Date of Award:
5-2015
Document Type:
Thesis
Degree Name:
Master of Science (MS)
Department:
History
Committee Chair(s)
Colleen O'Neill
Committee
Colleen O'Neill
Committee
Victoria Grieve
Committee
Christy Glass
Abstract
Historians disagree about the lasting progress wartime defense work helped women and blacks achieve. Both gender and race historians explored the meaning of progress in terms of economic opportunities and social change. Ultimately, the progress debate centers on whether the war afforded women and minorities greater opportunities or whether remaining barriers limited these opportunities. This thesis complicates the progress narrative by looking at black women, a group largely overlooked by both gender and race historians. This thesis defines progress specifically as the ability to secure skilled jobs in the shipyards.
This thesis also takes an in-depth look at the reasons black women did not achieve the economic opportunities they sought. It breaks down the mechanisms of racial and gender discrimination employed by the Richmond Shipyards and Boilermakers’ Union that denied these women access to most industrial jobs. It also looks at the how black women confronted this dual discrimination. This thesis is by no means a comprehensive look at the discrimination experienced by black women but it does take a detailed look at how the shipbuilding industry limited the economic opportunities of black women in the Bay Area during World War II.
Checksum
c5e049a3693b0346a7da29b0050de9aa
Recommended Citation
Tuft, Paige, ""They Are Hiring the White Women but They Won't Hire the Colored Women": Black Women Confront Racism and Sexism in the Richmond Shipyards During World War II" (2015). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023. 4285.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/4285
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