Working women of the generation born around the turn of the century earned little praise and few lasting opportunities during the First World War. Still, they had accomplished much. In the midst of a national crisis, more than a million women had moved boldly into war jobs, where they proved their adaptability and their grit. They pushed heavy trucks, mixed chemicals, assembled airplanes, and learned to weld and rivet and operate machine tools. They died in explosions and lost fingers and hands in machinery. They inhaled noxious fumes and faced down prejudice. They struggled to establish their own rights, and they helped win the war.

Although they then left heavy industry, going back to the women's trades or leaving paid work altogether, these women did, in fact, leave a legacy in the workplace. Their courage and willingness to take on war work forced America to consider more carefully their working conditions. The perception--perhaps the illusion--that a munitions factory threatened femininity in ways that a textile mill did not brought pressure to make factories safer and cleaner. The need to attract and keep intelligent working women--and the potential need to attract "wageless" women--also prompted reform. Chairs, rest rooms, cafeterias, training schools, and personnel departments appeared; and when these "welfare measures" increased productivity, managers kept them after the war, for women and for men as well. Perhaps these things were coming anyway, but the war certainly hastened their arrival. The war also launched female reformers, with their peculiar blend of maternalism and feminism, into government agencies where they could agitate for change. Mary Anderson would spend the next twenty-odd years at the Department of Labor, educating and advocating for working women. She would still be there pressing for equal pay for women during the Second World War.

In short, while female workers of the First World War gained little that was lasting for themselves, they did smooth the way for the next generation. Each had done her part: Caraola Cramm and the other skilled tool makers; Nellie and the "girls" doing unskilled work at Remington-UMC in Bridgeport and in arsenals around the country; black women in the rail yards and the packing plants; white women in the airplane factories and shipyards; Burton Gaither and the other welders and machinists in railroad repair shops; even fifteen-year-old Mildred Owen, who worked in a gunpowder plant only long enough to get sick and verify the danger of the chemicals. They were all Rosie's Mom.

Rivet heaters and passers at Puget Sound Navy Yard. Women's Bureau photograph, courtesy of the National Archives at College Park (RG 86G-11F-7).