about individuals who led slave revolts and took part in john brown's raid on harpers r ferry. then the history behind the african-american hmuseum in washington, d.c. this is the story of how this whole new economy was built. it was one of public and private partnership in many ways. ways that are sometimes unseen and so this was i think the story is a really great way to get into that. >> the university of washington history professor discusses her book "the code."

sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. now on "american history tv," a look at the ways american women contributed to the war effort during world war ii. we hear about the expectations for women on the home front to write letters to soldiers, plant victory gardens and work in factories and what options were available to women for military service. this is 90 minutes. fpz >> well, good to see everybody today. i appreciate you coming to our space here. today, we're going to talk about american women and world war ii. and this is obviously a huge topic, we can spend an entire semester just on this topic alone. so we're going to try to break it down into three different spaces and we're going to look at a lot of images to kind of fit in with the other things we've talked about. so we are going to talk about american women in three ways. we're going to talk about women at home. women at work.

and women at war. so we're going to kind of organize our ideas this way, and again we're going to look at a lot of the propaganda, we have been talking about propaganda throughout this semester and watching videos and things like that. we will get a chance to talk about, everybody found that video okay? all right. it's a good one on women at work during world war ii. you can find it on the national archives web site, right? but we will talk about that in this portion, but we will talk about the different parts of

women during, american women during world war ii, and again, we're just hitting the survey of this, there's so much that we could talk about, throughout the entire semester, and we do all of u.s. and world war ii except we can't do all of it, so we do our bits and pieces. we've already talked about some of these things. so some of it will be familiar. especially when we get to the women at work part. but then we'll go from there. be sure to stop me if you have any questions. and we'll do our thing. so women at home. so when we think about this, one of the biggest things i want you to do today is think about this reality for the homefront. which was mainly what we're talking about today. and the reality of what life meant for women in the war. and one of the first things that we often think about is all of the men going away to war, right? the men are going off. that means who's left behind? the women. right? the women. and so you know, a lot of the women are married, we talked

about there are all sorts of, you know, quick weddings going on, and there are people who have been married for a while, as well. and this idea of how do you get by, right, if you're a household with a husband and a wife, in this time period, you know, it's a partnership, and each has their role, and they're much more defined roles in world war ii than they are say today. so this idea of how are you going to do both your job as the wife, and often the mother, and the job of the husband? how do you do this? so this is a very popular book, this came out in 1942 "so your husband's gone to war" and this idea of what do you do? how do you get through it? and you can see from the cover here. tackling male chores. because chores were defined by a male and female, who is going to do which job. and any single woman, any widow, any woman like that, does everything, right? you guys, if you live on your own, you do your own thing. you put your own blindfolds in and fix your own, make your own repairs but this book gives some guidance, this guide book, to help women know how to do those

little maintenance jobs that they needed to. this is my favorite part. the wolves in the friend's clothing, right? this idea of we've got wolves, that was the phrase of the day, about, you know, what that means right? they pretend to be helpful, i'll come change your light bulb for you, right? let me help, let me help. but really, they're, you know, they're not quite as nice as they seem. how do you distinguish between the wolf and the real friend? and then this part up in the upper right corner is something that is really important. women had a lot of responsibility. not just to do their work and things like this, but this is the lost art of letter writing. and this idea that women were responsible for keeping up the morale of men. this is going to be a theme that we're going to have throughout this entire section especially, the idea that women are responsible for making men

remember what they're fighting for, making men feel confident, making men feel that it's okay for them to be away, but they're missed and they need to come home. and so this started letter writing of ethyl goreman, writes this whole chapter about how to write your letters to your men. and there's articles in women's magazines, there's articles in mainstream newspapers, all of these editorials about how women should write their letters. so what do you think you want to put in a letter if you're writing to johnny who is away in europe, fighting against the germans, what do you want to put in your letter as you're writing from home? what would you put in there? >> don't worry about how things are going here.

just focus on getting the job done. >> right. don't worry about how things are. focus on getting the job done. go do your thing. we're good here. right? now, you've got to realize that they want you to write multiple letters a week, if you can write daily, that's best. because imagine your soldiers going and going to get mail, every day, and if there is nothing there, how depressing that is, right? well, i've got to go fight my war and nobody at home cares about me. right? that's the guilt, right? so the pressure is to write every day, three days a week, four, five days a week at a minimum, right? so you write that once, and then what do you write? and then what else do you do? >> we miss you. >> we miss you. please come home. but you can't do too much of that or it will make him too sad, right? >> focus on the war.

>> right. >> a fun story. right? >> so a piece of advice that goreman puts in her book is make yourself interesting. so your letters are interesting. do interesting things so your letters are interesting. but don't be too interesting because he'll think you're having fun while he's at war, right? you got to find that balance between being interesting and not being interesting. >> so what if they don't have a sweetheart at home like are there women getting together to write letters to strangers of men to help out? >> yes, exactly. there is this whole series, this whole campaign, it can be through the red cross, different organizations, where soldiers would give their names and women would write letters to them. you have romances that grow out of that. and this idea of writing letters, talking about what is going on at home, and now, what if, what if your roof gets a leak? should you write johnny about that? >> no. >> i don't know, right? it's this balance between, you

know, maybe you wait until the leak is fixed. and then you tell johnny, hey, the roof had a leak, but we got it fixed. but you don't want to seem too efficient, right? because the roof leaks and the plumbing breaks and all of these things and you just take care of it, why does johnny need to come home, right? so there is a lot of pressure on these women to write these letters in very specific way, high volume, positive, right? you can say you miss him, but you can't be too blue, right? you've got to find this balance of being responsible and him not needing to worry, but still needing him to come home, because it's just, you're just not good at it, write? you can get by, but hurry home. so it's this balance, and this pressure on women that gets put, again, you've got whole books about it, but you've got, am different forms of media about women's responsibilities to write these letters. and the men, you know, i read a lot of these letters that are coming back.

we don't have as many letters of the women going overseas, right, the letters that the women wrote, we don't see as many because the men don't keep them where as the women kept the letters that the men wrote from overseas. we have more of those and we can figure out what the women were talking about by how the men respond in those letters so that's one of the ways we can determine what went into those letters. and you see a lot of anxiety from the men. especially about the wolves, right? there is a lot of ideas about the men who don't serve, who aren't able to serve, or have different positions, domestically, and that they're going to try to steal the women. right? and that's actually a campaign that the germans and the japanese both used in leaflet campaigns, is, you know, the men bam home are stealing your girl, don't you wish that the war was over? and you can go home. right?

come on, men. come on, right? the idea of the letter writing and things like this, and the fact that this is an incredibly popular book in 1942, it says a lot, i think, that women are working on this, and going forward. so other responsibilities that the women had. we've talked a little bit about the rationing. we're going to talk about it more in another week. but this idea of we've got all this rationing. because who is the united states responsible for feeding during the war? pretty much everybody. let's narrow that down a little. that's good. so who are we responsible for feeding? >> our allies.

>> our allies, right? the allies, we're going to give some food to the russians, the british, and all of that entails, right, who else do we need to feed? >> our people. our soldiers, right? >> the men women who have gone abroad, they're not going to pull out fish and chips for our soldiers, we got to supply and who what is the third group we're responsible for feeding. >> people we're rescuing. >> people we're rescuing. >> the homefront. the people back home need to eat as well. so we've got rationing. so we can get all of that manufacturing that we've talked about already, but then that reality of food, and who is

going to eat, and who we're responsible for feeding, so there's a lot of emphasis on women growing those victory gardens. i've got a slide of that. grow those victory gardens. grow vitamins in your kitchen. there's a huge growth in the study of nutrition in this time period. because you want to get as much nutrition in as little food as possible. and then this idea of what are women going to do? well, you've got to can that, right? it is one thing to grow a victory garden but it is done by the end of the summer, that's no

good, so this idea of canning, and you know, i am, am i proud, i'm fighting famine, by canning at home. right? look, this is hard, but i'm doing it, right? and then i love this one, with the little girl, we'll have lots to eat this winter, won't we, mother? very cute. as we go through these, we're going to see a lot of these posters and different images and i want you to be sure to note things like the race of these women that are being portrayed, right? the appearance of them, right? these are pretty perfect, that little girl is so cute, you can just pinch her little cheek, couldn't you? and this idea of who is being represented, which audience are these government posters, government-sponsored posters trying to reach.

now, another thing that's used, so women get used in a number of different ways, we've got this pressure to try to get women to take action, but we've also got the effort to use women as propaganda pieces to achieve other goals. what do you see in this image? what do you think of this? >> sacrifice. >> sacrifice. >> is she a pretty clean-cut gal? well, she might have used to have been. what is she now? she's scared. does she look very happy? >> no. >> no, right? the baby is laughing. right? but the little girl is clinging to her. not quite knowing what's going on, right? but the woman looks kind of sad and scared. i gave a man. remember when we talked about the soviets, right, and how the americans are like, you got to do more, they're like we gave blood, you give money, right? she is saying i gave a man. right? my children don't have a father. i'm alone and scared. right? you can give at least 10% of your pay to buy a war bond? that's the very least you can

do. look at the sacrifice my family has made. this is the very least. right? so women being used to, for guilt, right, to make you feel this pressure, to buy war bonds. now, review, why did we need war bonds? what are the war bonds for, do you remember? >> to pay for all of the equipment and the supplies going out. >> right. we need it, right? because we talked about how expensive the war is. and war bonds are one way that we pay for it, right? it's basically loaning money to the government. so that you can, so that the government can afford the war. right? this is another one women are portrayed in these things. so information is important. right? and there's all sorts of campaigns out there. don't talk about what's in johnny's letters. right? anybody can be listening.

right? and this idea of, you know, wanted for murder. now, what does she look like, right? if she was in a movie, who would she be? which character? >> the femme fatale. >> right. or the villain. or the neighbor gossip. right? women can't just help themselves, right? that's the impression that's given in so many of these images and, again, we could have -- i've got about 20 of these that we could look at. this idea that women just can't help themselves gossiping. right? but her gossip costs lives. right? maybe his life. right? right? this idea that, you know, she looks perfect, but her careless talk, right, her thoughtlessness, costs lives, right? so this idea of women need to control themselves. resist their natural urge to gossip. right? right? women are used for sex. right? this idea of images of women as sexual.

right? you know, this is a whole famous series of prints that i'm sure you guys have seen before. you can see, she's a wac, right, she's in the military, but not in this moment. she's not. right? but this is -- this is mainstream, right? this is mainstream. this is a picture that came out of "life" magazine, right? this is a mainstream image of women of these sexualized beings because you got to think about why we're fighting. we're fighting so we can get home to the girl. we're fighting so we can get home and because this is what all girls look like, apparently. right? right? this reality, right? but they can't be -- so women are supposed to be sexual. right? they're supposed to be pretty. they're supposed to be sexual so the men will know what they're fighting for. but they can't be too sexual, right? give you guys a minute to take a look at these. right? you like these? what do you think? what do you think? right?

so what do you see in these images? how are women being portrayed in these images? >> they're spreading disease. >> they're spreading disease. right? this one is one of my all-time favorites. she may look clean, but, right? there's a whole series of these images, these posters, that are given to men at the different bases and overseas. you know, whole classes on venereal disease. this idea that, you know, these good-time girls and pickups, these are a problem, right? so we want to give you posters like this to hang up, but don't touch. right? because they're probably diseased. right? so this idea of women are, you know, raising the gardens and saving and feeding everyone, women are sacrificing, women are writing letters and being good for morale, women are these

sexual beings, and women are also diseased. right? all these things all at the same time. right? this idea of -- i just think this is -- right? right? right? and, again, you can -- there's a whole series of these that are out there. and they're promoted among all these men. right? so that's our women at home. is that -- do you guys have questions about that or -- okay. all right. well let's switch to our next topic here, this idea of women at work. women at work. and we think of this a lot.

right? when we think of women in world war ii, we often think of these working women. right, that's what we do. that's when historians do. that's our job. so this section we're going to bust some myths, i'm sorry. but we are. okay? so when we think of women working in world war ii, one of the biggest things that's often talked about is the idea that women go to work. right? okay. all the women go to work. right? now, do you guys remember your u.s. history class, your survey? right? what did you learn about women working. >> did women work before world war ii? >> no. >> no? >> not according to my u.s. history class, no. >> really? what about in the factories at the turn of the century? what about those image grant? yeah. >> some but it wasn't, like, as widespread and it wasn't mothers or -- >> okay. okay. so all those factories that came out through the industrial

revolution, all those children, right, child labor, did women not work in those factories? >> it was, like, young single woman. >> right, lots of young, single women. lots of young single women. lots of immigrant women. right? what about women of color? did they work? you think so? yeah. >> a lot of them were teachers. >> yeah. well, women of color didn't get a lot of teaching jobs at, you know, coming up to here, they do, right? coming out of progressive era, we get more -- more women of color taking middle-class jobs. right? but women have always worked. right? you've always had working-class women. right? working-class women. immigrant women. women of color. unmarried women. right? that have always worked. right? so which women are we really talking about when we say women began to work during world war ii? >> middle class white women. >> middle class white women. right? we're talking about middle class white women. this expansion into this area that people didn't work before. right? and then a second group tied in there is going to be mothers. all right? more mothers are going to work in world war ii than worked before. right?

so it's a shift from working-class women, immigrant women, women of color working, right, to that expansion of middle-class white women. right? so what's what we often see portrayed in these posters, right? look at these women. right? first of all, their teeth are perfect. right? which did not happen in the 1940s. right? they all look like movie stars. they all have their eyebrows just right. their hair just right. right? they're beautiful. right? this is not what most people ever look like. let alone in the '40s. right? right? but this idea of who the target is, right, who's the target for the working because this is the group that we have in excess that we can target to get to work.

right? so that's an important distinction i want to make sure that we understand. which women we're talking about when we say the workforce expanded to women. it's a specific group of women that are going to be expanded. right? one area that doesn't get talked about in women working in world war ii is women in agriculture. this idea of women in agriculture. so it's important to realize that we have over 6 million agricultural laborers and farmers that leave the land during world war ii. right? over 6 million people who'd been working the land leave it during world war ii. and these are often going to be men who are going to work in the factories because they're better paid. these are going to be men who are being drafted or enlisting. right? the shortage of laborers, agricultural laborers, gets so bad during the war that by the middle and late 1942, it becomes a draft deferred position. what's draft deferred position? do you remember? >> you don't have to go over to the war, your job is more critical.

>> right, your job is more critical so you cannot be drafted. if you leave that job, you may be eligible for the draft, but if you're in that position, you're draft deferred. agricultural laborers, farmers, they become draft deferred because we need people so badly. that doesn't mean you can't enlist. that doesn't mean you can't go work in a factory. right? though by late in the war, there are limits on that, you have to get permission to do that, right? so at the same moment that we're expanding the agricultural needs because we're feeding people at home, we're feeding people, americans, abroad, and we're feeding all of our allies. right? helping feed our allies. at the same time we're doing that, the laborers are shrinking. so there's a huge push to get american women involved in this. right? and we'd seen this before. we'd seen this in world war i. there was a volunteer organization called the women's land army of america that was around. we expand that in world war ii. there was a women of land army in great britain and we model a

lot of -- a lot of what goes on in the united states after that. but there's this huge push to get american women as part of this. there were other organizations of the bracero program. have you guys read about that? what was the bracero program? >> an agreement between the u.s. and mexico to allow workers to come in and work in the field. >> exactly. the agreement between the united states and mexico to alieu laborers to come to the united states and work. this program goes from 1942 to 1951. they try that. the government tries that to expand the number of laborers. they also go to convicts, right, prison labor, which had been used some in the past but gets expanded. they also use p.o.w.s, right? we had p.o.w.s here in texas and had some in oklahoma and different regions of the country where you'd have german and italian p.o.w.s that would come to the united states and put them in the farms, right?

let them be laborers. you got all these different groups and this huge push, let's get more women, right? let's get more women to do this, right? some basic numbers for you. we end up with something like 3.5 million women working in the agricultural field. right? 3.5 million women, right? which is a much bigger number than you think of, right? you think of world war ii, we think of rosie the riveter, right, or the women pilots because you're here and have me as a professor, right? you know, 3.5 million women are recruited. there's some bias against them

in the beginning. read documents about this idea that women aren't going to be able to the job, we can't trust them, this idea of urban women, right? nobody wants a city girl to work on their farm. they're going to break their heel and not be able to do it. very quickly the women prove themselves, they're able to do the work that needs to be done and make a real difference. some basic numbers. 1940, women made up 8% of all farm workers. by 1945, it was 23%. right? women went from 8% to 23% in agriculture just that quickly. right? and, again, this is all going to shrink back down after the war just because we aren't growing as much after the war. but this is -- that's a significant amount. right? 3.5 million women working on farms. you know, there's a new costume idea for you for halloween, right? dress up like a farm worker. women's land army.

right? everybody does rosie, right? right? now, now this idea of women in labor, right, so this is -- you can't talk about women at work without talking about this. right? who do you guys see here? >> rosie. >> rosie the riveter right? this is the other part of the class that i'm going to bust

some myths. >> one thing, the army, it started up with, i guess it was supposed to be, like, somebody playing hitler or something? >> uh-huh. >> talking about how american women spent more on personal stuff than the u.s. military did for their own supplies? >> right. >> while german women were put to work as baby producers, basically. >> uh-huh. >> i'm curious as to how at the time the u.s. thought about its women becoming part of the labor workforce.

i don't think that was really discussed in the video. how were american women treated by american men who were still working in the factories at that time? >> right. this is a really good question. how are the women that are working in the factories treated by the men? how did they interpret them or feel about them coming into the war? and i got some numbers for you just to give you some big ideas. the female labor force grows by 6.5 million during this period. right? during world war ii. a shift from 25% of american women working in 1940, to 37% of all american women working in 1944. right? so this is going to be a huge shift. now, answer your idea about how were they seen? because women did work, but women are dominating a lot of these factories, especially, and the reality is a lot of the men were put in charge. right? they were put in supervisory roles. if they'd been working in the factory and had experience, then they're going to be put into those roles and you're going to have all sorts of different interpretations of them, right? some are going to be happy to have them as laborers. some of them are going to not believe they can do the job. some are going to be, you know, sexist or harassers or whatever. it just -- it just depended on the time and the place.

how they were doing it. the reality is, we couldn't have done the work that we did during the war without them. right? just by sheer numbers. right? now, you brought up the film that hidden army, i want to give you guys the chance to talk about that. this was a propaganda film done in 1944 before the war is over, and how does it begin? >> hitler, hannibal lecter talked about i shouldn't have underestimated those american women. >> right. right. it's a strange setup, right, of a prison guard coming down and hitler in a cell writing a memoir, right? now he's going to write, you know, how i lost the war. right? and, again, this is before the war is over, so this is how we're going to do it. right? how we're going to put hitler in this position. the name of one of his chapters is "the hidden army." right? and it's women. right? it's women. so what pieces do you see this -- and we've talked about -- we watched the documentary, "memphis belle" from the war, as a propaganda piece. we've watched some of frank

capra's "why we fight" films as well. put the hidden army film into the context of propaganda. what pieces did you see that looked familiar, were a little different or focused on women a little bit more? yeah? >> i thought it was interesting that they did, like, the interviews, why are you here? i was like, some of that seems very fake. >> yes. yes, right? they interviewed different women and say why are you here in the factory, why are you doing what you're doing? and they're definitely set up, right? this isn't some random let's walk up on the street to a random worker and say this. >> you see more of, like, that guilt of not working, like the girl that wakes up in the morning and just goes back to sleep. because of that, people are dying, like, more of that -- similar in "memphis belle" they show the dead people. >> yeah. >> you see more of that -- you get more of that attitude with this film. >> uh-huh. definitely. yeah. >> there was an entire sequence of women getting telegrams saying, by the way, your son, husband, brother, is dead. the woman, in particular, just flinging herself on the bed crying when her son's going, mommy, what's wrong? just -- you guys are not being subtle at all. i can respect you for that, but

wow. >> right. yeah. there's no subtlety to this film. it's definitely a propaganda piece. everybody watching it knows it's a propaganda piece. right? and we're so cynical today. right? you got to wonder, were they as cynical then as we are, you know? did they watch this drama? but, yeah, the obvious slacker who shuts her alarm off and goes back to sleep and then johnny dies because she went to sleep instead of working in the factory. right? very dramatic. very on point. the telegram saying, you know, you've lost your person. the reality is, people are dying. right? people are going missing in action. people are receiving those telegrams. and we've talked about this in the past when we talked about that manufacturing chapter of david kennedy's book, this idea that american's stuff, our tanks, our planes, all those things, helped win the war, right? so there really is a direct correlation between people not

going to the factory and people not having the supplies they need. right? but very, very dramatic. very, very done. all right. were there other points of that film that you guys noticed or wanted to make sure we talked about? it's very short. it's, like, seven minutes. but it's kind of fun. right? i think -- you know, it's one of those where you don't want to giggle, but it's like, oh my god, it's so over the top. but it's something that was important and we talked about a little bit when we talked about manufacturing, the idea that people were having strikes and when we talked, i think last

week, about censorship, the idea that earlier in the war, the war department censored photos, right? they wouldn't show men dead on the beach and things like that because it was just too hard. right? it was too hard. but by 1944, they're letting those images out. right? they're showing more of those images. they're showing more of this drama of the families being affected. they're showing more of the violence that was occurring to the soldiers. and why were they doing that? >> because people were starting to slack. they thought they'd won the war already. why go to the factories and work? >> right. we weren't being bombed. some exceptions in the northwest and, of course, pearl harbor, most americans weren't being impacted as they were in england or france or other places, right? so this idea of i don't want to go to work today, what's the consequence? who cares, right? >> there's also another moment in the film where they show bombed out cities. i'm not sure if there's in italy or in britain or anything like that, but it basically says, all right, if you don't go to work and do this thing, we could get bombed here. please take this seriously. >> yeah. yeah. we've looked at some of those images of that idea of we want to stop the fighting over there. right? we want to stop it in europe. we want to stop it in the

pacific before it comes here. right? because we're next. that's the goal. right? so go to the factory. right? go to the factory. get the job -- get the job done. right? okay. so this idea of women working was -- was important. right? just to kind of drive home the point of which women are working and how it changed, before the war, only 13.9% of american women who were married are working. right? and that number goes up to almost 24% during the war. right? so it's still a pretty small number, isn't it? right? if you think about it. now, that's a little warped by the fact that you have so many marriages during world war ii. right? those kind of quickie marriages that occur.

we've known each other for two weeks, but you're about to go overseas, let's get married. right? now, it's important to realize just a sidenote that the divorce rate between 1945 and 1952 is astronomical. it's the highest divorce rate in american history. it's those seven years because everybody comes back from war and it's like, oh, i don't really know you, maybe this isn't a good idea, right? but that idea of married women, married women working, right? so we've got this image, this "we can do it!," "we can do it!" image, which is so popular, and, of course, so important. right? and the idea of rosie the riveter comes from a song. this is a 1942 song. it is incredibly popular. and we'll see -- i'm going to try to play it for you. let's see if i can make this work. all right. just because it's so fun. anything with a ukulele's good, right?

♪ all day long whether rain or shine she's a part of the assembly line ♪ ♪ she's making history working for victory ♪ ♪ rosie brrrr the riveter ♪ keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage sitting up there on the fuselage ♪ ♪ that little girl will do more than a male can do ♪ ♪ rosie has a boyfriend charlie ♪ ♪ charlie he's a marine

♪ rosie is protecting charlie working overtime on the riveting machine ♪ ♪ she was as proud as she could be ♪ ♪ there's something true about red-white-and-blue about rosie the riveter ♪ >> all right. it's a longer song than that. we'll stop there. wasn't that fun? it's going to be stuck in your head all day. it's going to be my fault. that's okay, right? right? i know. it's my fault. that's my job to get into your brains, right? this san incredibly popular song. it gets covered by everybody. right? it get covered by everybody. the four vagabonds make it popular in 1952. remember, music is such an

important part of all of this during the war that it's so popular. so this idea of rosie the riveter. also wendy the welder. right? all of that, right? this idea of going and working in the factory, right? so we've got this image and this is the myth-busting portion of the class. this idea of rosie the riveter, i'm sorry, but this woman was not called rosie the riveter until the 1980s. right? she was a poster created by gerald miller for westinghouse corporation's factories. it hung up in their factories for two weeks in february of 1943 and that was it. this was not a poster that inspired all of america. this was not an image that made people sit up and go to work. right? i'm very sorry. you can still love her. right? you can still dress up like here for halloween. right? but she is -- she is definitely a worker.

right? it definitely fits. it's not dishonest to call her rosie. all right? look at the image from the cover. right? very similar. we'll have images of real rosies. right? but she wasn't called that during the war. all right? this is rosie the riveter. right? you guys recognize norman rockwell from his own paintings of himself? like i know him, right? the idea of norman rockwell. this is mary doyle keefe. she was 19 years old. she was his neighbor. he was a pretty broke artist at the time. he paid her $5 to come to his

studio and he had a photographer take pictures of her in different poses. he liked to work off of photographs instead of live subjects. then they had her come back a week later and put on a blue shirt and penny loafers, right, so he could work off of that photo. she got $5 for each session. so she got $10 to be rosie the riveter. he wrote to her afterwards, or called her afterwards, and apologized for making her look so hefty. right? rosie's got these big, strong arms and is a big girl. right? she's a big, strong girl. and mary doyle keefe is a slender 19-year-old. he said i want you to know, i'm sorry about that. and she was okay. i mean, obviously, the thing went very popular. but this is -- this is rosie. you can see her lunchbox says rosie on it. right? so the song had come out and was popular. and then he did this painting and dubbed her rosie the riveter. this is just another -- i like the little trivia for you, right? to see low this was inspired. right? michelangelo, you know, isaiah

has dropped his sandwich, i think. right? right? this idea -- right? so how often does rockwell do this? i don't know enough rockwell history, but i love how, you know, this similarity between the two, it's obviously what he did and very popular. right? so this is the image that gets taken all over the country. right? this is the image that gets turned into posters. this is the image that people have hanging up and think about as rosie the riveter. not -- not our "we can do it!" girl, as much as we love her and you can still love her, but she's a creation. right? we talk about that a lot in here. the idea that people use the past for different things. right? and in the 1980s, they used that image to inspire women. right? and called her rosie. but, again, we bust myths in here.

so this is rosie. right? this is rosie. representing all those women. she -- the real rosie never actually riveted anything. she was a telephone operator. she never riveted anything. but she posed and we have this terrific, terrific image. right? with her lunchbox and such. right? just one more image. this is her in 2015 with a copy of it. i just think she's great. right? she just was very nice. very nice, happy lady. right? right. so we've got that. this idea of promotion of women working. we've talked about the fact that the federal government had all these different commissions. all these different boards to try to help organize the economy, control the economy. this idea of women doing different jobs. this is one of my favorite posters. it's not seen quite as often. it's drawn in a different style than some of the others. but this idea of look at all these different jobs women are doing. right?

we often think of rosie the riveter, wendy the welder, people working in aircraft factories or the naval shipyards building the ships, but you'll note this one has a waitress on there. right? and there's whole series of advertisements saying, being a waitress is a war job. right? because somebody needs to feed the workers. somebody needs to feed the people who are doing these other jobs. right? this type of work is just as important. we just need you to work. you don't have to be a mechanic, right? you don't have to weld. but work. right? and i wanted to point out, too, in this one, you see the one here in the middle has gray hair. so this is another target is women in their 40s and 50s to help them get into the workforce. doing these different jobs. you know, you can roll bandages, right? but we really need more people in the factories or more people doing these different jobs. and we've talked about the fact that women are working when they're married and when they're mothers. right? well, who's going to care for the children if you're working a ten-hour shift at willow run or down here at lockheed?

>> grandmothers. >> grandmothers. right? so there's a huge push, eleanor roosevelt, we've talked about her a lot about how she advocates for different groups. eleanor roosevelt, one of the things she advocates for in this period is the idea of government-supported childcare. right? this idea of childcare, if you want women to work, if you want women to be part of this war effort, you got to have somebody watching their children, right? we know childcare is a problem for families today. it's not just a women's problem. it's a family problem. but affordable childcare is a problem. right? and in the 1940s, it's an even bigger problem because there was even less infrastructure for

childcare because women, once you had children, you don't work. you take care of the kids. right? and, again, working-class women, immigrant women, and women of color, always did and found ways. but eleanor roosevelt says, let's have some childcare. so there are some childcare facilities set up across the country, but they're in such small numbers that it's just completely inadequate. so the people that are going to watch the children are going to be family, right? grandmothers or this idea of support within the community. so that gets promoted as a war job. right? if you work as a child caregiver, you're enabling someone else to go work in the factory. if you've got arthritis in your elbow and can't rivet, maybe you can feed a baby a bottle. so this idea of all these jobs are important, all these jobs help with the war effort and make a difference to the whole thing. all right? we often think of rosie the riveter as, you know, the epitome of women working during the war, but the reality is more

women typed than anything else. right? and when we get to the women at war, we're not going to highlight that, but i want to kind of sneak it in now. that's one of the biggest things that women do in the military as well. right? you've got the civil service women working for different parts of the government. as part of civil service. then women in the military, too. remember, there are no computers. right? and everybody has orders. right? and they're all in triplicate or quadruplicate. everything is typed. my favorite resources in my own research is when i find transcripts of phone calls because every government official depending on your level, right, would have a stenographer that would listen in, right, and take shorthand, right, the ultimate secret language. right? take shorthand of the phone conversation then type out the

phone conversation. in the national archives we have transcripts of phone calls between generals, important people making business decisions. we have transcripts of all the phone calls. they're hard to find. they're not labeled that way. you have to look through a lot of boxes. somebody typed those. those are women. one of the things about a lot of these posters is they're sponsored by different companies. we've talked about that before, i think, the idea that they want to promote their company by, you know, sponsoring the bonds or whatever and so royal typewriter company sponsors this type of ad. right? you go and serve your country, but do it by typing and wouldn't you rather have a royal typewriter than any other? right? so it's a quiet plug for their own company, but supporting the war effort. all right. this is another push, right, this idea of, you know, she's holding his letters and being all sad and lonely. crying.

right? do you see the tears? isn't that sad? right? but her lipstick is perfect. right? right? right? but what is this essentially saying to this girl or any lonely girl? >> don't cry about it, get to work. >> don't cry about it, get to work, right? >> chin up. >> chin up, right. >> don't be a baby. go do something about it. right? this idea that you can make -- only you can bring him home. right? only you can end this war by going to work. if you're going to stay home, shut your alarm clock off, sit around and cry, nothing's going to happen. you have to go to work. you have is to get this job done. right? what else we got here? again, this similar type of theme, right, the men would rather be doing this work, the men are probably better at it than you are. but somebody's got to do it. and do the job he left behind. what's with the headwrap? we see that in the image of

rosie the riveter. why? why? >> they'd set their hair with pin curls and stuff. you don't want to mess it up. >> are you going to wear your hair in pin curls to the factory you think? >> no, you don't want your hair getting caught in me of the machinery. you will get scalped. >> this is a safety issue, right? this is the idea you have to keep your hair up. this is the simplest way. can do double duty. put your hair up in pin curls, you don't kill yourself wrapping it around a drill press or something, then you can go out and go dancing afterwards. right? right? so it's killing those two birds

with one stone. right? but, again, i want to point out the image that we've got here of this woman, right? does she look like she's sweating working? >> she's perfect. >> right. she's perfect. she's perfect. she's beautiful. she's got her makeup on. she's got, i don't know, are these fake lashes or her real lashes? i don't know. right? and, again, the perfect lipstick. right? so this is -- this is the image that's being left of these women. was these very perfect images. right? now, we talked about this and we look at all these different images. this is a very serious effort. right? this is a very serious effort. right? so this is a group of women, some of them just have hair nets instead of bandannas, right? but this is important work. these are the noses of bombers. right? can you tell -- can you see that? right? those are going to go on the nose of bombers. and it's important. right? there's going to be a man

sitting in here, right? and if you don't do it right, he could die. right? so this is important work. we've got to get those numbers out there. just to review, we've talked about this idea of the manufacturing. you remember when we talked about fdr in 1942? he said 60,000 new airplanes, right, we had, like, 9,000 airplanes before we got involved in the war. we're going to build 60,000 new airplanes in 1942 and 125,000 airplanes in 1943. you think about that reality. how the heck are we going to do that? right? how is this even possible that we spooled up as quickly in our factories and in our manufacturing and that we reached those goals? right? we built 300 airplanes over the course of the year. go from 9,000 to over 300,000 in the course of the war. right? we're supplying the soviets. we're supplying the british. and we're supplying ourselves. we're completely overwhelming the germans and japanese. completely overwhelming them and it's because we've got women working in these factories. all right? women working in these factories. i want to show you some pictures of the real rosie the riveters. right? we got this one. anything with lots of airplanes,

you know i love, right? but this is another image of rosie the riveter. again, i want to make the point even though most of the poster images that we see are targeting middle-class white women and this idea that you can still be attractive and feminine if you're working in the factory, the reality is you have a lot of women of color going to be in these positions and doing these different jobs. i love this. this is one of my favorite ones. so much so that i have it twice for you because i like this one because of the reflection on the plane. right? you can see her ring in the reflection. and this idea of she's still feminine. she's got this beautiful ring. look at her nails. i don't know if she knew she was going to be photographed the next day or if she just kept her nails that pretty because it made her feel feminine while

she's doing this work. right? this idea of women doing this work while still being feminine, but the target in a lot of that advertisement isn't women of color, but you see a lot of different women that are taking these jobs. and, again, this is why i say we can still call the "we can do it" woman rosie because she looks like a lot of these women, right? idea of bandannas to hold their hair up, doing these different types of jobs. the shoes is always of interest to me. the types of shoes, right? they were penny loafers. they were little loafers. no work boots for this group of this -- you know, for this generation, right? i like this one, too. what do you see up there in the corner of that? i guess i got a -- right? what do you see here?

>> men working together. >> right? the idea of men doing these different jobs. see the one on the right is a sailor. that's the kind of place that that "we can do it!" poster would have hung, right? just on the back wall of the factory kind of thing. just to remind people while you're there. right? you're not just here doing a job. it gets romanticized a lot, doesn't it? this idea of, oh, you're building this plane and you're going to save a man and he's going to fly it and he's going to kill the germans or he's going to kill the japanese and we're going to win the war, it's going to be because you riveted that. right? your rivet saved the world. right? but it's also boring, right? to do the same thing every day. it's dirty. it's loud. it's mundane. right? so it's how to find that balance between making people realize you have to keep coming to work. it's important for you to keep coming to work. and getting through the boringness of doing the same thing every day. right? how to find that balance. how to find that balance. right? just another one. these are ship fitters.

you know, my classes i always show all the airplane pictures, but it's important to realize we built tens of thousands of ships during world war ii. these are women working in one of the shipyards. again, i like this picture because it's diverse. right? you've got an asian woman, probably asian-american woman, you've got an african-american woman, and white women, all working together. you've got the guy in the back smiles. nice guy. right? huh? >> i'm here, too. >> i'm here, too. right. right. but, you know, this -- much of the workers are integrated. right? this isn't where -- while the military was still integrated -- excuse me, while the military was still segregated at this time, the workers were integrated. i think that's important, right? so you've got all different types of women working. you know, look at that sweater and shirt.

right? it's like you're going to get dirty. right? you're going to get dirty. they all have i.d. badges. right? with photo i.d.s. right? with photo i.d.s. these are secure facilities. right? it depends where you are and what you're doing how secure it's going to be. but these are secure facilities. so you're going to need to -- going to have these photo i.d.s. right? this idea of photo i.d.s. right? i like this one. there's a limited series of color photographs during the war. right? color film was fairly new and fairly expensive so this is a whole series of color photographs, like wait a minute, they're real, right? it adds a whole other level of things. you think of all the jobs, this woman is literally painting on

the plane. right? she's painting the star on the plane. this is fabric. right? this is a fabric plane. probably a trainer. but, so artists had jobs. right? all sorts of different jobs. not just, you know, the factory riveting. right? why did it matter that women went to work, right? this is the willow run factory up in detroit, near detroit. it's in belleville, michigan, actually. this, of course, was ford's factory that got transitioned into this bomber factory. this is huge. this is one of my favorite photographs. can you see the person here sticking their head out? just to give you a scale of the planes that we're talking about. these are b-24 liberators. this is the "e" model, obviously. this one factory at willow run builds over 9,000 of the 18,000 b-24s that are built during world war ii. right? i mean, think about the scale of that. they were building one every 63 minutes by 1944.

one of those was coming off the assembly line every 63 minutes. think about how complicated that machine is. right? this is a big four-engine plane, and incredibly, incredibly important, right? and then they go off to war. right? and, again, we've talked about previously in this class, we've talked about the scale of the stuff. right? the planes, the ships, the tanks, the guns, the trucks, the jeep, all these things and how we just overwhelmed the enemy and this is one example of it. so when you think about, you know, women at work during the war and whether they really needed to do it, this is the result. right? and it's not because they're women, right? it's because they're workers. right? and they were able to do the jobs that needed to be done and make a real difference -- make a real difference in the war.

right? okay. just some other quick statistics for you. remember, we're reaching our goals of feeding everyone, right? both ourselves here at home, our soldiers abroad, and our allies overseas. right? we build over 300,000 planes over the course of the war. right? 300,000 planes. now, that's going to be everything from trainers to the bombers and the p-51s and all of them, but 300,000 planes over the course of the war. we're also supplying 60% of our allies munitions, 40% of the whole world's arms, that's enemies and ours, right? we're giving 10% of the soviet union's total military needs. that means we gave the soviet union 350,000 trucks. all right? 350,000 trucks. we gave them 956,000 miles of telephone cable. right? all those little things that you think, you know, maybe don't

think of that we had to give them. right? and all doing this while our population is healthy and better fed than we'd been in a generation. right? because we had that study of nutrition, we had all the farming going on, right? so all those things had to come together, right? it really did make a difference. again, we look at all these images and the idea of it being kind of fun and, you know, some of it sexist, some of it kind of racist. but it all comes together, right, this idea of different people working. right? there's a lot of discussion about the jobs that women had before and after the war, and this idea of women working and what happens to women after.

i want to make one final point on this idea of women at work. all right? everyone during world war ii is able to change their opportunities. right? the work that they do. so you've got women that are working at this level. right? they're working at this level during -- before the war. and men are working here. right? well, as the men are able to

move up into different positions, the women are able to move up into the positions the men were. right? right? and so after the war, as the men come back down in the types of positions and the pay of the positions that they have, the women are going to come back down, too. right? they're always going to stay a notch below when it comes to pay, when it comes to opportunity. it's going to be the same for women of color, especially, right? they're going to be below white women on the pay scale but they're going to be higher than they were before, right? women as domestic laborers drops by over 15% during world war ii. that's going be a lot of women of color that are going to be doing those jobs. a lot of immigrant women that are going to be doing those jobs that during the war are able to take better paying jobs and after the war, they're going to get bumped back down to which types of jobs they can have. okay? so questions about women at work? all right. this idea of women working. okay. well, we'll switch to our third -- our third topic here. and our third focus, final and third focus today, is going to be women at war. all right? this idea of women at war. okay? one of the biggest things i want you to walk away with today is the idea that we have between 350,000 and 400,000 women are going to serve in the american armed forces during world war ii. depends who you count and who you don't that we have the

discrepancy. between 350,000 and 400,000 people, women, serving in the american armed forces. and the thing i want you to remember about them is they were all volunteers. right? we talk about the millions of men that served in the armed forces during world war ii. the vast majority of those were drafted. many of them volunteered. but every woman veteran from the beginning of time in the united states to today, every woman veteran you meet is a volunteer. right? and i think that's a really important thing to remember about women in the military and women who are veterans. right? so in world war ii, you've got that 350,000 to 400,000 women that are serving in world war ii. this is my little public service announcement, if you will. have you guys been to arlington

national cemetery? have you seen this? have any of you been there? this is the women's memorial. women in military service for america. it's right at the doorstep when you pull up to the arlington national cemetery. you can find it there. and it says women's memorial, but it's really a museum and an archive. they gather oral histories and documents of women in world war ii. and it's really just a terrific non-profit organization. it was started by congress. unfortunately, not funded. so -- of course. so it gets a lot of donations and things like that. but it's a really terrific organization. it's the only place in the country that's just for women. right? just for women veterans recognizing them. so i think that's important. kind of a public service announcement for you there. right? so one of the first groups that we think of when we think of women serving in the military is, of course, nurses.

right? this is a fairly idealized promotion. right? right? very pure, very clean. who's putting the hat on her? >> uncle sam. >> uncle sam. right? we don't even need to know. and, again, this is a very attractive young woman. very white. perfect makeup. all of this. right? very intelligent. uncle sam saying, we need you, right, become a nurse, your country needs you. right? you know, there were women doctors as well. there was a very small group of women doctors as well. but all in all, you know, we get about 74,000 women who serve in the army and navy nurse corps during world war ii. 74,000. right? this is a lot. 7,000 active duty army and navy nurses before pearl harbor, so obviously a huge increase. again, people still got sick in the united states. right?

people still got sick on the home front. so finding that balance of adding all these additional nurses was important. now, i'd like to contrast this image of the nurse, you know, being anointed there by uncle sam with this reality of what it meant to be a nurse in world war ii, right? these are a group of u.s. army nurses that landed at normandy on d-day plus four. right? so we've talked about the war in europe. we've talked about d-day. you know, a lot of men were being injured, of course. they would be taken out to the boats. right? to the ships that were waited. where navy nurses would be waiting for them. but then army nurses are finally landing on the beaches at normandy. dday plus four. you can see the beaches have been improved a little bit. but it's still very much a war zone. throughout the war, nurses get closer and closer to the front lines. right? and are always right in the thick of it because that's where the injured soldiers are. right? there's a group of american women that are captured as p.o.w.s.

we're going to talk the second half of our semester, we're going to cover the war in the pacific. and when the philippines falls in 1942, both manila, you have a group of american women, navy and army nurses, that are there who get captured. there's about 79 women who are captured by the japanese. they're held as p.o.w.s for 37 months. so this is just a couple of them that survived eating chocolate. but you can see how thin they are, right? especially the woman on the left. how thin they are. starvation rations. all of that. when we're talking about, you know, who's in combat, who's not, that line gets pretty blurred especially when it comes to the nurses because they're so close. who's captured, who's not. what happens to women at

p.o.w.s, what happens to men as p.o.w.s. right? so i think that's important to recognize these nurses, of course. right? women serve in a number of different parts of the military. right? this one, i mean, could you get more girl next door, right? she's just so perfect, right? but she's a good soldier, right? when you think of soldier, do you think of this? right? is that the image that pops into your head? >> not typically. >> not typically, right. >> my grandma was a wac. >> your grandma was a wac. that's good. that's good. that's good. this idea of women serving in the military, women being soldiers is something you have to get the public used to. right? you have to get the public used to. so you have a lot of these images. there was a huge -- huge campaign against these women. i don't know if it was a campaign as much as this idea that being in the military was a man's job. right? so if a woman wanted to serve in the military, they must just want to be around men, right?

in a sexual way. be prostitute or camp followers kind of thing or they must be lesbians and want to be a man, right? that's the two choices. there's a lot of pushback against the idea of women serving in the military that you'd be with unsavory type of serving in the military that you would be with unsavory type of people if you served in the military. one of the biggest efforts that especially the wac, the women's ar army corps, one of their biggest pushes is to convince parents this was a good idea for their daughters to serve in the military. there's a really good book by lisa myier on women in the army and the campaign against them. right? you have all these different branches of the military that have women in them. there's a fierce competition. right? they all have a quota of how many women they're supposed to become part of their forces, and so this campaign to get women to join the navy instead of the

army and different things like that, and they all promote different types of jobs. this is a parachute rigor. what message are they trying to tell women, how are they trying to get women to join the navy with this type of message? >> kind of challenging them. >> uh-huh. going to try to challenge them. >> it's kind of like anybody can join the wacs, but can you join the waves? >> right. this idea you got what it takes? you think you're good enough. the push to challenge them? look how important this job is. a parachute rigor, nobody uses the parachute in world war ii for fun. right? that's not a pleasure thing or entertainment. this idea of this is incredibly important, can you handle it? this challenge to women. right? then this idea of patriotism. right? make men free. this idea of you'll be part of the gratitude. right? you'll be part. people will be thanking you. you'll be part of it, be able to

say that you did it. right? and the waves. this is kind of a silly thing. the women's army corps was first. first it was the women's army auxiliary core and then it was shortened. people made fun of their acronym. wac, quack. what a silly name. as the other prarcbranched crea other women's organizations, they worked really hard to make better names. it's about the names. when you're competing, you're working on all levels. the waves, that's nice. right? it's anachroni ak ro anymore -- acronym. it's are you a wave or a wac? it's a silly thing. their uniforms were important.

one of the women i've studied said she almost joined the navy because they had such cute hats. it matters. the army, look how brown that is. right? that's not pretty. that's kind of pretty. right? here's the spars. this is the coast guard. always ready is the english version of their motto. spar. spars, it even sounds better than wac. and the marines, they were just marines. you got to respect that. right? the women marines were just marines. but it was free marine to fight. that's the whole thing about women serving in the military. it's the idea of free a man to go do something more important. right? you can't go to combat, but the men can. let's do it. a lot of promotion of what types of jobs you're going to be doing. there's a whole series of

advertisements. the wac especially has. it has 239 kinds of jobs for women. you're not going to just be a typist. you can work in a laboratory and do all sorts of different things. get work experience. the navy promotes that you can be promoted. that you can get these different positions, and talks about the fact that you're going to get the same grade and the same pay as men. so we're about equality here in the navy. you have this opportunity. again, very patriotic. there's a man-sized job for you in the navy. he's going to go fight. you work here. this is one of my very favorites, of course. we have the pioneer woman statue on our campus here. i love this image of the pioneer woman. she was out there defending her wagon with her rifle. are you as good as she is? can you live up to this legacy?

and again, in the wac you can work in a hospital. not as a nurse but separate. this one i think is interesting. this is in the lady's home journal add for ivory soap. but how to win an engagement. this is a play on words. she's in the military. she's a wac, but it's about the man. this is what you're fighting for. and you can still get your man even if you're in a uniform. >> she looks very sassy. >> she does, doesn't she? a little doris dayish. this is competition as well. you have efforts to get women into the military, but we need women as ordinance workers. so they have their spot, but you have yours too. they're all equally important. this competition to get women to have women doing these different jobs. there's a push for african

american women as well. this was in -- remember, we've got a lot of prominent newspapers in african american communities. chicago and other places. and they would hire artists to draw cartoons to try to promote women of color to be a part of the military as well to serve as nurses. and they did. right? this was the postal directory battalion that was in paris. and they did stay segregated. and a group of african american naval nurses, they were often worked with african american soldiers and sailors. they kept them all segregated. they kept blood separated, all of that. and then you know my favorite group here, right? the women air force service pilots of world war ii, the archives are here at tw in the back corner. but these women worked to free men up so they could go fly in combat.

we have 25,000 women apply for the training program. the training starts in houston, but you guys have been to houston. right? the idea that the weather is not great for flying. a lot of fog and a lot of rain seasonally. then they moved to sweet water which is west of fort worth, of course. and they did their training there. 25,000 women applied. when i started my research, i thought that number was made up because jacqueline cochran, the head of it kind of makes stuff up sometimes. she does. she does. but i've seen them. they're in the national archives, all these letters you can find of women saying please, i want to fly. only 1830 were picked. 80% of the women had at least two years of college. they could be very selective. this is at a time when only 4% of the american women had college degrees. so it was a very selective group. they did a wide variety of jobs. they started as ferry pilots with air transport command

flying the planes from place to place within the continental united states. they did not go overseas. they did not fly in combat. they just stayed within the continental united states. a little peek into canada a couple times and a little peek into the caribbean a few times but for the most part, just within the continent. then they moved to different jobs. can you see the target back there? if you're going to send men overseas, you've got to teach them how to shoot. right? shooting from the deck of a b-17 against an airplane is a little different than duck hunting. so you got to give the men practice. they would each get two flights before they were sent overseas as gunners. you'd have women often flying the planes. this is a shot of two women flying this b-17 while it shoots at the target of the other plane. this is live ammunition. it's no good to use fake. live ammunition. color coated bullets.

they did this with a wide variety of different planes. these women served as civilians until the 1970s when they started a grass roots campaign to be recognized as veterans. it's an incredible, incredible campaign. and they finally were given veterans benefits at the -- in congress after they testified. this is 1977 when president carter finally recognized them as veterans. in the united states. all of their papers are here. if you guys want to serve as interns in the women's collection, we have that. and you can work with their papers directly. but, again, we could have an entire semester on women and war, and this is just a quick and dirty version of it. but if you'll just when we walk away from class as we conclude, think about women in these three ways of working here in the

united states domestically and abroad, and that will help you kind of organize your thoughts. do you guys have any questions or any final ideas or thoughts about this? okay. thank you very much, and we'll continue our conversation in our regular class on thursday. good job, guys. thank you. >> all week we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. lectures in history. american artifacts. reel america. the civil war. oral histories. the presidency. and special event coverage about our nation's history. enjoy american history tv now and every weekend on c-span3. >> weeknights this week we're

featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight we spotlight the 100th anniversary of the 19 amendment that gave women the right to vote. beginning with rebecca roberts, author. curator porter and an examination of the 19th amendment and historians discussing women's suffragist and reconstruction eras. enjoy american history tv this week and every weekend on c-span3. >> our lectures in history series continues now with a discussion on the origins of world war ii and europe. we hear how the british and french governments initially saw soviet russia as a bigger threat than the fascists in jeregermand italy. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >>