The More Women at Work Poster

This poster was issued by the Office of War Information after the United States’ entry into World War II had drained much of the available male labor supply from the nation’s wartime industries. The chest pin worn by the woman in the poster, “Zone X Temporary,” reflects the conviction of the U.S. War Production Board (WPB) that a sizable number of “married women without children under the age of ten” would be “the best source of workers for the duration of the war.” The WPB believed that “housewives” were ideal for wartime needs, expecting them to voluntarily forfeit their jobs to returning servicemen at the war’s end.