What were societys attitudes towards women working during the Depression, and particularly married women?
ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS: There was a general sense during the Depression that married women who had husbands to support them ought not to be in the labor force. And that was, of course, true of single women who had fathers to support them. In other words, most people felt that jobs should be reserved for providers, for people who provided for families. And, by and large, in the 1930s that was mostly conceived of as men, and sometimes of women who supported families and children alone. QUESTION: What point had women’s workforce participation reached by 1940, on the eve of the war? ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS: Since 1900, there had been a slow but gradual increase in the numbers of women working, so that in 1900, for example, about 20 percent of women of working age were in the labor force. By 1940, about 30 percent of women of wage-earning age were in the labor force. So there had been a slow and steady increase. That increase was largely an increase among single women; that is, it was single wom
