Caption: Pitcairn, Pennsylvania. Twins Amy and Mary Rose Lindich, twenty-one, employed at the Pennsylvania Railroad as car repairmen helpers, earning seventy-two cents per hour. They reside in Jeanette, Pennsylvania.
Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
Caption: "Grandma is never absent now that they let her do all her own baking at the plant,"ca. 1943.
Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
Caption: A room of female seamstresses sew parachutes for the war effort.
Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: At the height of World War II, women accounted for one of every four war workers. In desperate need of skilled workers Pennsylvania's State Department of Public Instruction in 1942 set up a War Production Training program for the federal government in 167 school districts that trained 750,000 people, including 121,041 women and 55,030 African Americans. The Middletown Air Service Command, across the Susquehanna River from the New Cumberland Reception Center, stockpiled parts and provided overhauls for military airplanes. After America entered the war, Middletown's workforce swelled from 500 to more than 18,000, nearly half of them women.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Pennsylvania's great demand for labor fueled a renewed migration of southern African Americans to the Commonwealth. There they entered industrial jobs in record numbers, many receiving federally-funded training, and counseling from the NAACP on how to work along side white Americans.
Collection of William J. Gaughan, AIS 94:3, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Caption: Women and older men employed during WWII at a defense plant in Cressona, Schuylkill County, Pa.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Image 7:Women workers on the fuse assemble line at the Philco plant, Philadelphia, PA, June 16, 1941
Caption: At the height of World War II, women accounted for one of every four war workers. In desperate need of skilled workers, Pennsylvania's State Department of Public Instruction in 1942 set up a War Production Training program for the federal government. Working through 167 school districts, the program trained 750,000 people, including 121,041 women and 55,030 African Americans. At the Philco Radio Corporation's Philadelphia plant, women tested each fuse before its attachment to a shell
Courtesy of Temple University, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, Pa.
Caption: During World Wars I and II, Mack built heavy-duty trucks to support the Allied forces and many women were employed in Mack plants to replace the men who were in the armed forces. These women are shown on the paint line for military vehicles in 1943.
Courtesy of The Mack Trucks Historical Museum.
Caption: Boyertown Auto Body Works female employees during World War II. Ladies became an important part of the work force during World War II. Unfortunately, there were not many records or documentation for the efforts of the significant number of women who contributed to the war-time production at the Boyertown Auto Body Works.
Courtesy of the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles
Caption: Boyertown Auto Body Works Rosie the Reveters, 1944.
Courtesy of the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles
Caption: "Beauty and the Bombs" was the title that Philadelphia's The Evening Bulletin placed over this photograph to celebrate the Budd Manufacturing Company's production of its one-millionth bomb the day before. During the war, 3,500 Philadelphia businesses would manufacture a broad range of military supplies. Budd would produce metal parts for rifles, ordnance materials, and the RB-1 Conestoga cargo aircraft, the first mass-produced aircraft constructed primarily of stainless steel.
Courtesy of Temple University, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, Pa.
Caption: During World War II, 21,887 women from the Commonwealth served in the armed forces, and another 843 in the Coast Guard. Here, Sally Siebert from the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVE) and Winifred Thompson from the Women's Army Corps (WAC) pose for a publicity photo with a Budd RB-1 Conestoga cargo aircraft, the first large size cargo plane mass-produced primarily of stainless steel. Opened in 1943, the Budd Airfield was located north of Budd Company's northeast Philadelphia plant.
Courtesy of Temple University, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, Pa.
Caption: Rat-tat-tat.(Women shooting Machine guns)
Courtesy of Temple University, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, Pa.
Caption: First Female Gang Leaders in Masonry, February 1944.
Collection of William J. Gaughan, AIS 94:3, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Caption: Miss Elizabeth Kochersperger conducting test to determine the mechanical properties of the metals to be used for Ordnance material at Frankford Arsenal
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Opened in 1816, Philadelphia's Frankford Arsenal during World War II was one of the Army's four master depots, which stocked material for quick delivery to troops and the Army's more depots. It also developed and manufactured small arms ammunition, and a range of instruments and gauges. During the war the Arsenal employed more than 20,000, including many women. The Arsenal finally closed for government use in 1977.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: During World War II over 150,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps (WACS) performing 155 different jobs.
Courtesy United States Army
Caption: WAVES stands for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. Before World War II very few women served in the Navy, and those who did were mostly nurses. During World War II women were needed not only as secretaries and nurses, but also for jobs in communications and intelligence. This woman operates a telegraph key. The Navy ran a school for radio personnel beginning in 1942. Research suggests that John Falter, the artist of this recruitment poster, used a Naval photograph taken during March 1943 of Virginia L. Scott as the basis for this image. She is sending a message from the code room of the Radio School at Madison, Wisconsin.
Courtesy of the United States Navy
Caption: Woman swing shifters interrupting their work as welders at Bethlehem Steel Shipyard for chat, circa 1943.
Image Donated by Corbis - Bettmann
Caption: Mary M.A. Wilson, second from right, second front row, 1944. Mary was a riveter at Dravo Corporation in Pittsburgh, PA between 1944-1945.
Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, Image donated by Freida E. Farrell
Caption: Nikki Jade Sampson running a lathe machine, 1943-1945. Nikki was a lathe operator at American Chain and a production manager at Oritsky Company in Reading, PA
Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park, Image donated by Nikki Jade Sampson
Caption: "And then in my spare time ..." ca. 1943.
Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
Caption: World War II women workers, 1940s.
John Mosley Collection, Courtesy Charles L. Blockson Afro
American Collection, Temple University.
