Title: Women in the 1930s & 1940s: HIST18.2: History of Women in the United States Since 1877: Section 0972: Donegan A
Headings: Women in the 1930s & 1940s
Women in the 1930s & 1940s
1930s
Working Women
Poor Working Conditions
Work and the Married Woman
Difficulty Getting Relief Jobs
Single Women
Feminism

Content: The greatest numbers of women continued to work in domestic service, with clerical workers just behind. Out of every ten women workers in 1940, three were in clerical or sales work, two were in factories, two in domestic service, one was a professional—a teacher or a nurse—and one was a service worker. Women in the 1930s in fact entered the workforce at a rate twice that of men—primarily because employers were willing to hire them at reduced wages. In unionized industries, however, women fared better. Women constituted 7 percent of all workers in the automobile industry and 25 percent of all workers in the electrical industry. The integrated International Ladies Garment Workers Union had 200,000 members and secured for pressers in Harlem high wages of $45 to $50 per week. Poor Working Conditions
Such pay was exceptional. For the most part women worked long hours for low wages in the 1930s. More than half of all employed women worked for more than fifty hours a week, and more than one-fifth worked for more than fifty-five hours. According to the Social Security Administration, women's average annual pay in 1937 was $525, compared with $1,027 for men.