Question

How did World War II change life for many women and African Americans?

Answer 1

More than 350,000 women enlisted during the war, mostly in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) and the nursing corps. 

Some women were able to get better paid jobs than they had before the war. The women who went to work in the defense industry were mainly women who before the war were in poorly paid jobs. Peggy Terry, who got a job with her mother and sister at a shell-loading plant in kentucky, was euphoric "We made the fabulous sum of thirty-two dollars a week" she said. "To us it was an absolute miracle. Before the war we made nothing." As a result of the great migration of women to defense jobs, 600 laundries went out of business in 1942, and in Detroit, a third of the restaurants closed because of the lack of help.