#war effort

Betty White was a 20 year-old budding model and actress whose career was just taking off when she put it all on hold to join the American Women's Voluntary Services as a truck driver, where she transported supplies to various Army barracks across California. Often working 16 hour days, she drove trucks for the duration of the war before resuming her acting career. "It's the least I could do to support those precious boys overseas" she said of her time as an Army truck driver during WWII.

🎬 Irene Delroy was a dancer often associated with the Ziegfeld Follies. She had a successful career on Broadway and as an actress in the 1920s and early 1930s in early talkies. Attempting to find film roles in Hollywood, she contributed during WWII and served as a volunteer nurse's aide at Memorial Hospital in New York. Her service was a common action for many citizens on the home front seeking to support the war effort during the 1940s.

In 1944, 18-year-old Norma Jeane Baker was a recently-married factory worker aiding the war effort at an aviation facility.

“There’s something about an American soldier you can’t explain. They’re so grateful for anything, even a film actress coming to see them.” – Marlene Dietrich

I imagine modern “war effort” posters will be more effective as anime girls.

This unknown welder's work was part of a broader movement of thousands of women joining the American workforce and proving themselves under challenging conditions and workloads of supporting the war effort. Although her name remains unidentified in public records, she stands as a symbol of the "Rosie the Riveter" spirit that powered the nation through the war.

📺 The Golden Girls (1986)

Naomi Parker, foreground, and Frances Johnson, who worked at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California March 26, 1942.