ABSTRACT
ABSENTEEISM The war years were a clear demarcation between eras when it was not quite respectable for middle-class women to be employed and when that became acceptable. Especially during the Great Depression immediately before the war, women were expected to leave paid jobs to men, who were assumed to be the breadwinner in every family. Although most African-American and immigrant women historically have always worked, the era’s ideal was that “a woman’s place was in the home.” Because of those habits of thinking, a number of truisms were accepted by both men and women that since been have discarded. One was that women were frequently absent from work: they were not trained to be as dependable as men, and their family obligations came ahead of their paid work.
