page_title: History of the United States (1918–1945)
section_title: Work force
hierarchical_section_title: History of the United States (1918–1945) / World War II / Homefront / Work force
caption_attribution_description: A real-life "Rosie the Riveter" operating a hand drill at Vultee-Nashville, Tennessee, working on an A-31 Vengeance dive bomber. Downsampled from original and sharpened slightly and resaved to increase managability of file.
context_page_description: The history of the United States from 1918 through 1945 covers the post-World War I era, the Great Depression, and World War II. After World War I, the U.S. rejected the Treaty of Versailles and did not join the League of Nations.
  In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by an amendment to the United States Constitution. Possession of liquor, and drinking it, was never illegal. The overall level of ab alcohol consumption did go down, however, state and local governments avoided aggressive enforcement. The federal government was overwhelmed with cases, so that bootlegging and speakeasies flourished in every city, and well-organized criminal gangs exploded in numbers, finances, power, and influence on city politics.
  A few local domestic-terrorist attacks from radicals, like the 1920 Wall Street Bombing and the 1919 United States anarchist bombings sparked the first Red Scare. Culture wars between fundamentalist Christians and modernists became more intense, as demonstrated by prohibition, the KKK, and the highly publicized Scopes Trial.
  The nation enjoyed a period of sustained prosperity, 1921–1929.
context_section_description: The unemployment problem ended in the United States with the beginning of World War II, when stepped up wartime production created millions of new jobs and the draft pulled young men out of the labor pool.
  Women also joined the workforce to replace men who had joined the forces, though in fewer numbers. Roosevelt stated that the efforts of civilians at home to support the war through personal sacrifice was as critical to winning the war as the efforts of the soldiers themselves. "Rosie the Riveter" became the symbol of women laboring in manufacturing. The war effort brought about significant changes in the role of women in society as a whole. At the end of the war, many of the munitions factories closed. Other women were replaced by returning veterans. However most women who wanted to continue working did so.
  Labor shortages were felt in agriculture, even though most farmers were given an occupational exemption and few were drafted. Large numbers volunteered or moved to cities for factory jobs. At the same time many agricultural commodities were in greater demand by the military and for the civilian populations of Allies. In some areas schools were temporarily closed at harvest time to enable students to work. About 400,000 German prisoners of war were used as farm laborers both during and immediately after the war.
  With the war's ever increasing need for able bodied men consuming America's labor force in the early 1940s, industry turned to teen-aged boys and girls to fill in as replacements. Consequently, many states had to change their child-labor laws to allow these teenagers to work. By 1943, there were almost three million American teenage boys and girls working in American fields and factories.
  In the process of bringing great numbers of children into the workforce, the War altered the lives of many adolescents. Lured by high wartime wages, they took jobs and forgot about their education. Between 1940 and 1944, the number of teenage workers in America increased by 1.9 million; the number attending school declined by 1.25 million.
caption: A "Rosie the Riveter", working on an A-31 "Vengeance" dive bomber. Tennessee, 1943.
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