Black women pursued jobs in the thriving shipbuilding industry in California during World War Two. They endured much greater hardship than their white counterparts, experiencing both sexual and racial harassment in the workplace.
“For women particularly the experience of migration into the urban and industrial labour force via shipyard work helped shatter the deferential and stereotypical racial and gender roles that had confined them”
– Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women’s West, edited by Elizabeth Jameson, Susan Hodge Armitage
