American Home Front WWII Primary Sources | House and Garden

Excerpt from "Houses for Defense"

Published in House and Garden, February 1942.

"From Hawaii to Maryland, at military posts and defense plants, a war time home building program is under way."

As war industry regions and military hubs experienced an ever increasing influx of workers and military personnel, the housing shortage became acute. Recognizing that the problem could become even more severe as the war continued, the House Public Buildings and Grounds Committee, a group in the U.S. House of Representatives, discussed housing needs. Under the leadership of Fritz G. Lanham (1880–1965), the group introduced a potential solution, which became known as the Lanham Act when it was passed by Congress in October 1940. The act appropriated $750 million to the Federal Works Agency for the construction of large housing projects in crowded war industry centers, also referred to as "defense" centers....

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American Home Front WWII Primary Sources | Lewis, Sybil

Complete text of the essay "Sybil Lewis"

Reprinted from The Homefront: America during World War II.

Published in 1984.

"I know for myself it was the first time I had a chance to get out of the kitchen and work in industry and make a few bucks."

In 1941 between 40 and 50 percent of all black American women worked outside their home. They mainly worked as poorly paid maids and cooks, the only jobs widely available to them. As war industry jobs became available, thousands of black women migrated to industrial urban areas on both coasts and in the Great Lakes region, searching for better-paying work. Many went from earning $2 to $3 a week to $40 and more a week. Sybil Lewis, a black woman from a small town in Oklahoma, moved to Los Angeles and found a job as a riveter at Lockheed Aircraft. For the first time in her life she had money in her pocket and expectations of a better...

[The entire page is 1948 words long]

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