When World War I started, many women that were against it created several associations such as the Women’s Peace Party, created byJane Addams, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. In the future, Addams won the Nobel Peace Prize. Most women, however, supported America going to war. Examples of this were women in the NAWSA, who left their initial peace initiatives and approved the war. As a consequence of their new position and point of views, the NAWSA doubled in size.
The war actually favored women in some ways. As men left to war, there were more opportunities for women. The war moved many women for the first time into the workforce. They had to fill the jobs that men had abandoned and took many of the labors that they had left. Women took jobs that were originally opened only for men, and they demonstrated that they could do any job, no matter how challenging or difficult it was. If they could do the same job men did, they also deserved the right to vote. This was what convinced President Wilson to support them in women suffrage. Women also joined the Red Cross or the American Women’s Hospital Service, and thousands worked in the Army Corps of Nurses, that was created in 1918.
Finally in 1919, Congress approved the Nineteenth Amendment, which stated that “the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex". Both the NAWSA and the NWP contributed to this decision by convincing a growing number of legislator to support them to get women's suffrage. By 1920, the Amendment became official in all America, an effort that was carried out during more than 70 years.
In the twenties arose what was called the “New Woman”. Women challenged their lifestyle, political, economic and educational problems and fought against their stereotypes. They wanted to prove America that they were as important inside home as outside. The New Woman wore shorter dresses, wore more makeup, and assumed that she was equal to men politically, socially and economically. The flapper, a young woman with short skirts and blush on her cheeks who had her hair as a bob, was the symbol adopted by these new changes. After women got the right to vote, all the associations that were created due to these movements were now encouraging women to seek for a new life, jobs outside their homes, and access to all forms of public life. Some women did succeed. In 1925, Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming and Miriam Ferguson of Texas were the first women that became state governors. Now, the new goal of the National Women’s Party was to get Congress to pass an Equal Rights Amendment that could guarantee women equal wages and freedom with men, especially at the workplace.
Lifestyle of women changed during the twenties, which benefited women in many ways. Women now lived longer, married later, and had fewer children because they needed more time to enter the workforce or join other clubs and charitable work. The economy also favored women. In the South, were there was little electricity, the work at home was as painful and long as it had been before, but in the North, thanks to the electricity, the electric vacuum worked, tasks at home were faster, easier and more comfortable. In this aspect, the differences between South and North were remarkable.
During the Great Depression everybody suffered. Women, men, and children were affected by this crisis that impacted in all aspects of their lives. Women had to work constantly to make the greatest profit out of their earnings. They tried to seek for any jobs that were available, saved money on clothes by sewing them, and tried to satisfy the family’s needs. Since both parents were occupied doing their labors, they had not time to take care and educate their children, and some of them quit school or left home. Some families stayed together in this struggle and other broke apart.
During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s new presidency was the help that America needed to get out of the depression. With his New Deal Roosevelt accomplished the ending of the crisis. Some women helped Roosevelt in this task.Eleanor Roosevelt, his wife, became the First Lady to involve in the political process. As FDR’s representative, she gave advice to the president and helped him on his campaigns. In “My Day”, her newspaper column, she called for something that women were requesting for years, equal justice for all. Eleanor Roosevelt gave the opportunity to women to approach the President.
President Roosevelt trusted the country in many women’s hands such as the Secretary of Labor,Frances Perkins. She established Social Security and also the Fair Labor Standards Act, which ended child labor and favored women by setting a minimum wage. Another woman that influenced some of FDR’s decisions was Mary McLeod Bethune. She was Roosevelt’s special adviser on minority affairs, who fought for racial equality.
During World War II, the same situation women faced in World War I was repeating itself. Women were taking over the jobs that men left when they went to war. Many women worked out of home in big industries, however, they couldn’t quit their jobs as they got older or they got kids. The image of “Rosie the Riveter” gave a strong imagine of women all around America. Women got better wages, different relationships, more jobs, and more confidence in the workforce. After all the experiences that women faced during the war, they were prepared for any postwar job, and opened the doors for women in future generations.
During Truman’s presidency, when FDR died, Eleanor Roosevelt was named representative of the United States in the United Nations, an organization where only the Great Powers of the world had an indefinite place. She worked on behalf of human rights, on behalf of all women in America and the world. Her efforts earned her the name of First Lady of the World. Shortly before her death, in 1962, Roosevelt was designated the head of the Commission on the Status of Women by John F. Kennedy, which goal was to inspect discrimination in the workplace.
During the Cold War, the image of an “ideal” family arose. Many women had been working since World War I outside their homes, but now, they were seen as housewives. They had to take care of their children and be committed to their husbands. Books, such as Dr. Spock’s Common Sense Book of Baby and Child, urged women to pay more attention and spoil their kids. If a woman didn’t meet her tasks at home, she wasn’t seen as an ideal woman. As the Cold War developed, women wanted to challenge these stereotypes and came back to work outside their homes. By the 1960s, an increasing number of women engaged in jobs outdoors.
Women in the work force were asked to return home and stay with the veterans that were coming back from World War II, this was the ideal family image.