The landscape is changing daily as huge combines cut thousands of acres of grain each day. The fields are like the head of a huge blond haired boy that the barber takes a clipper to. At first there are wide swaths through the blond landscape. and quickly the scalp is bare. The weather is miserably hot, dry and windy—perfect for wheat harvest. Most all farmers today have air conditioned combines and trucks for hauling grain. They go home to air conditioned homes for a good nights sleep. Of course, things were completely different during WWII.

Glancing through WW II pictures while preparing a different post, I came across photos and posters of women working the fields during the war. I thought it appropriate this week to give recognition to some of the millions of women who gave up their desk jobs and home making to provide food for the nation and the world while so many men were away fighting.  Those women didn’t have air conditioned tractors or combines.  And, after a long day in the hot fields, they felt like queens if they had running water and could possibly take a bath before falling asleep, again without air conditioning

In 1943  nine states had  WLA training facilities. By 1944 the number had risen to 44.

As the war continued, the government not only encouraged city women and girls to give up their free time and

vacations to help on the fields, they initiated the Women’s Land Army (WLA)  to provide agricultural training and transport women to places needed. At first women worked on farms near home where they returned each evening. Eventually, with

fewer and fewer men left in the country to work, the government transported the girls and women all over the US. They lived in work camps, some not as sanitary or comfortable as would be expected.  Child care became a huge issue during the war for both the farm and factory working women.  Some women took children to the fields with them, but the government stepped in and created at least 3,100 day-care centers which helped alleviate the problem for some.

 “USDA officials estimated that as many as 800,000 women and 1.2 million young people would be needed in 1944 to assist in agricultural work.”

” WLA recruits included farm wives and daughters, college students, school girls, teachers, store clerks, stenographers, service wives, and homemakers. These women raised vegetables in New England, topped onions in Michigan, detasseled corn throughout the Midwest, shocked wheat in North Dakota, picked cotton in the South, planted potatoes in Maine, and harvested fruits and nuts on the West Coast. They also drove tractors, fed livestock, and performed dairying and poultry work. In total, 250,000 women were placed on farms during the 1943 crop season[alone].”

“The WLA reported that year-round wages averaged between $25 and $50 dollars a month,

with room and board furnished, while hourly rates for seasonal workers ranged from twenty-five to fifty cents.[an hour] . . .  However, the WLA conceded that “farm wages do not provide the strongest incentive for doing farm work in wartime” and cited the chief motivating factor for joining the land army as the “desire to perform patriotic service.”

“Mrs. Leslie Tresham of Hornick, Iowa, highlighted the significance of agricultural work for American women:’ It was with a feeling of pride and uncertainty that I started my day as a farm helper. I had promised a  farmer,  whose only son had enlisted in the  Marines, to haul corn from a picker to the elevator. . . . I managed to put through  without mishap. . . . When the last ear had tumbled out of the wagon I was so relieved. . . . As I swung the empty wagon alongside of the picker . . . the farmer shouted, “Have any trouble?” “Not a bit,” I lied, “It was easy.” And, so it went, load after load, day after day, until I have now hauled over 10,000 bushels of corn. Tired? Of course, I get tired, but so does that boy in the foxhole. That boy, whose place I’m trying so hard to fill.’ ”

And who fed these crews of farm laborers? Of course it was the farmer’s wife. She may have had to milk the cows before heading to the garden to pick vegetables to preserve for winter— and to help feed the harvest crew. If she was lucky,  her garden produced lettuce, green beans,corn, onions, okra  potatoes, and more for the meal. She may have killed and butchered two or three chickens before frying them in a sweltering kitchen so the harvest hands would have a  good meal. She set out two big pales or bowls of water for the crew to wash off the dust and grime, and she made sure there was plenty of good cold water to drink as the field hands washed up before eating like this was their last meal. During the war many wives and  young women replaced their brothers, uncles and friends doing the field work while they still had to keep up all of their multitude of chores required of a farm woman.

Much of the information for this post was learned from http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1993/winter/landarmy.html