Home Front Posters

During World War II, millions of Americans of all ages responded to appeals from the government and private organizations to volunteer for service on the “Home Front.” Many joined civil defense units that organized community blackouts and air raid drills. Tens of thousands volunteered to serve in the Army Air Forces Ground Observer Corps, acting as lookouts for enemy aircraft at observation posts along the nation’s coastline.

See more posters on our Digital Artifact Collection: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/search/%22civilian%20defense%22

Follow along throughout 2024 as we feature more #TheArtOfWar WWII posters from our Digital Artifact Collection.

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Lou Conter, the last survivor of the USS Arizona. We remember all of our brave World War II veterans and the sacrifices they made.

Remember Pearl Harbor Plaque: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/2622/remember-pearl-harbor-plaque

BLACK WOMEN IN THE WARTIME STRUGGLE

Black women were on the frontlines of civil rights activism during the war years.

The grassroots organizing work of young leaders like Juanita Jackson, Ella Baker and Rosa Parks helped fuel a dramatic increase in NAACP membership and branch activism. Union organizers like Dollie Lowther Robinson and Maida Springer labored to ensure workers’ rights. Black women also engaged in direct-action protests against segregation like Pauli Murray’s 1940 arrest for sitting in the whites-only section of a bus in Virginia.

More than half a million Black women left farm and domestic work for better-paying jobs in wartime shipyards and defense factories. But they had to struggle against employers who refused to hire Black women (or confined them to menial jobs) and white employees who resisted working alongside them.

Black women also overcame determined opposition to enter the armed services. Mary McLeod Bethune served as a special assistant in the War Department and worked with the National Council of Negro Women and Eleanor Roosevelt to open the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) to Black recruits. Eventually, 6,500 served. Bethune also lobbied successfully for officer appointments. Still, Black WACs served in segregated units and were often assigned low-skilled work. The Army also limited the number of Black nurses and restricted them to segregated hospitals. Conditions in the Navy were even worse. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox opposed the entry of Black women into the service’s women’s auxiliary (WAVES). They were only admitted after his death in 1944.

African American women also took on the then taboo subject of sexual violence. Sexual assaults on Black women by white men were a parallel offense to the lynchings of Black men. A 1944 Alabama rape case involving Recy Taylor sparked an NAACP investigation by Rosa Parks and widespread publicity. The Committee for Equal Justice, organized by Parks, led a national protest drive to bring the seven, armed white rapists to justice. Its allies included the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC), described by historian Erik McDuffie as “the shock troops for Black equality across the Jim Crow South during the war.” The SNYC conducted wartime campaigns for desegregation and voting and labor rights. Its leadership included women like Rose Mae Catchings and Sallye Bell Davis, mother of activist Angela Davis.

Please visit our current special exhibition BLACK AMERICANS, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND THE ROOSEVELTS, 1932-1962: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/civil-rights-special-exhibit

A Woman’s War

Personnel shortages led the military to enlist more than 300,000 women volunteers during World War II. All of the military services created posters that encouraged women to join up. Thousands were recruited to serve as nurses. But many more chose to enter one of the women’s auxiliaries formed by the services.

Over 150,000 served in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC/WAAC) in jobs ranging from telephone, radio, and teletype operator to cryptographer, medical technician, sheet metal worker, and aircraft mechanic.

The Navy recruited over 80,000 WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service). They worked as clerks, secretaries, cryptologists, air traffic controllers, meteorologists, and translators.

The Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, established in February 1943, enrolled 23,000 women during the war.

While the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve enlisted more than 10,000 between 1942 and 1946.

Like some of the wartime posters that encouraged women to the join the industrial workforce, military recruitment posters sometimes offered mixed messages. Prevailing biases regarding gender roles dictated that women not serve in combat roles.

Learn more about this collection: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/advancedsearch/Objects/invno%3AMO%202005.13.17*/images?page=1

Follow along throughout 2024 as we feature more #TheArtOfWar WWII posters from our Digital Artifact Collection.

National Conference of Negro Women

Leaders of the National Conference of Negro Women (NCNW) at their annual conference, 1940. Mary McLeod Bethune (Front Row, fourth from the right in mural) established the NCNW in 1935. It became a forceful advocate for Black women and children in the New Deal. (Scurlock photo)

Learn more about this organization and others like it in our current special exhibition BLACK AMERICANS, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND THE ROOSEVELTS, 1932-1962: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/civil-rights-special-exhibit

In 1936, FDR appointed Mary McLeod Bethune as Director of the Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration (NYA). The highest ranking African American in the federal government, Bethune was also the first Black woman to administer a federal program. #WomensHistoryMonth

Pauli Murray

“I . . . feel that you are the sort of person who prefers to be accepted as a human being and not a human paragon”

-- Pauli Murray to Eleanor Roosevelt, December 6, 1938

Student activist Pauli Murray and Eleanor Roosevelt developed a close friendship that lasted over two decades. The two first met briefly in 1934, when ER visited a women’s CCC camp where Murray was enrolled. Four years later, Murray sent this letter to the First Lady—the start of an extended correspondence that would continue until ER’s death in 1962.

Murray enclosed a long letter she had sent to FDR “in the hope that you will try to understand the spirit and deep perplexity in which it is written, if he is too busy.”

Eleanor responded quickly to Murray.  “I have read the copy of the letter you sent me,” she wrote, “and I understand perfectly, but great changes come slowly. I think they are coming, however, and sometimes it is better to fight hard with conciliatory methods. The South is changing, but don’t push too fast. There is a great change in youth, for instance, and that is a hopeful sign.”

Document: AR 2023.1.82/Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

Learn more about Pauli Murray in our current special exhibition BLACK AMERICANS, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND THE ROOSEVELTS, 1932-1962.

Women at Work

World War II profoundly affected the lives of American women as the nation mobilized for national defense. With factories booming and millions of men entering the military, labor shortages threatened the war effort. To help overcome this problem, the government urged women to enter the workforce in greater numbers. Millions responded, including many who took well-paying industrial jobs previously reserved for men. Between 1940 and 1944 the percentage of women workers in the iron and steel industry jumped from 6.7% to 22.3%. In the automotive sector it increased from 5.7% to 24.4% and in the chemical industry from 15.4% to 31.6%. Between 1941 and 1944, the number of working women rose from 14.6 million to 19.4 million. Married women accounted for over two-thirds of this increase.

While encouraging women to join the industrial workforce, wartime recruitment posters sometimes offered mixed messages that reflected, and reinforced, the pervasive gender discrimination present in America during the 1940s. The imagery in many was calculated to assure Americans that female war workers retained their traditional femininity. Some offered reassuring messages that women would happily exchange their “overalls for aprons” when the men returned from battle. While many women wished to remain in their jobs after the war, they were encouraged to give up their positions to returning veterans. During demobilization, they were terminated in disproportionately large numbers. Ultimately, most wartime employment gains for women were reversed. Yet the experiences of women war workers helped inspire the postwar women’s rights movement.

Learn more about this poster on our Digital Artifact Collection: https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/.../theres-work-to-be...

Follow along throughout 2024 as we feature more #TheArtOfWar WWII posters from our Digital Artifact Collection.

Happy International Women's Day

First Lady of Struggle - Mary McLeod Bethune

“The responsibility rests on us. We can get better results thinking and planning together. We must think about each other’s problems. Let us band together and work together as one big brotherhood and give momentum to the great ball that is starting to roll for Negroes.”

—Mary McLeod Bethune, Remarks at 1st Meeting of the Federal Council on Negro Affairs (Black Cabinet), August 7, 1936

Mary McLeod Bethune in her office at Bethune-Cookman College, 1943: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017843210/

Much of the success of the Black Cabinet was due to the influence of its leader, Mary McLeod Bethune. In 1936, FDR appointed Bethune as Director of the Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration (NYA). She served there from 1936 until the agency’s demise in 1943. The highest ranking African American in the federal government, Bethune was also the first Black woman to administer a federal program. A forceful and inspiring leader, she helped make the NYA the New Deal’s most racially progressive agency.

Bethune occupied a uniquely powerful position among Black officials in Washington. Before joining the New Deal, she had forged a distinguished career as an educator, women’s club movement leader, and civil rights advocate. Bethune was the founder and president of Bethune-Cookman College and the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). In 1940, she would become a vice president of the NAACP. Her speeches and regular contributions to Black newspapers further raised her public profile, helping her earn the title “The First Lady of the Struggle.”

During this time, Bethune became a close friend and confidante of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She used her connection to ER to bring racial discrimination issues directly to President Roosevelt’s attention and FDR held her in high regard. At Bethune’s invitation, ER spoke at the National Conference on the Problems of the Negro and Negro Youth that Bethune and other Black Cabinet members organized in 1937. In 1938, the two friends co-hosted a major White House conference on the problems of Black women and children.

Members of the Black Cabinet acknowledged the power of Bethune’s dynamic personality and White House ties and usually deferred to her leadership. Her offices at the NCNW served as a hub for Black Cabinet meetings and she provided critical support to other Black racial advisers.

“I am writing to urge your support of H.R. 10340.”

-- Mary McLeod Bethune to Franklin Roosevelt, June 3, 1938

In June 1938, Bethune solicited FDR’s support for a bill to increase federal funding for African American education in the South. A handwritten note from FDR’s personal secretary Grace Tully on the upper right instructed the President’s assistant Marvin “Mac” McIntyre “to prepare reply after taking up with the Congressman who is responsible for it.”

AR 2023.1.71/Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

Learn more about Bethune in our current special exhibition BLACK AMERICANS, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND THE ROOSEVELTS, 1932-1962: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/civil-rights-special-exhibit

It's inauguration day - the original one that is! FDR's first inauguration in 1933 was the last inauguration held on March 4th.

This #LeapDay be sure to get in your practice for the running high kick! FDR placed first in this Groton School competition in 1897.

FDR used his authority to provide opportunities for Black Americans in the Federal government. In this note, the President suggests to the Archivist of the United States R.D.W. Connor that he consider a position for a Black professional at the National Archives. Learn more about the role of Black Americans in the New Deal in our special exhibit "Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts."

In this letter to Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary McLeod Bethune uses her personal friendship and professional association to influence the position of Black staffers within New Deal agencies. This behind-the-scenes advocacy recognized Bethune's savvy political approach to creating change not only through external pressure but also through administrative means within the Federal government. Learn more about Bethune in our special exhibit "Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts."

Polish artist Arthur Syzk created this series, George Washington and His Times, for Max Jaffe of Vienna to mark the 1932 bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. The paintings were exhibited at the French Exposition in Paris. In 1935, Polish President Ignacy Mościcki purchased the set and presented it to President Roosevelt. In a letter of thanks, FDR wrote, “I am deeply grateful for this admirable collection of illuminated miniatures depicting incidents of our War for Independence in which Washington was so generously and admirably aided by Kosciuszko and Pulaski.” The paintings hung in the White House until 1941.

Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of Bethune Cookman College and an FDR appointee. She used her influence to press the President for legislation and programs to benefit Black Americans. This memo to FDR notes that America as a whole would be better if educational opportunities were extended to Black Americans.

Black leaders found a powerful advocate in Eleanor Roosevelt who often carried their messages, requests, and demands to the President in a way that no one else could. Here, Henry Gray of the Anti-Lynching Bill Committee seeks ER's assistance in arranging a meeting with FDR. Learn more about their work in our special exhibit "Black Americans, Civil Rights, and the Roosevelts."