USA HISTORY

True or False:African Americans and women were able to get jobs back home, especially in the north, because so many people were drafted into the war.

(A) ** True

(B) False

Concept note-1: -Blacks were able to serve in all branches of the Army except for the aviation units. The government made no provision for military training of black officers and soon created segregated training camps for that purpose. Disheartened, blacks protested against this discriminatory practice.

Concept note-2: -Nearly 20, 000 women worked more directly for the Union war effort. Working-class white women and free and enslaved African-American women worked as laundresses, cooks and “matrons, ” and some 3, 000 middle-class white women worked as nurses.

Concept note-3: -During WWII, more than 2.5 million African American men registered for the draft, and African American women volunteered in large numbers. When combined with black women enlisted into Women’s Army Corps, more than one million African Americans served the Army during the War.

Concept note-4: -During the Second World War, women proved that they could do “men’s” work, and do it well. With men away to serve in the military and demands for war material increasing, manufacturing jobs opened up to women and upped their earning power. Yet women’s employment was only encouraged as long as the war was on.