Oregon Historical Society country, where the people who own the capital make all the decisions, and their needs are not the same as my needs. And their goals are not my goals, nor are they the goals of most of the people in this society. I'd like people to be healthy, and not hungry, and have clothes, and have a decent education, and have good jobs, so they can take care of themselves. —Mark Roseland and Steve Rudman Women Workers in World War II Almost 40,000 women worked in Portland-Vancouver area shipyards at the height of World War II. Traditional occupational barriers to the blue collar trades—sex segregation, socialization, and union policy against women— tumbled before the burgeoning needs of wartime industries. In Portland, a city coming of age industrially during the '40s, shipbuilding concerns grew as government war contracts proliferated. Kaiser Industries, Commercial Ironworks, Albina Engine and Machine Works and Willamette Iron and Steel recruited women for unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled positions. After receiving technical training at Benson High School, women became shipyard electricians, machinists, welders, painters and draft- spersons. By 1943, 700 women had completed the training course for machinists, but the largest number of skilled women were in the welding trade, which at the journeyman level paid $1.20 an hour. Welding was likened to embroidery, a skill women were thought to embrace. Women in the shipyards gained earning power, economic security and valuable new skills. They were provided with a means to support their families and an opportunity to produce something. All of this stood in sharp contrast to the traditional, low-paying, service-oriented "women's jobs." Contrary to popular myth, the women shipyard workers were not just housewives working to be patriotic. More than half of them had been in the workforce before the war, and they sought the newly- available shipyard jobs for a variety of reasons, most of which were economic. In 1943, an informal survey of over 3,000 women employed at Willamette Iron and Steel revealed that over 50 percent of the women wanted to continue in the same kind of work when the war was over. The wheel (cycle) of necessity continued. Childcare was crucial for working mothers throughout the community. Fifteen public school nurseries and a half dozen nonprofit agency nurseries flourished during the war, funded primarily by federal subsidies. Kaiser Industries operated two child service centers (also federally subsidized) which gained national attention for their scale of operation and expertise. The Kaiser facilities were open 24 hours a day and served up to 400 children ranging in age from 18 months to six years. They offered infirmary care, immunization and even a home food service for working parents. The end of the war brought new demographics and a return of old attitudes. The Kaiser yards closed and there were massive layoffs at all the other Portland-Vancouver shipbuilding operations. Women workers, so recently praised for their skill and dedication, were shunted aside, while only a small core of male shipyard employees was retained. Women filled the unemployment lines and the wartime childcare centers closed their doors. Mimi Maduro Welder, Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, 1942 59
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