by Scott Crass
Research often brings us insight into areas farthest from the imagination and recently, I came across a nearly universally unrecognized but truly compelling component of World War II: “Government Girls.” About a year ago, Cindy Gueli authored a book, Lipstick Brigade: The Untold True Story of Washington’s World War II Government Girls but it was also the subject of a movie starring Olivia de Havilland and Sonny Tufts as far back as 1943, in the middle of the war. Their necessity cannot be overstated.
The term “Government Girls” did not become vogue during World War II. It was actually used as early as the Civil War. But when the second war left the nation’s government agencies with a massive shortage, women were recruited to keep the trains running on time. Described by Good Housekeeping as, the “new army on the Potomac,” more than 200,000, mostly single women, volunteered to fill the void, with the vast majority being sent to Washington D.C. In fact, by 1944, more than one third of civil service jobs were occupied by women. But while many of these duties were clerical, that was by no means exclusive. In fact, many women were responsible for compiling information that was necessary for carrying out the war such as classifying fingerprints, (“the Fingerprint Factory” as it was called), and giving top secret or vital information to the right officials. That said, the mission of some of the girls were as critical to the war’s success as the men and women on the battlefield.
Megan Rosenfeld, in a Washington Post article on her mother, Chris Prouty, detailed the duties these women performed. They would “come to be clerks, secretaries, assistants, Navy WAVES, Army WACs, and Coast Guard SPARS” (Prouty would work for the Senate committee on War Mobilization). Mary Lou Kerst of Crete, Nebraska was one such person and a profile entitled, “Secretaries of War,” on the website, americainworldwarII.com, talks about the crucial functions she performed. The war brought other women distinctions. The first female meat cutter was Theresia Koppers. The first woman female bus driver was Dorothy Berlett.
Another such driver, Bessie Allison, came from West Virginia and her reaction to being in the big city: “I’m a hillbilly and don’t mind who knows it. But I’m having a lot of fun running streetcars in Washington.” But in a sign of the deplorable discrimination that was still prevalent, Prouty notes “no mention was made of the fact that her employer, the Capitol Transit Co., needed women workers because they refused to hire the many available black men.” The company’s refusal to employ African-Americans led to 150 buses being kept out of service. One such woman, Sarah Grayson, who had apparently slipped through the cracks and had been hired, was fired when her race had been discovered. This was after a good five months on the job. Full integration began in 1955.
Not everyone welcomed the Government Girls with open arms. A number of Congressmen, led by Earl Wilson of Indiana, apparently had caricatures of these women that he found personally revolting. He came to the conclusion – apparently unsubstantiated, that the women were “weezy” from “carousing” the night before and, in the words of Servants of the State: Managing Diversity & Democracy in the Federal Workforce, 1933-1953, by Margaret C. Rung “came to work sleepy, then spent an hour in the restroom putting on their make-up.” Others not particularly enchanted by the changing face of the government workforce, predicted “a period of lax morals.”
Wilson took steps to rectify the problem. He proposed a curfew for women which he argued would keep them, “healthier, frisky and fine.” The problem was, he didn’t do the same for men. As Cindi Guelli wrote for a Capitol Historical Society publication, “Outraged Government Girls responded immediately by calling Wilson an ‘ogre’ in the press and labeling the curfew as ‘childish, ridiculous, and impossible.’ Instead of blaming women’s wild social lives for lagging productivity and worker exhaustion, they suggested Wilson investigate terrible housing and transportation conditions, inadequate training, and long hours with reduced lunch breaks.”
One woman even composed a jingle,
“Since Washington women outnumber the men;
just who is he to keep us all out after 10.”
Wilson dismissed the women’s complaints and condemned their resistance as “thinking only of their own pleasure.” Wilson did win a few backers for his idea but they were far outnumbered by the detractors. Arkansas Senator Hattie Caraway, the only female in the Senate, was one such defender. Wilson soon withdrew the proposal.
For Prouty, being a government girl became life-changing. She met her future husband Gene Rosenfeld in Washington. The bond they shared was unmistakable. After all, in different capacities and from far-away places, together, they had helped to save the world.
“I’m a hillbilly and don’t mind who knows it. But I’m having a lot of fun running streetcars in Washington,” she said, according to the Washington Post.