ABSTRACT
By the end of World War I, the United States was recognized worldwide as an industrialized and urbanized nation. Factories that had produced a growing body of consumer products such as household goods, ready-to-wear clothing, and food products in the 1910s converted to war materiel production in 1917 and 1918. Women entered offices and contributed to the rapid growth of white collar workforces that cities like Atlanta grew upon, thus playing a significant role in the process of urbanization through their workforce participation. Atlanta’s total workforce participation outstripped most of the region’s cities, except New Orleans, although proportionally southern urban women’s employment was similar in all cities. Atlanta women composed approximately 37 percent of the city’s working population. Atlanta’s economy and workforce, exhibiting growth in the service and clerical sectors, typified the southern urban experience as the twentieth century unfolded.
