THE FOOD HISTORIAN
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact >
      • Media Requests
      • Submissions
    • In the Media
    • Speaking Engagements
    • Leave a Tip
  • Projects
    • Blog
    • Book
    • Historical Supper Club
    • Newsletter
    • Food History Happy Hour
    • Book Reviews
    • Podcast
  • Resources
    • Food Historian Bookshop
    • Recorded Talks
    • Historic Cookbooks
    • Bibliography
    • Food Exhibits
    • TV and Film
    • Food Historian Library
    • Digital Downloads
  • Events
  • Members
    • Join
    • Patreon
    • Members-Only Blog
    • Vintage Cookbooks
    • Manuscript
    • Thesis
    • Other Publications

Food History Blog

HISTORY, RECIPES, VINTAGE COOKBOOKS, PROPAGANDA POSTERS

World War Wednesday: The Woman's Land Army Training School

5/26/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
The Woman's Land Army of America--Training school, University of Virginia--Apply Woman's Land Army, U.S. Employment Service, Richmond, Va., by artist Herbert Paus, 1918. Library of Congress.
This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something from a link, you'll be supporting The Food Historian!
The Woman's Land Army of America came out of the women's suffrage movement as a way for young, largely college-educated women to prove their worth during wartime by providing agricultural labor to make up labor shortages thanks to the draft, better wages in industrial work, and the need to increase agricultural production. The movement started in New York State, and has been ably chronicled by Elaine Weiss' book The Fruits of Victory. 

This beautiful propaganda poster from the University of Virginia Training School for the Woman's Land Army of America is just delightful. The imagery is evocative. A young woman holding an American flag, which billows out behind her, is dressed in a khaki uniform and riding a plow horse through a green agricultural field, simultaneously calling to mind a mounted standard bearer, Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, and Army cavalry. In the foreground, two young women in matching blue uniforms share the load of a bushel basket laden with vegetables. The woman at left has a hoe over her shoulder, reminiscent of how a soldier might carry a rifle. The woman at right carries what appears to be a milk pail. Far in the background, what appears at first glance to be a field of ripe wheat is in fact a golden line of uniformed women with agricultural implements on their shoulders, marching behind the leading three.

The costumes were among the official Woman's Land Army costume - in khaki and blue chambray. A loose tunic with full sleeves (rolled up) and a cinched waist falls to the knee, covering military-style jodhpurs and puttees over sensible shoes. A broad-brimmed hat and a kerchief around the neck complete the sensible outfit, which somehow still scandalized some members of the public at a time when women's skirts rarely rose above the ankle. 

The poster is advertising the Woman's Land Army's Training School at the University of Virginia. Designed to give young women basic agricultural skills, and sometimes specialized skills like the use of tractors, the schools were generally free, but required payment for room and board, as this one does at $5.00 per week for a two week course. 

Sometimes called "farmerettes," likely a combination of the terms "farmer" and "suffragette," and one which not every member of the Woman's Land Army enjoyed. But then, not every farmerette was a member of the Woman's Land Army, and the term actually predated the U.S. entrance into the war. The women saw some success in the adoption of their labor in agriculture, but it created no sea change of labor distribution post-war. Most farmers outside orchards and truck farmers mechanized in the face of labor shortages, rather than using farmerettes or farm cadets (teenaged boys released from school to work on farms). And increasing specialization of crops and livestock meant that mechanization was easier and more profitable than hiring young women at good wages for just 8 hour days (pre-war farm laborers had no such protections). 

The Land Army would be revived during World War II, this time divorced from its suffragist origins and encouraging young people of both sexes to assist with farm labor. But that's a post for another day. 

Woman's Land Army Books

Picture
Fruits of Victory: The Woman's Land Army of America in the Great War
by Elaine F. Weiss

Weiss tracks the evolution of the Woman's Land Army in America, focused primarily on New York State, which was where the WLA officially began in the U.S. In intimate detail, she introduces us to a whole host of historic characters, including leading lights of the women's suffrage movement, and how they tried to prove women's agricultural labor was the future. 

Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com

Picture
Cultivating Victory: The Women's Land Army and the Victory Garden Movement 
by Cecilia Gowdy-Wygant 

Cultivating Victory examines the interrelationships between the British and American Woman's Land Armies, as well as their connections to the war garden and victory garden movements. Covering both the First and Second World Wars, Gowdy-Wygant compares and contrasts the efforts in both nations and the differences and similarities between both wars. 

Order from Bookshop.org
Order from Amazon.com

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time! Join by June 30, 2020 and get a picnic history packet mailed to your door!
Become a Patron!

0 Comments
    Picture

    Author

    Sarah Wassberg Johnson has an MA in Public History from the University at Albany and studies early 20th century food history.

    Become a Patron!

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    December 2018
    April 2018
    October 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015

    Categories

    All
    16th Century
    17th Century
    18th Century
    1910s
    1920s
    1930s
    1940s
    1950s
    19th Century
    20th Century
    31 Days Of Halloween
    Abolitionists
    Abraham Lincoln
    Advertising
    African American
    African-American
    Agricultural History Journal
    Agriculture
    Alcohol
    American Expeditionary Forces
    American Red Cross
    American Revolution
    American Southwest
    Apples
    Armenian Genocide
    Armistice
    Asian American
    Autumn
    Avocado
    Baking
    Beverages
    Birthdays
    Black History
    Black History Month
    Book Review
    Bread
    Breakfast
    Breakfast Cereals
    Brunch
    Cake
    Camping
    Candy
    Canning
    Caucasus Mountains
    Celery
    Charcuterie
    Charitable Organizations
    Cheese
    Chilis
    Chinese Food
    Chocolate
    Christmas
    Citrus
    Civil Rights
    Cocktails
    Coffee
    Cold Weather Cooking
    Colonialism
    Columbian Exchange
    Community Cookbooks
    Consomme
    Cookbook Authors
    Cookbook Reviews
    Cookbooks
    Cookies
    Corn
    Cornmeal
    Coronavirus
    Cottage Cheese
    Cranberries
    Dairy
    Deliveries
    Dessert
    Diet Culture
    Dinner And A Movie
    Disgust
    Disney
    Documentary Film
    Economics
    Eggs
    Election Day
    Elizabeth Trump Walter
    Factory Labor
    Farm Cadets
    Farmerettes
    Farm Labor
    Fast Food
    Florida
    Flowers
    Food Conservation
    Food Distribution Administration
    Food Fads
    Food History Books
    Food History Happy Hour
    Food History Roundup
    Food History Stories
    Food Library
    Food Preservation
    Food Waste
    Foraging
    French Dressing
    Fruit Punch
    Gardening
    George Washington
    Gingerbread
    Golden Girls
    Grape Nuts
    Greens
    Hal And Edith Fullerton
    Halloween
    Halloween Candy
    Hard Cider
    Heirloom Fruit
    Heirloom Vegetables
    High Cost Of Living
    Historic Cookbooks
    Historic Menus
    History-bites-podcast
    History Channel
    Holiday
    Hollis Pantry Cook Book
    Hollywood
    Home Economics
    Hot Chocolate
    Hot Cocoa
    Hot Dogs
    Ice Cream
    Ice Cream Soda
    Ice Deliveries
    Ice Harvest
    Ida Bailey Allen
    Indigenous
    Indigenous People's Day
    Inflation
    Interstate Highways
    Invalid Cookery
    Irish Food
    Italian Food
    Juneteenth
    Kitchen Design
    Kitchens
    Kraft
    Labor
    Laura Ingalls Wilder
    Lecture
    Long Island
    Macaroni And Cheese
    Meat
    Meatless Mondays
    Medieval
    Melon
    Mexican
    Mexican Food
    Midnight Suppers
    Midsummer
    Midwestern
    Military
    Milk
    Milkshakes
    Minnesota
    Mythbusting
    National War Garden Commission
    Native Foods
    Necco
    New England
    New Year's Eve
    New Year's Resolutions
    New York State Food Supply Commission
    Normalcy
    North American
    North Dakota
    Norwegian
    Nutrition History
    NYU
    Office Of Price Administration
    Open Faced Sandwiches
    Open-faced Sandwiches
    Parades
    Parties
    Patreon Perks
    Peanut Butter
    Pesticides
    Picnics
    Podcasts
    Political Cartoon
    Polynesia
    Pop Culture
    Pork
    Potatoes
    Preserve Or Perish
    President's Day
    Prohibition
    Propaganda
    Propaganda Film
    Propaganda Poster
    Public Health
    Pumpkin
    Pumpkin Pie
    Pumpkin Spice
    Punch
    Pure Food And Drug Act
    Queen Victoria
    Quick Breads
    Racism
    Radio
    Rationing
    Recipes
    Refrigeration
    Restaurants
    Rhubarb
    Rice
    Riots
    Road Food
    Root Beer
    Salad Dressing
    Salads
    Sandwiches
    Saratoga Chips
    Sauces
    Scandinavian
    School Gardens
    School Lunch
    Shopping
    Slavery
    Smorgasbord
    Soda
    Soda Bread
    Soda Fountains
    Soup
    South American
    Soviet
    Spanish Flu
    Speaking Engagement
    Special Offer
    Spice Islands
    Spices
    Spring
    Sugar
    Summer
    Swedish
    Tea
    Tea Party
    Thanksgiving
    Theodore Roosevelt
    Tomatoes
    Trick Or Treat
    Trump
    Ukraine
    United States Food Administration
    United States School Garden Army
    USDA
    Valentine's Day
    Vegan
    Vegetarian
    Victory Garden
    Vitamins
    Warren G. Harding
    Waste Fats
    Wedding Cake
    Weddings
    White Chocolate
    White Christmas
    Wild Rice
    Wine
    Winter
    Woman's Land Army
    Women Of Color
    Women's History
    Women's Suffrage
    Woodrow Wilson
    World War I
    World War II
    World War Wednesdays
    Writing
    WWII
    Year In Review
    Zimmerman Telegram

    RSS Feed

Home
About
Blog
Resources
Events
Contact
Membership
The Food Historian is an Amazon.com and Bookshop.org affiliate. That means that if you purchase anything from any Amazon or Bookshop links on this website, or from the Food Historian Bookshop, you are helping to support The Food Historian! Thank you!

You can also support The Food Historian by becoming a patron on Patreon: 
Become a Patron!
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact >
      • Media Requests
      • Submissions
    • In the Media
    • Speaking Engagements
    • Leave a Tip
  • Projects
    • Blog
    • Book
    • Historical Supper Club
    • Newsletter
    • Food History Happy Hour
    • Book Reviews
    • Podcast
  • Resources
    • Food Historian Bookshop
    • Recorded Talks
    • Historic Cookbooks
    • Bibliography
    • Food Exhibits
    • TV and Film
    • Food Historian Library
    • Digital Downloads
  • Events
  • Members
    • Join
    • Patreon
    • Members-Only Blog
    • Vintage Cookbooks
    • Manuscript
    • Thesis
    • Other Publications