Dramaturg’s Program Note

Women rapidly joined the workforce, filling positions left empty by men serving in the military and creating a large shift in the number of women outside the domestic realm during World War I. Nearly a million and a half women entered the labor force during the war years, 1914-1918, more than doubling the number of the number of women employed in many industries; Sophie Treadwell, herself, was among these, becoming the United States’ first female war correspondent.  The opportunity for women to join the workforce was limited, however, as trade unions—in many instances of collective agreements with employers—had mandated that the women could only be employed “for the duration of the war”. And, although wartime regulations demanded equal pay, employers evaded them by hiring multiple women to share a position or simply splitting more complex jobs into smaller, simpler steps, thus not actually “replacing” a man. Employment outside the home during WWI, as claimed by intellectual historian Eric Leed, allowed women “an enormously expanded range of escape routes from the constraints of the private family” which provided a newfound freedom in dress, behavior, and self-empowerment through employment and, within two years of the war’s end, the winning of the right to vote.

As the war ended and men returned to the States, the women were the first on the employment chopping-block: initially were women whose families did not rely on their income, followed by women who were not married to men still actively serving in the military. “The withdrawal of women back into their home after the war” was unsurprising, according to Joanna Bourke, as “[a]nxiety for their menfolk in war, the pressures of employment, combined with the need to perform housework in straitened circumstances and the inadequacy of social services exacted a heavy toll.” Servicemen returning to face high unemployment rates were angry that women were stealing “their” jobs, Which reinforced the pressures for women to return home. Additional urging came unexpectedly from other females as single women, struggling to support themselves and their families, pushed to ban married women from a variety of positions, including those in Civil Service, and back into the home. Leaning on “the marriage bar,” according to Sharon Hartman Strom, “employers were able to create an office [workforce] regimented by gender, with more prestigious job titles and almost all promotion opportunities reserved for men.”

While war did provide an “in” to the workforce for many women, however temporary it may have been, limited opportunities and social expectations still managed to guarantee that women would not be able to solely support themselves, or a family. When Treadwell wrote the main character’s initial plight in Machinal she was writing the story of herself—having suffered two psychological breakdowns while in school and working to support herself and her single mother—and thousands of single women of the era: marriage was the most reliable way to assure financial support for oneself and one’s family. Can a single woman be reassured that if she works hard enough and receives enough of the right education she’ll have no problem supporting herself or her household? (Can a single man?) Can we be proud of how far we’ve come?