The heroes of World War II were often heroines. This full and spirited account of the impact of the war on the private and public lives of American women provides a model for future social histories of twentieth-century America.
Using a wealth of new archival and statistical data, D'Ann Campbell explores the response of women throughout the country to the war emergency. She studies all the major roles, whether in the military, in nursing, in war factories, in volunteer work, or in the home, and she delineates experiences among different social classes, races, and age groups. Especially comprehensive is her discussion of the resistance of men to the new roles of women in the military, in the business world, and in labor unions.

Most women, Campbell finds, sought to protect and enrich their private spheres. She examines the challenges faced by housewives—shortages, migrations, rationing—and the emotional upheaval inside the family as husbands were sent to war. With the coming of peace, women consolidated their devotion to private values, and the result was the suburban life style revolving around the family that typified the 1950s. While Campbell looks back to the depression years and forward to the 1980s, her concern is with the women of the early 1940s. To their needs, values, and expectations, and to the tensions of the era between patriotic demands and private desires, she brings a clear and balanced view and shrewd, imaginative insight.