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During World War I and II the face of the military and civilian
workforces shifted. Women enlistees of diverse backgrounds served in the armed forces as clerks, nurses, and in a variety of other capacities. The military careers of Connecticut women, as well as men, is documented in State Library records beginning in 1919. On the civilian front, women began to replace men in the traditionally male professions. Also the booming wartime
economies provided many new job opportunities. Although women were not directly in battle, they worked hard overseas and on the homefront, on military bases, in medical facilities, in factories and with food production.
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Military service record,
Ida Selesnitzky
Probably New London, ca. 1919
File name: csl_arc_rgl12_mq42_312s006_6.jpg
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This photograph of Ida
Selesnitzky of New London (later Ida S. Stone) is part of her military service record, completed in 1919. The daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, she enlisted the Naval Reserve in 1918, and by the time she left the service in 1919, had been promoted to the rank of Yeoman Second Class.
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Civilian Women’s Land Army Trainees
Tolland County, 1944
Photo CD: 1454 File: Img0061.pcd
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The Civilian Women’s Land Army of America was
formed in 1943 because in the presence of a wartime economy many
of the agricultural laborers were moving to higher paying factory
jobs. The Land Army had over a million female workers whom the
organization paid minimal wages of 25-40 cents an hour to farm
and cultivate land for the war effort.
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