Central Utah's Rosies During World War II
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Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2006-07-17 Proud to Send Those Parachutes Off: Central Utah's Rosies During World War II Amanda Midgley Borneman Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the History Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Borneman, Amanda Midgley, "Proud to Send Those Parachutes Off: Central Utah's Rosies During World War II" (2006). Theses and Dissertations. 496. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/496 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. “PROUD TO SEND THOSE PARACHUTES OFF”: CENTRAL UTAH’S ROSIES DURING WORLD WAR II by Amanda Sue Midgley Borneman A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History Brigham Young University August 2006 Copyright © Amanda Sue Midgley Borneman All Rights Reserved BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY GRADUATE COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a thesis submitted by Amanda Sue Midgley Borneman This thesis has been read by each member of the following graduate committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactory. _____________________________ ___________________________________ Date Brian Q. Cannon, Chair _____________________________ ___________________________________ Date Kathryn M. Daynes _____________________________ ___________________________________ Date Susan S. Rugh BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY As chair of the candidate’s graduate committee, I have read the thesis of Amanda Sue Midgley Borneman in its final form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographical style are consistent and acceptable and fulfill university and department style requirements; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the graduate committee and is ready for submission to the university library. _____________________________ ___________________________________ Date Brian Q. Cannon Chair, Graduate Committee Accepted for the Department ___________________________________ Kathryn M. Daynes Graduate Coordinator Accepted for the College ___________________________________ Elaine Walton Associate Dean, College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences ABSTRACT “PROUD TO SEND THOSE PARACHUTES OFF”: CENTRAL UTAH’S ROSIES DURING WORLD WAR II Amanda Sue Midgley Borneman Department of History Master of Arts World War II affected individuals across the nation, both on the home front and on the front lines. Manti, Utah received a new industry, a parachute plant, in connection with the war. Hundreds of women from Sanpete County and neighboring counties were employed through the duration of the war in everything from sewing and inspection to supervision of production. Some of the women utilized childcare facilities, some formed a union, and many found community and familial support. For many of them, this wartime wage work provided a welcomed alternative to the work usually found in rural areas, such as farm work, housework, and café work. Women were primarily motivated to work out of patriotic duty and economic opportunity. In many wartime industries, women were in previously male-dominated occupations and lost their jobs at the conclusion of the war. In contrast, the parachute plant offered its women workers the opportunity to continue working when the plant began manufacturing clothing after the war, and the surrounding rural community was largely supportive of its working women. This study makes a case for the long-term impact of wartime work upon individual women. Work experience outside the home affected the women’s estimation and definition of themselves. The war period was a crucial event in women’s lives, not just an important passing stage. Oral histories allow interpretation in the context of their adult lives from a long-term perspective. By delving into community and family situations and looking at these women on an individualized basis in the long-term, this study goes deeper than surveys and makes substantive contributions to our understanding of the war’s influence. The period of wartime work, when viewed in the long-term context of the women’s lives, was significant especially in that women had additional economic resources at their disposal and acquired new-found confidence and skills. Women’s work experiences provoked desire for future work and served as a source of confidence to them. Personal, individualized victories for women, often ignored or concealed by aggregate statistics on women’s work during and immediately following the war, were a reality for women in Manti and likely elsewhere in America. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the time it has taken me to discover and write on this topic, I have benefited from the guidance, support, and assistance of many people. First I wish to thank the members of my committee, Kathryn M. Daynes and Susan S. Rugh, who offered both insightful questions and useful suggestions and encouraged me along the way. I want to particularly thank my committee chair, Brian Q. Cannon, an ideal mentor who was always generous with his time and willing to assist me in the many facets of my research and writing. I also wish to thank Mary S. Richards, who encouraged and motivated me to believe in this project and in myself at a critical stage. I was fortunate to enjoy the cooperation of several people in regard to source material for Manti’s working women. Antonette C. Noble and Don Norton generously shared their research. Many people in Manti and surrounding communities were helpful and interested in the project, and I am especially indebted to several women and their families who were willing to share their life stories with me. I owe a special thanks to my family as well. My parents and grandparents always encouraged my love of learning and were my enthusiastic supporters. And most of all I thank my husband Dustin, who has been there every step of the way, reading drafts, helping with interviews, and sustaining me when I needed it the most. It is to him that I dedicate this work. CONTENTS ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………….v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………..vii CHAPTER ONE: Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER TWO: 1940s Manti, Parachute Factories, and Central Utah’s Working Women……….20 CHAPTER THREE: Women’s Motivations and Support for Work…………………………………...48 CHAPTER FOUR: Community, Family, and Personal Dynamics Relating to Women’s Work Experiences………………………………………...67 CHAPTER FIVE: Women’s Work, Opportunity, and Personal Impact……………………………..97 APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………….112 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………116 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Alice Fredricksen Clark worked on her family’s farm in rural, central Utah from the time she was a small girl. She helped with the crops, harvested hay, and worked with livestock. On the eve of World War II, she was a young, married woman in her early twenties who now worked on her and her husband’s farm. Farm work was what Alice knew best, but she had always found it hard and wanted something that would reward wages for her efforts. She disliked being enclosed by the four walls of her small home all winter long when farm work was slow. When Alice learned that a parachute company located in the nearby community of Manti was looking for women workers, she applied and was hired. Her wages were considered good for rural Utah, and she used her money for desired household conveniences. Alice’s younger brother was in the Air Force at the time, and this fact gave her an increased motivation to support the war effort through her wartime work. When the war ended, Alice continued to work at the factory as it moved into the peacetime manufacture of clothing.1 Several historians have debated the impact of such work on women like Alice and argued in a variety of ways for the war period’s importance when examining the history of working women. Beginning in the early 1970s, scholars began addressing questions about the short- or long-range impact of the World War II on women’s work 1 Alice Fredricksen Clark, interview by author, 17 September 2005, Centerfield, Utah, transcript of digital recording in author’s possession. 1 opportunities and about the subsequent significance of the World War II period in understanding the women’s movements of later decades. Studies often focus primarily on urban areas and exclusively address women who worked in previously male- dominated industries such as shipbuilding or steel-working.2 As a result, much has been done in the aggregate–large cities, huge wartime operations, and nationwide statistics–but comparatively little has been done in terms of smaller areas, lesser-known industries, and individual impact. I examine a small rural community’s parachute factory that continued to employ women even after the war, and I argue that women’s wartime working experiences were motivated by economic factors and patriotic duty and provoked community and family support. Work experiences during the war proved significant for individual women in a variety of ways, especially in the long-term. It was a defining time in their lives as many continued to derive a sense of pride and accomplishment from their experiences, and several continued to work after