What kind of work did most American women do during the 1940s and 1950s?

In the early 1900s, most Americans lived on farms, and they clearly understood their role in the family. Women usually got up before the sun to milk cows, gather eggs and prepare a big breakfast. During the day they did the laundry by hand, made quilts, churned butter, gardened, canned and baked. They sometimes worked in the fields with their husbands. The wife played an important economic role in the family and was an important producer.
     During the next fifty years, however, life in America changed dramatically. Most people moved from the farms into cities or towns where the husband had a job in an of-rice, store or factory. In the 1940s and 50s most women continued to work at home, taking care of the house and children, doing laundry, sewing and cooking. The lives of husbands and wives become more separate with the husband leaving home every morning for work rather than going into the fields.
     During the 1960s more and more women began to move into the labor force. By 1980 more than 60% of all American women between the ages of 18 and 54 had jobs outside their homes. At first, most women worked only if their income was needed because of the death or illness of their husbands, but later women began to work by choice. As automation took over many of the creative jobs at home and as the husband’s attention was increasingly drawn to his career, some women found less fulfillment in household responsibilities. An increase in the divorce rate also pushed more women into the labor force. By 1980, 8.5 million American families were headed by women with no husband present.
     This mass movement of women into jobs outside their homes has affected the lives of millions of children. America is one of the few industrialized countries which does not provide government-supported day care for the children of working mothers. Many companies provide some kind of child care for their employee’s children, but many parents must make their own arrangements. Private daycare is the most common choice.
     Like Chinese women, American women have always worked either on the farms, in their homes or in the work-place as wage earners. The American family has adjusted to the change from a rural to an urban economic base, and it is currently adjusting once again to changes in the role of women.