She's a WOW, Woman Ordnance Worker
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Library of Congress · LC-DIG-ppmscd-06224 (digital file from original) · Public domain · Catalog record
The pins
Context
For discussion
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Idealized figure The face Blonde, lipstick, a red polka-dot bandanna, gaze lifted to the distance. The munitions worker is drawn as a film star.
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Transfer The column of caps WOW, WAAC, WAVES, Army nurse, Navy nurse, Red Cross. The factory job is ranked with the uniformed services, and borrows their standing.
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Card stacking The shell A clean 75-millimeter shell, held like a prop. No factory, no noise, no TNT dust, which turned ordnance workers' skin yellow.
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Slogan "WOW" An acronym that is also an exclamation. The name was chosen so that the job would sound like a compliment.
Adolph Treidler's recruiting poster for the Army Ordnance Department, 1942. A woman in a red polka-dot bandanna and blue work dress stands beside a 75-millimeter shell, with a column of caps beside her ranking the WOW with the WAAC, the WAVES, the nurses, and the Red Cross. Recruiting women into munitions plants required making the work look glamorous and the woman look feminine, and the poster does both at once. The same campaign gave the women's bandanna its wartime meaning.
- The woman is beautiful and the factory is nowhere in sight. What is being sold, and what is being hidden?
- What does the acronym do?
- What happened to these jobs in 1945, and does the poster hint at it?
See also
Same era, or the same techniques.
