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World War II forced many American women to leave the privacy of their homes to work in factories and participate in volunteer activities that supported the war effort. Women's wartime experiences varied greatly. For black women, segregation and discrimination created additional obstacles to full democratic rights that white women did not have to consider. Race-based differences in the wartime experience may have contributed to differing perspectives about the war. This study uses the historical-critical qualitative method to analyze the themes used in Rebecca Stiles Taylor's "Activities of Women's National Organizations" and "Federated Clubs" column published in the Chicago Defender from 1939 to 1945. This examination of Taylor's journalistic career and commentary provides an opportunity to explore the sentiments and concerns of African American women and infuse the black female voice into an otherwise masculine body of knowledge about the black press during World War II.
A new world of opportunity is opening up before the American Negro woman. She stands on the threshold of a new era-a new world. What it will bring to her depends upon how well she faces the responsibilities that necessarily attend this change.1
-Rebecca Stiles Taylor, 1942
In a 1998 interview with Essence magazine, world-renowned poet Dr. Maya Angelou recounted her struggle to become a streetcar conductor in San Francisco during World War II. As a recent high school graduate, she was full of optimism for the future. The images of women donning the streetcar uniform inspired her to apply for a job. Discriminatory hiring practices, however, ruled the day. After being denied an application, she staged her own sit-in by showing up at the streetcar office for an application for several days. "Those people did everything but spit on me," recalled Angelou. Her persistence paid off and she was eventually hired as the first black conductor in that city. "It cost me the earth, but 1 got the job."*'
Angelou's experience demonstrates that race and gender determined how women perceived employment opportunities and responsibilities in the war effort.
In 1939, women generally were patriotic, and supported neutrality and peace. Germany's invasion of Poland as well as Britain and France's declaration of war, however, challenged their worldview. In an article published in the International Womens News, Mrs. Corbett Ashby...