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Complete text of the essay "Sybil Lewis"

Reprinted from The Homefront: America during World War II.

Published in 1984.

"I know for myself it was the first time I had a chance to get out of the kitchen and work in industry and make a few bucks."

In 1941 between 40 and 50 percent of all black American women worked outside their home. They mainly worked as poorly paid maids and cooks, the only jobs widely available to them. As war industry jobs became available, thousands of black women migrated to industrial urban areas on both coasts and in the Great Lakes region, searching for better-paying work. Many went from earning $2 to $3 a week to $40 and more a week. Sybil Lewis, a black woman from a small town in Oklahoma, moved to Los Angeles and found a job as a riveter at Lockheed Aircraft. For the first time in her life she had money in her pocket and expectations of a better...