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The Woman's Land Army of America in the Great War
Potomac Books
January 2009
On Sale: December 31, 2008
352 pages
ISBN: 1597972738
EAN: 9781597972734
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
From 1917 to 1920 the Woman's Land Army (WLA) brought
thousands of city workers, society women, artists, business
professionals, and college students into rural America to
take over the farm work after men were called to wartime
service. These women wore military-style uniforms, lived in
communal camps, and did what was considered "mens' work"--
that is, plowing fields, driving tractors, planting,
harvesting, and hauling lumber. The Land Army insisted
its "farmerettes" be paid wages equal to male farm laborers
and be protected by an eight-hour workday. These
farmerettes were shocking at first and encountered
skeptical farmers' scorn, but as they proved themselves
willing and capable, farmers began to rely upon the women
workers and became their loudest champions.
While the Woman's Land Army was deeply rooted in the great
political and social movements of its day--suffrage, urban
and rural reform, women's education, scientific management,
and labor rights--it pushed into new, uncharted territory
and ventured into areas considered off-limits. More than
any other women's war work group of the time, the Land Army
took pleasure in breaking the rules. It challenged
conventional thinking on what was "proper" work for women
to do, their role in wartime, how they should be paid, and
how they should dress. The WLA's short but spirited life also foreshadowed some of
the most profound and contentious social issues America
would face in the twentieth century: women's changing role
in society and the workplace, the problem of social class
distinctions in a democracy, the mechanization and
urbanization of society, the role of science and
technology, and the physiological and psychological
differences between men and women.
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