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Sisters of the Soil: The Work of the Woman s Land Army of America during World War I Rose Hayden-Smith University of California UC ANR/UC Santa Barbara Food and ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Sisters of the Soil:


1
Sisters of the Soil
  • The Work of the
  • Womans Land Army
  • of America
  • during World War I

2
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3
Rose Hayden-Smith
  • University of California
  • UC ANR/UC Santa Barbara
  • Food and Society Policy Fellow
  • March 2007
  • Updated 5/2008

4
The Seeds of Change
  • The war, in fact, has shaken the very
    foundations of the old Victorian beliefs in the
    limited sphere of women to atoms.
  • --- Helen Fraser

5
War Changes ThingsWorld War Iproved
extraordinarily transformationalfor theUnited
States
6
Concerns about the food system were central to
this transformation
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Food Will Win the WarGovernment Concerns/Goals
  • Prevent civil unrest
  • Alleviate agricultural labor shortages
  • Feed mobilizing troops
  • Feed starving European allies through American
    food conservation AND increased production efforts

11
Government Concerns/Goals
  • Encourage local production and consumption to
    reduce the food mile and save trains for
    transport of food and materiel
  • Mobilize and unify Americans around food
    conservation and production efforts, particularly
    GARDENING

12
Uncle Sam says GARDEN
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14
Food is Ammunition
15
Sow the Seeds of Victory!
16
Three Programs
  • U.S School Garden Army
  • National War Garden Commission
  • Womans Land Army of America
  • Linked efforts
  • All associated with a government agency

17
National War Garden Commission
18
United States School Garden Army
19
Womans Land Army
20
What was the WLAA?
  • The WLAA enabled nearly 20,000 urban women to
    enter Americas ag sector to work as ordinary
    wage laborers between 1917-21. The majority were
    college-educated women.
  • The WLAA challenged in fundamental ways the
    social customs and mores of American society, and
    was vital to securing womans rights and suffrage
    in the United States.

21
Women in Ag Previously
  • The work of rural women hidden
  • WLAA fundamentally different
  • Challenged in a very direct way proscriptions on
    womans work, womans role, womans capabilities
  • There was resistance to this effort

22
Cross-FertilizationPrecursors
  • Gardening within domestic sphere.
  • Gilded Age enormous interest in horticulture in
    both Europe/America.
  • Domestic sphere construct stretched to
    accommodate women as para-professionals in
    horticulture (personal expertise to prof
    practice).

23
Cross-FertilizationPrecursors
  • Much work done within context of reform.
  • Legislation (Morrill, Hatch, Adams, Smith-Lever).
  • Womens horticultural schools.
  • Womens civic organizations (WNFGA).
  • Atlantic Crossings.

24
Cross-Fertilization Precursors
  • Imprint of the Progressive Era.
  • Emphasis on scientific agriculture.
  • Highly ordered.
  • Progressive interest in relationship between
    urban and rural spheres.
  • British land army experience.
  • Helen Fraseradvancement of womans rights.

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Shaken the very foundationsto atoms
  • The WLA represented a challenge to traditional
    notions of separate spheres and traditional
    roles.
  • It was viewed by many as an opportunity to
    advance an agenda of womans rights in America
    to British experience.
  • One of the organizing groups was the Womans
    Suffrage Party.

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29
Why Did Women Participate?
  • Patriotism
  • Altruism, outlet for reform
  • Educational and training opportunities
  • Economic opportunities
  • Adventure
  • To promote womans rights
  • Key Women interrupted education and life plans
    to participate!

30
Who Were They?
  • Mostly white, urban and middle class
  • Young
  • Majority college-educated
  • Most unmarried
  • Some trade workers (impt for class laboratory)
  • Leaders professionals, educators, reformers,
    lots of cross-reference with suffrage movement

31
Every morning, when you started off, it was with
a feeling of adventure no telling what might
happen before you got home. No one minded taking
chances. - Helen Kennedy Stevens
land worker, Feb 1918
32
Building a Cold Frame Overview of the WLA
  • Organized in 1917, immediately after war declared
    on Germany.
  • Organized by multiple groups WNFGA, Ambler
    staff, Womans Suffrage Party, State Council of
    Defense, Garden Club of America, YMCA.
  • WLA 15,000-20,000 in number only a portion of
    all female land workers.

33
Cold Frame
  • Centralized, national structure, minimally
    staffed, but what was staffed was important
  • Staffed entirely by women
  • Entry into states via councils of defense.

34
Cold Frame
  • Organized locally by community-based
    organizations, institutions, groups, in
    collaboration.
  • Funded by other women!
  • Relationships, relationships, relationships.

35
What Was Life Like for a Farmerette?
  • Unit system, para-military structure.
  • Many of most successful units organized at elite
    womens collegereform ethic, womans rights
    there already.
  • Systematic training, communal living,
    standardized work hours and wages, organized
    labor deployment.

36
What Was Life Like?
  • Camps (tents, houses).
  • Deployed into smaller work units to a variety of
    farming operations.
  • Unit manager negotiated wages for entire group.
  • Health and nutrition key.
  • Moral uplift and education.

37
What Was Life Like?
  • All-women communities.
  • Fun and recreationsinging, swimming, husky
    harvesting.
  • National organization published a newsletterlots
    of cultural expressions and forms.

38
What Was Life Like?
  • Training and education key
  • Not an unskilled ag labor force
  • Extension models utilized
  • Civic orgs provided training as well
  • At colleges (UC Farm at Davisville, etc.)

39
What Did Farmerettes Do?
  • Tasksfruit picking, grading, packing hoeing
    truck gardening grain silo work trucking
    thinning, raising, harvesting vegetables hay
    making general farming equipment operation
    field work dairying poultry farming livestock
    management tobacco harvesting timbering road
    building.

40
How Were Farmerettes Received?
  • Encouraged by Teddy Roosevelt, Charles Lathrop
    Pack, Progressive Leaders
  • Mixed reception by govt officials
  • Press extremely positive
  • LOVED by farmers (and wives!)
  • But concerns existed

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Ventura County
  • While more prevalent north of the Tehachapis and
    in LA Basin, a WLA crew brought in the fruit
    harvest at the Philbricks farm in Ojai. Local
    newspaper reports were highly complimentary of
    the Farmerettes.

43
Statistics
  • By summer 1918, approximately 1000 units in
    operation in at least 21 states.
  • Many units affiliated with elite womens
    colleges Vassar, Barnard, Mills.
  • Some affiliated with public ag schools Cornell,
    UC.
  • High wage states CA, NY
  • Low wage states PA, VA

44
Statistics
  • Very strong in West, Northeast middling strength
    in Midwest didnt flourish in the South.
  • In West and Northeast, many leaders also
    affiliated with suffrage movement and other
    reform efforts.

45
Wages Working Conditions
  • Great sensitivity re labor relations in US
    during this period
  • Enormous issues around race and immigration
  • Ag labor shortage
  • WLA provided a plausible response to these
    challenges

46
Wages and Working Conditions
  • National organization somewhat conflicted (larger
    sensitivity to labor issues in US).
  • Regional variations.
  • Harder work higher wage.
  • California workers demanded and received higher
    wages than their peers.
  • Awareness by some in WLA that they were workers.

47
California
  • One of first states to mobilize.
  • Growers took laborers seriously built housing
    (Vacaville AMAZING!)
  • Women begin to be viewed as farmers in own right
    (court decision)

48
California
  • No. California unit published manifesto, secured
    favorable working conditions.
  • UC contributed to success in impt ways.
  • Katherine Phillips Edson and other reformers led
    the way.

49
Recruitment
  • World War I standard infant mass media industry.
  • Postersuntil the boys come back
  • Speeches
  • Articles
  • Colleges provided incentives
  • Media charmed by farmerettes.

50
Hoeing the Tough Row Resistance
  • Womens suitability for hard physical labor
    questioned repeatedly.
  • Imperil future health (read child bearing
    capability?)
  • Regional resistance.
  • Some of Wilsons administration doubted.

51
Resistance
  • Timing of entry, duration in labor force.
  • Resistance to promoting suffrage (put aside
    differences in wartime).
  • Work outside domestic sphere.
  • Nativist concerns.

52
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53
Gleanings The Demobilization
  • WLA work continued on smaller scale as 3M men
    demobilizedpatriotism, which had been used to
    draw women into war work, was now used to push
    them out (dont take job from veteran).
  • Labor shortage less acute due to increased
    mechanization, greater crop yields.

54
GleaningsThe Demobilization
  • Women involved at this point working because of
  • Economic need
  • Like nature of work
  • Engaging in more specialized ag work
  • View themselves as having earned right to be
    laborers

55
To the call both to conservation and to
increased production, the American people have
responded nobly. How quickly they have changed
their attitude, how splendidly they have made
good by adapting themselves to the new
conditions! When the war garden movement was
started, the problem of food production was on
the way to be solved." ----- Luther
Burbank
56
Outcomes
  • Significant increase in food production
  • Minimal labor disruptions due to WLA and other
    female labor forces
  • WLA members in CA lobbied for - and was first
    group to receive concessions from growers
    temporarily increased status of ag labor
  • Some of these women spun off into larger labor
    movements

57
Outcomes
  • So successful that program was institutionalized
    during World War II more than 2 million women
    enrolled via Federal Labor Dept (rural/urban)
  • Real acceptance by US govt
  • Post-WWI boom in conferences promoting womens
    work in ag, including one key conference at
    Amherst

58
Outcomes
  • Increased opportunities for women in education
    and fields such as horticulture
  • Girl with the hoe in WWI became prototype for
    Rosie the Riveter in WWII

59
Outcomes
  • 19th Amendment proposed 1919 (June), ratified
    1920 (August).
  • The right of citizens in the United States to
    vote shall not be denied or abridged by the
    United States or by any State on account of sex.
    Congress shall have power to enforce this article
    by appropriate legislation.

60
Individual Stories
  • Sarah Richardson went to Nebraska to work for the
    ranch that employed her as a WLA worker
  • Linda Schroeder (Tiny) secured work as a
    driver/tractor operator
  • Mrs. Doble worked fulltime as expert pruner in
    orchards
  • Katherine Sampson wintered in CA, took a tractor
    course, and returned to Nebraska to seek
    employment
  • Many others returned to college, and/or married

61
Individual Voices
  • Perhaps the greatest joy in the work lies in the
    health and vigor of it.
  • --- Marguerite Wilkinson

62
Individual Voices
  • We did not break down or get sick or sun
    struckWe went home serene and brown and strong.
  • --- Cornelia Throop Geer
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