although some men were employed in faculty positions, the school's leadership was intentionally female. As of 1919, the board of trustees consisted of twenty-five prominent women citizens. All but the last director of the school were women.
Rosalind P. Walter was an American philanthropist and humanities advocate who was best known for her late 20th and early 21st century support for public television programming across the United States. She also contributed to the improvement of educational opportunities for disadvantaged youth and the protection of wildlife and open space areas.
Farmworkers in the United States have unique demographics, wages, working conditions, organizing, and environmental aspects. According to The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health in Agricultural Safety, approximately 2,112,626 full-time workers were employed in production agriculture in the US in 2019 and approximately 1.4 to 2.1 million hired crop workers are employed annually on crop farms in the US. A study by the USDA found the average age of a farmworker to be 33. In 2017, the Department of Labor and Statistics found the median wage to be $23,730 a year, or $11.42 per hour.
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