The Enormous Radio

The 1940s was a time of great upheaval. Across the globe, world populations were dealing with a shift in calamities as the widespread economic depression of the 1930s was replaced by a half decade of world war. The United States, at first a nation of people reluctant to enter into World War II, was forced into action with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The war machine that was mobilized to defeat Axis powers in the first half of the 1940s was the same manufacturing powerhouse needed to upend the deprivation felt by so many during the Great Depression. By the closing years of the decade, an American middle-class grew and prospered as the nation quickly became one of the world’s leading powers.

Women’s roles in and out of domestic spaces were also in great upheaval during this time. During the war years, as men went off to battle, women were tasked with replacing them in various areas. Some women served in the military in noncombat support roles. Women who remained in the States maintained their duties as homemakers while also taking up roles in the workforce. As the country increasingly mobilized wartime production, great numbers of workers were needed in factories, as well as other areas of commerce and business across the nation.