The Women's Land Army of America

As the daughter of a master gardener and the granddaughter of farmers, I’m embarrassed to admit that my attempts at raising vegetables have met with little to no success. The first year we put in our garden, we awoke to discover the entire row of snap peas had been nibbled to one-inch stubs. The bunny-culprit waved at us as he scampered off. It had never occurred to us to fence in the area. The second year we surrounded the garden with chicken wire, and in the fall we found indentations on the ground where deer had laid next to the corn stalks as they ate. These are only two of the incidents involving the garden and fortunately it was not our only means of sustenance.

Not so for many people during WWII.

Shortly after the war began, the U.S. government realized that in order to feed the country and its troops, rationing would need to be implemented in addition to promoting the concept of Victory Gardens (large personal gardens aimed at sustaining the family). What the government didn’t understand until nearly halfway through the war, was that food production and harvesting needed to be coordinated in a nationwide effort.

By 1942 over two million men had left agricultural jobs, either to enlist, because they were drafted, or to seek high-paying jobs in the defense industry. By 1943, another four million men were gone from the farms, and at that point the U.S. was not only feeding its citizens and its troops, but providing food to many of the Allied countries. Combined with gas and rubber rationing that put an end to the use of migrant workers, the agricultural industry was suffering.

Badly.

States and private organizations tried to fill the void with various programs, but they were not enough. After much debate and prompting from all fronts (including Roosevelt himself), the Department of Agriculture formed the Women’s Land Army of America in March 1943. The WLAA had helped bring in the crops during WWI, but the 20,000 or so women who served would not be enough this time. Funding was finally allotted, and Senior Home Economist Florence Hall was appointed “temporary” director-a position she held until 1946. So much for temporary!

Behind the curve, the WLAA was very creative in their recruiting efforts-putting information booths in department stores, running articles and ads in women’s magazines, and broadcasting announcements and programs on local and national radio stations. Unfortunately, low farm wages and competition for high-paying defense industry jobs made recruitment difficult, but in the end patriotism won out and each season found more women in the fields. By the 1945 crop year nearly one million women and girls signed on as “Farmettes.”

Male farmers were initially skeptical. “If I have to have a woman helping me in the field, I want my wife, not some green city girl,” said one farmer in Iowa. He was not alone in his opinion. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and the farmers had no choice but to allow the WLAA to serve on their farms and ranches. However, nothing washes away prejudice like exposure, and by the end of the harvest in 1943, grateful farmers across the country recognized that women were capable of performing “practically any type of work to be done.”

And the women? How did they feel? Perhaps this quote from the last newsletter of the Women’s Land Army sums it up best: “No matter how heavy the hay we pitched, how our backs ached from weeding, or how stubborn the team we were driving, we always had the secret joy that we were helping the war effort.”

A freelance writer for over ten years, Linda Shenton Matchett is the author of several romance novellas. Under Fire, the first book in her trilogy about WWII war correspondent/amateur sleuth Ruth Brown is available from  eLectio Publishing, Amazon, or your favorite independent bookstore. Visit Linda at www.LindaShentonMatchett.com.