Women's Land Army of America (WLAA)

(noun)

The Woman's Land Army of America (WLAA), later the Women's Land Army (WLA), was a civilian organization created during the First and Second World Wars to work in agriculture replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the WLAA were sometimes known as farmerettes. The WLAA was modeled on the British Women's Land Army.

Related Terms

Examples of Women's Land Army of America (WLAA) in the following topics:

  • The American Rally

    • Victory gardens and the Women's Land Army of America were important contributions to food supplies during World War I..
    • Another wartime group, the Women's Land Army of America (WLAA), was created during the First and Second World Wars to work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military .
    • Women who worked for the WLAA were sometimes known as farmerettes.
    • The WLAA was modeled on the British Women's Land Army.
    • Describe how Victory Gardens and the Women's Land Army of America contributed to food supplies at home during World War I.

  • Mobilizing a Nation

    • The Women's Land Army of America (WLAA) was created to replace male agricultural workers who were called up to the military.
    • Modeled on the British Women’s Land Army, WLAA members were sometimes known as "farmerettes.”
    • The WLAA operated from 1917 to 1921, employing between 15,000 and 20,000 urban women.
    • Opposition came from Nativists, President Wilson’s agitators, and others who questioned the women's strength and the effect of the work on their health.
    • Yet the latter arguments were largely disproved, not only by the successful efforts of the WLAA, but by the widespread increase in women who joined the workforce to support the economy and the war effort.

  • Women's Activism

    • The term "first wave feminism" describes the women's movements during the Gilded Age, which primarily focused on women's suffrage.
    • It focused on legal inequalities, primarily on gaining women's suffrage.
    • In 1860, New York passed a revised Married Women's Property Act which gave women shared ownership of their children, allowing them to have a say in their children's wills, wages, and granting them the right to inherit property.
    • Many white women excluded black women from their organizations and denied them the right to participate in events because they feared that the racist attitudes of Southern voters would affect their support of the women's movement.
    • During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army.

  • Changing Roles for Women

    • The Army established the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) in 1942, later converted to the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in 1943, and recognized as an official part of the regular army.
    • More than 150 thousand women served as WACs during the war, and thousands were sent to the European and Pacific theaters; in 1944 WACs landed in Normandy after D-Day.
    • The Marine Corps created the Marine Corps Women's Reserve in 1943.
    • The first director of the Marine Corps Women's Reserve was Mrs.
    • Mary Anderson, director of the Women's Bureau, U.S.

  • Women and the Law

    • In 18th-century and early 19th-century America, the legal status of married women was defined as coverture, meaning a married woman (or feme covert) had no legal or economic status independent of her husband.
    • This was the first of a series of Married Women's Property Acts issued in the United States.
    • The Married Women's Property Act of 1848 was a Statute in New York State.
    • The Married Women's Property Act set a precedent for women's property rights that is thought to have affected legislators' decision to maintain gender neutral language in the Homestead Act of 1862, allowing any individual to file an application for a federal land grant.
    • One of Elizabeth Cady Staton's many accomplishments for women's rights was the Married Women's Property Act of 1839.

  • The Declaration of Independence

    • In 1776, revolution was fomented by Thomas Paine, who wrote Common Sense; and by Abigail Adams, who advocated for women's rights.
    • The official title given to the document was “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled”.
    • Abigail Adams was an advocate for married women's property rights and greater opportunity for women, particularly in respect to education.
    • Adams was particularly interested in what implications independence from Britain held for women and women's rights.
    • In this way, Republican Motherhood, though still relegating women’s contributions to the domestic, or private, sphere, raised the importance of women’s civic contributions on a national level and encouraged the further education of women.

  • The Family Economy: Women and Children

    • Culturally located in Europe and North America, it emerged as a distinct ideology during the Industrial Revolution, although the basic idea of gendered separation of spheres is much older.
    • Rousseau described women's primary duties in Emile, or On Education, stating that "women's entire education should be planned in relation to men.
    • Women's confinement to the private sphere was reinforced by cultural and legal arrangements, such as the lack of women's suffrage, legal prohibitions against women undertaking professions like medicine and law, and discouragement from obtaining higher education.
    • The characteristics of a "true woman" were described in sermons and religious texts, as well as women's magazines.
    • Godey's Lady's Book was a highly influential women's magazine which reinforced the values of the Cult of Domesticity

  • Hispanics in WWII

    • Hundreds of thousands of Hispanic American men and women served in the U.S.
    • Hispanics of the 141st Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division were some of the first American troops to land on Italian soil at Salerno.
    • With the creation of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), predecessor of the Women's Army Corps (WAC), and the U.S.
    • In 1944, the Army recruited women in Puerto Rico for the Women's Army Corps (WAC).
    • After their basic training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, the Puerto Rican WAC unit, Company 6, 2nd Battalion, 21st Regiment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, a segregated Hispanic unit, was assigned to the Port of Embarkation of New York City to work in military offices that planned the shipment of troops around the world.

  • Women in the Revolution

    • In this way, the Republican Motherhood, though still relegating women’s contributions to the domestic sphere, raised the importance of women’s civic contributions on a national level and allowed them greater influence in the public sphere.
    • In the longer term, the Republican Motherhood contributed to women’s involvement in abolitionism and women’s rights.
    • A handful of women felt so strongly about the revolutionary cause that they hid their gender and enlisted in the Continental Army.
    • Other women involved themselves in military activities by concealing and delivering dispatches and letters through enemy territory for the Continental Army.
    • In many indigenous societies in North America, women were responsible for farming and trading, making wartime destruction particularly devastating for them and their ways of life.

  • The Debate over Preparedness

    • In 1915, a strong "preparedness" movement emerged, arguing that the U.S. needed to immediately build up strong naval and land forces for defensive purposes.
    • The Preparedness Movement was distant not only from the working classes but also from the middle class leadership of most of small town America.
    • Anti-militarists and pacifists—strong in Protestant churches and women's groups—protested this plan that they claimed would make the U.S. resemble Germany (which required two years' active duty) .
    • Neither the Army nor Navy was ready for war.
    • America would now be too weak to go to war.