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World War I

The WLAA primarily consisted of college students, teachers, secretaries, and those with seasonal jobs or occupations which allowed summer vacation.

In 1917, Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, became the director of the WLAA.^[8] White, middle to upper class married women held administrative positions within the WLAA.^[8] Fourteen women served as the WLAA’s board of directors.^[8] The president of the board of directors was Mrs. William H. Schofield.^[8]

Goals

The main goals of the WLAA administration and board of directors were the promoting, recruitment, training, and local placement of women into the agricultural workforce.  In addition, the board of directors of the WLAA sought to establish labor and living standards for WLAA workers through a unit system consisting of Community Units, Single Farm Units, and Individual Units.^[8]

A New Jersey WLAA recruitment poster shows a farmerette in uniform shaking hands with Uncle Sam.

Training and Employment

The WLAA operated on regional and state-levels. WLAA land units were more prevalent on the West and East Coasts than in the Mid-West or Southern regions. By 1918, 15,000 women across twenty states had participated in agricultural training and education programs.^[8] California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia^[8] offered training for agricultural work. Training programs taught women how to operate ploughs, heavy machinery, and tractors, as well as how to do dairy work and plant cultivation. In February 1918, The Woman’s Land Army of America published a second edition of Help for the Farmer. The pamphlet aimed to answer common questions farmers had about employing women farm laborers. In addition, Help for the Farmer offered a list of the agricultural skills women could do: “Ploughing…Cultivating, Thinning, Weeding, Hoeing, Potato planting, Fruit picking, assorting, and packing for market, Mowing, both with scythe and mowing machine, [and] Hay raking and pitching”.

Connecticut College female student laborers pose in their WLAA uniforms holding farming tools.

Demographics

The majority of the WLAA workforce consisted of White, middle to upper class, well-educated women and girls who could afford to pay the program’s tuition and purchase the uniform. Programs without a tuition fee accepted all women eighteen years and older, provided one could pass a physical examination. Training programs provided essential agricultural skills and served to place and distribute women on local farms once training was complete.

States and Regions

In Bedford, New York, Mrs. Charles W. Short Jr. established the Women’s Agricultural Camp to offer farm training and employment beginning on June 4, 1918.^[9] The Camp provided female farm labor to not only farmers, but to estates, home, and public gardens.^[9] A uniform of brimmed hats, gloves, men’s overalls, and a blue work shirt was provided and required. ^[9] Bedford's Women’s Agricultural Camp is credited with proving the efficiency of the unit system. In the District of Columbia, one farm offered educational and training courses, which allowed women to be able to receive training in addition to keeping pre-existing jobs. The training farm prepared about fifty women and girls for eventual employment on local farms in the Washington D.C. area.

Colleges and Universities

The WLAA did not receive government funding or assistance. Instead, the WLAA functioned with the help of non-profit organization, universities, and colleges.^[8] It was not until later that the U.S. Employment Service supported the WLAA. Often, universities and colleges initiated, lead, and promoted their own WLAA land unit. Professor Ida H. Ogilvie and Professor Delia W. Marble of Barnard College established and ran an agricultural training program on their 680-acre farmland. ^[8] Vassar College’s 740-acre farm provided land for students to cultivate and to train on. Vassar student farm workers earned 17 and a half cents an hour and worked an eight-hour day^[9]. Additionally, Wellesley College, Blackburn College, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Pennsylvania State College, and the University of Virginia offered agricultural training and educational courses. ^[8]

Some training programs, like the camp offered by the University of Virginia, had tuition fees, which often prevented or discouraged lower class women from obtaining appropriate farm and agricultural training.

World War II

Propaganda poster for the Women's Land Army featuring an image of a young woman reaching up to pick fruit.

Beginning in 1940, the United States faced a severe shortage of agricultural labor. By the end of 1942, an estimated two million male workers had left the farms. In total, by 1945, six million farm workers had left the farms to enlist and join the war effort. In 1942, The United States Department of Agriculture further considered farm labor programs which included both woman and urban labor. The Department of Agriculture officially proposed a national agricultural labor program, which included provisions for establishment of the Women’s Land Army. Though the United States Department of Agriculture and the Women’s Bureau proposed the Women’s Land Army in 1941, Congress did not formally approve the WLA until 1943. he WLA was allotted $150,000 for its first year of operation. Florence Louise Hall was appointed as the head of the Women’s Land Army. Though federally funded, the WLA operated on state and local levels, rather than through the national organization.

Goals

The Women’s Bureau advocated for female farm employment, a wage of thirty cents per hour, physical ability requirement, and standard housing conditions. The Women’s Bureau treated urban women workers as a last resort and preferred local and rural women workers, who could immediately help their local farms. State and local WLA organizations recruited and placed women on farms, while the national WLA organization lead promotions, conferences, and propaganda encouraging women to become farmerettes.

In 1943, the WLA gained 600,000 women workers, 250,000 of whom who had relied on local WLA units and administration for employment. The goal was to recruit as many women and girls as possible. In 1943, the Florence Hall had secured WLA agents in 43 of the 50 states California employed nearly 28,000; New York employed 6,000; Mississippi employed 43,000; Oregon employed more than 15,00, and Texas employed 75,000. States such as Iowa and Minnesota remained hostile to women working on farms.

Training and Employment

A young farmerette poses with a bushel of beans, harvested from a Massachusetts farm.

Similar to the training women received during the Woman’s Land Army of America, women of the Woman’s Land Army gained skills through agricultural college or farm-led programs. 9 of the 43 states offered special programs. Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science offered a 25-day intensive course on milking, egg grading, food packing, maintaining horses, and operating machinery. The majority of WLA workers were seasonal labor comprised of White urban students, soldier’s spouses, clerks, teachers, secretaries and other office workers. A uniform of denim overalls, a blue shirt, blue jacket, and a cap was encouraged, but not required. Women could purchase the uniform or wear their own work clothing, thus uniforms varied from state to state. Women were paid an unskilled worker’s wage, ranging from 25 to 50 cents per hour. To save on costs, many lived at home and commuted to their farm jobs. However, women from distance urban areas lived in communal camps or buildings near their farm. Working in shifts allowed women to maintain their primary occupations.