inspired by British women, as a land maid organization, the American Women's Land Army was established by a consortium of women's organizations, including gardening clubs, voting rights associations, women's colleges, civic organizations and the Young Women's Christian Association.
The World Women's Association provides an attractive example of women mobilizing themselves and challenging the traditional gender role thinking.
like Rosie the riveter a generation later, the army farmer became a wartime idol.
The following excerpt is from Fruits of Victory: "The Women's Army in the Great War" describes the farmers of the California Division of the Women's Army.
When the brass band arrived at the first unit of the California Women's Army, it hit it in Elsinore on May 1, 1918. The whole community came out to meet the fifteen women in new uniforms. Officials of the Chamber of Commerce delivered Weller's speech. The chairman of the Agricultural Bureau thanked the "farmers" for their support, and the mayor gave them the key to the city.
It's a 5-mile drive for army recruits from the WLA headquarters office in downtown Los Angeles to Elsinore: the mayor sent a truck to drive them. At the well-drilling ceremony, Mayor burnham apologized for not having a formal municipal key ring, and provided the farmers with rakes, hoes and shovels, "symbolizing their hard work in defending the motherland." Elsinore's grateful citizens cheered three times for the farmers.
However, fruit growers in California have signed profitable contracts with the US military to provide dried fruits and canned fruits for the military. The extreme shortage of farm labor in wartime makes California women's army demand special employment conditions: guaranteed contracts, the same salary as local male farm workers, 8-hour working system and overtime pay. Employers also agreed to provide protection for workers-habitable residence, designated rest time and lifting restrictions. Workers' compensation insurance was considered radical at that time.
The Los Angeles Times trumpeted that the arrival of the "Great Army" in Noel, Elsee was an "epoch-making experiment" and declared that these farmers were "turning a new page in the history of American women". Photos of farmers on their first day at work, handling horse-drawn cultivators and steel plows, or on the wheels of giant tractors, are scattered in the state newspapers. When asked whether heavy work will prove to be too hard and some farmers may give up after a short period of work, the recruits denied this. "We will quit? A farmer told reporters, "No, the soldiers don't know."
Adela purnell didn't lie about her age, just to join WLA Northern California branch, which opened its headquarters in San Francisco a week later. She doesn't need it. Idla, the daughter of American parents, grew up in Mexico, but went north to prepare for entering Berkeley University that autumn. As a patriotic gesture, she wants to serve in the army in the summer months, but she is only 17 years old, one year behind the official enlistment age. She passed the physical examination at the headquarters. "Because I am a husky, they decided to let my youth go unnoticed and only let me be 18 years old! "parnell confided his feelings afterwards. Recruiting officials in San Francisco are willing to change the rules. A newspaper in San Francisco reported that "Joan of Arc left the land to save France." This is the recruitment slogan of the United States Army. We're going back to the land to save America.
is a "senior guard" composed of women, most of whom are students from Berkeley. She was sent to the agricultural farm of the University of California, Davis for training, and soon proved that she was "very efficient and as capable as a male worker". Another unit is located in the dormitory of Stanford University, wearing WLA uniforms to grow crops in the Santa Clara Valley.
Sacramento set up a regional WLA office, and in the first month, 175 women joined the army. "In Sacramento, they are almost as proud of TWA as the new aviation field," the San Francisco examiner reported. "In both cases, the reason lies in actual achievements ... The World Alliance of Women shows that women and girls are serious ... and serious, and they want to do their part."
In mid-June, on the eve of their deployment, 24 recruits gathered at the Underwood Building in Market Street, the headquarters of the World Federation of Women in San Francisco. They were the first people to be assigned to the new farmer's camp in Vacaville, and they were called together for a mobilization talk before departure.
Vacaville camp was built and provided by a consortium of local fruit growers, who paid for it themselves. They built the camp on high ground near Vacaville railway station, surrounded by a 6-foot-high pine fence for private use. There are canvas sleeping sheds with wooden floors, screened kitchens and restaurants, shower rooms, changing rooms and hospital tents in the fence. The construction cost of the barracks is about $4,5, and the growers agree to share the investment: only those who donate to the barracks can enjoy the help of the farmers.
These farmers are now gathered in WLA office in San Francisco. As their supervisor, Alice Graydon Phillips listened and explained their life and work in Vacaville camp. She warned them that the summer heat would be cruel, and picking fruit on the ladder would make their backs, arms and fingers ache. California women's army can demand special employment conditions because of the extreme wartime farm labor shortage. (Library of Congress) Farmers of female soldiers in the United States Army took over farm work when they were called up for service in World War I.. (Corbis) A poster of the American Women's Land Army asking women to join the army. (Smithsonian Institution)
She read their Army Oath, and then asked them loudly if they would like to hear the sound of the bugle at 5:3 in the morning? "Yes!" They shouted. Will they agree to WLA's military structure? "Yes," they agreed. They will agree to * * * inspections, parade exercises, accept the duties of the kitchen police, and eat the rations they provide without complaint? "yes! "Will they abide by strict disciplinary rules, including stipulating that five crimes of being late constitute a disciplinary act and an honorary dismissal? Here, some people in the "Yes" choir sigh from time to time, but they agree ...
They signed the guarantee. They chose two "majors" from the team to lead them. One was a girl with four brothers fighting in the front. The other is an old lady in Santa Barbara who has experience in girls' clubs. Led by a university girl in Berkeley, everyone cheered together:
Don't be lazy
Be a pickpocket or a packer
WLA, Rah, Rah! " They took the early train to Vacaville, just opposite Napa, and the journey was about 6 miles. "The orchard in Napa was very hot," Adela purnell recalled.
The sun rose higher and higher, and the long ladders became heavier and heavier. Sweat starts from our foreheads and flows to our lips. The golden peaches are too high to reach! Peach hair and dust on our throat and arms began to scratch our skin, but we didn't dare to scratch it. We knew it would only aggravate the trouble. A person who has never had a "peach furry rash" can't understand the pain of girls who are hard-working, dusty and full of faces.
purnell will become a writer and editor of an influential poetry magazine. She is taking a crash course to learn the less romantic aspects of French life in Merete. As the news of their good work spread, more and more farmers in northern California and southern California demanded to establish WLA units near their orchards and pastures. The newspaper brought the farmer's call into the golden Woods with charts, with the headlines: "Hundreds of people step into the fields at once" and "Women want to cultivate thousands of acres of land in Southern California". Sunset magazine published an editorial in the July issue, entitled "Women's Land Army is Winning". The picture shows a woman in military uniform with a hoe like a gun on her shoulder.
The Los Angeles Times sent a star reporter, Alma Whitaker, to spend a day with an army unit, and she was quite dazzled when she left. Describing a farmer as "tall and burly, wielding a shovel like a young Amazon sword" and another as "a pair of shoulders and muscular arms like a light bench", Whitaker took a serious attitude of the farmer:
"This woman's army is made up of strong young women, who were selected by the army because of their physical quality, their good character, their manners, training and training. . .
Whitaker noticed the army uniforms, which became a hot topic that summer: "The official uniforms caused criticism," she reported. "Farm workers * * * uniform. But it turns out that these uniforms are an essential and worthwhile asset, because they are not only very practical, but also have exactly the same influence on girls as on men. A person can unite as long as he wears uniforms. A California farmer wrote: "cotton-padded jacket was soon covered with mud and fruit. Some of the girls looked picturesque, but none of them were very beautiful. All the differences were erased except personality, manners and language."
With the passage of the season, Adela purnell was promoted to be the captain of her first team, an army worker. But among the vines in Lodi, Captain parnell met what every American was afraid of in this war: the snake in the garden, the destroyer. At first, purnell thought that this woman was only a minor threat in wartime, and she was lazy and unwilling to do what she should do. But when her lazy farmer resorted to crude means, purnell's suspicion became more firm: "She took destructive actions," purnell explained. "Green grapes and rotten grapes all went into her box, and one hand accidentally threw them there, and they were only half full."
Purnell tried to deal with this situation by herself:
At first, I gently proposed * * *. I showed it to her again ... At noon, I had a special talk with the girls for her benefit. In the conversation, I pointed out that we are soldiers like the girls over there, and we also have the opportunity to do good deeds, or be classified as slackers and cowards. I made it clear that a slacker is a person who wants to squeeze good grapes from a poor grape box. A bunch of bad guys destroyed a whole box, which is the same as shooting shells for our children.
But the lazy Merete didn't make progress: "In fact, she seems to be maliciously happy to do the worst thing and try to escape it," purnell said. "I debate, plead, threaten and scold in turn. Command is useless. "That night, I reported to the camp supervisor and learned that I was not.