Last Hired, First Fired: Black Women Workers During World War II

This study discusses the role black women played in the work force during World War II. Although scholars have given some attention to the labor-force fortunes of blacks in the war economy, few considered the impact of the wartime expansion on black women, who constituted 600,000 of the 1,000,000 blacks who entered paid employment during the war years. Anderson argues that scholars ignored the degree to which prejudices inhibited change and constrained the rate of economic expansion even in the face of strong patriotic, political and economic incentives favoring expanded output at all cost.