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Paternalism and Pink Collars: Gender and Federal Employee Relations, 1941–50

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Margaret C. Rung
Margaret C. Rung
Affiliation:
MARGARET C. RUNG is an assistant professor of history at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois.
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Abstract

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Women substantially increased their presence in Washington, D.C.'s federal civil service during World War II. Accordingly, agency administrators struggled to define and address the “needs” of these new government women. This article analyzes the crucial role that gender played in the renegotiation of management strategies and policies during the 1940s. It examines the popularization of the human relations school of management in federal agencies and reveals how gendered concepts of authority impacted the employment prospects of female civil servants. The war provided an opportunity for some managers to promote a more “feminine” interpretation of human relations, but as this article demonstrates, that interpretation rested upon stressing the difference between male and female workers. In addition, postwar conservatism allowed for a reassertion of more hierarchical, “masculine” approaches to employment management in the civil service.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1997 , pp. 381 - 416
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1997

References

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13 Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business, 72–76.

14 Strom, Beyond the Typewriter, 5–6, 109–171. Those in the public administration field followed a similar path to professional status. See Stivers, Camilla, Gender Images in Public Administration: Legitimacy and the Administrative State (Newbury Park, Calif., 1993), 109–118Google Scholar.

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17 Private-sector studies of human relations tend to emphasize its anti-union functions. Neither Richard Gillespie's study of Elton Mayo's pioneering human relations studies nor Elizabeth Fones-Wolf's examination of postwar business management focuses on human relations from the perspective of gender, although it is noteworthy that women workers were chosen as the first subjects of Elton Mayo's Hawthorne experiments. Gillespie, Manufacturing Knowledge; Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945–60 (Urbana, Ill., 1994), 73–96Google Scholar.

Scholars Kwolek-Folland, Strom, and Laura Downs concentrate on the intersection between gender and management strategies in the private sector, but all three focus on time periods before the popularization of the human relations school of management. Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business, 136–39, 169–76; Strom, Beyond the Typewriter, 190–71; Downs, Laura Lee, Manufacturing Inequality: Gender Division in the French and British Metalworking Industries, 1914–1939 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995), 147–85Google Scholar. For an early examination of women's experiences in the civil service see Aron, Cindy Sondik, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Civil Service: Middle-Class Workers in Victorian America (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.

18 While some of these women engaged in jobs traditionally assigned to men, most were concentrated in positions within the clerical, administrative, and fiscal service (CAF) and were clustered at the lower end of employee grades. In 1939, female civil servants in Washington, D.C. represented 69.3% of the entire CAF service. Of the 8,190 women appointed to federal jobs in 1939, 73% of them received clerical appointments. At the same time, women made up 1.5% of all professionals. See U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau, Women's, Employment of Women in the Federal Government, 1923–1939, Bulletin No. 182 (Washington, D.C., 1941), 19Google Scholar. For an explanation of the government's classification service, see van Riper, Paul P., History of the United States Civil Service (Evanston, Ill., 1958), 296–304Google Scholar.

On the twentieth-century feminization of the clerical force, see Fine, Lisa Michelle, Souls of the Skyscraper: Female Clerical Workers in Chicago, 1870–1930 (Philadelphia, Pa., 1990)Google Scholar and Davies, Margery, A Woman's Place is at the Typewriter: Office Work and Office Workers, 1870–1930 (Philadelphia, Pa., 1982)Google Scholar.

19 The term “paternalism” has a multitude of meanings within the context of labor history. I use the term in the context of twentieth century labor relations. Prior to the rise of corporate bureaucracies, paternalism referred to the very personal relationship that existed between employers and workers in family-oriented firms. After the emergence of impersonal bureaucracies, top officials engaged in more impersonal and institutionalized forms of paternalism. The company town and company store, for instance, were managerial strategies designed to make the company appear benevolent and concerned about the welfare of workers. Similarly, welfare capitalism which mandated the creation of pension, safety, health, and recreation plans was another form of paternalism that was designed to fit into a complex organization. While human relations also belongs to the twentieth-century bureaucracy, its emphasis on the personal relationship between supervisor and subordinate harkens back to relations within the family firm. Nevertheless, it too relied on standardized and institutionalized programs.

20 The case lodged by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Sears, Roebuck and Company in the late 1970s revolved around this issue of feminine versus masculine behavior and the suitability of these behaviors to certain occupations. See, for example, Milkman, Ruth, “Women's History and the Sears Case,” Feminist Studies 12 (Summer 1986): 375–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, 167–77.

21 On the welfare roots of the personnel profession see Jacoby, Sanford, Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in American Industry, 1900–1945 (New York, 1985), 49–64Google Scholar. For a comparative view of welfare supervision see Downs, Manufacturing Inequality, 147–85.

22 Executive Order 7916, 24 July 1938; see also Washington Post, 12 March 1939.

23 Roy Hendrickson, “Employee Relations,” 6 May 1940, RG 16, Office of Secretary, box 875, Personnel (2 of 5), 1 Feb. to 31 May 1943, NARA.

24 Kenneth Warner phone interview with author, 22 May 1995; Marian Norby phone interview with author, 5 June 1995.

25 Bradbury, William, “Racial Discrimination in the Federal Service: A Study in The Sociology of Administration” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1952), 339–40Google Scholar.

26 Washington Evening Star, 11 Feb. 1943; 27 March 1949. On women and personnel work in the private sector, see Strom, Beyond the Typewriter, 146–54. In the federal government, the gradual professionalization of personnel managers in the late 1930s marginalized the contributions of women to employee relations. Many of the women who were working as agency appointment clerks were not given jobs as personnel directors when professional personnel offices were organized. Nevertheless, the ideals of social work and welfare impacted significantly on the management philosophy of personnel administrators in the civil service.

On women's salaries see U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Women in the Federal Service: Part II, Occupational Information, Bulletin No. 230–11 (Washington, D.C., 1949), 17Google Scholar.

27 Taylor, Molly Ladd, Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State (Urbana, Ill., 1994), 3Google Scholar; Mink, Gwendolyn, The Wages of Motherhood: Inequality in the Welfare State, 1917–1942 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995), 10Google Scholar.

My aim here is to suggest that both male and female personnel workers were nervous about associating their work with what they defined as maternal activities. Hence, at that time, not all women perceived maternal impulses as an attribute to be celebrated and promoted. As Strom has revealed, personnel managers who advocated a more “sentimental (and effeminate)” approach to employee relations had to temper these aspects of their profession in order to be accepted in a masculine business environment. She also reminds us that both men and women expressed feminine and masculine elements of personnel management. “Men and women contributed to the feminine aspect of personnel management, and both women and men sought to toughen the profession.” Strom, Beyond the Typewriter, 111–13.

28 Roy Hendrickson, “Employee Relations,” 6 May 1940, RG 16, Office of Secretary, box 875, Personnel (2 of 5), 1 Feb. to 31 Mar. 1943, NARA; Davenport, Frederick, “The Personnel Office and the Full use of Manpower,” Personnel Administration 5 (Jan. 1943): 4–5Google Scholar.

29 Barron, Margaret, “Employee Counseling in a Federal Agency,” Personnel Administration 4 (Mar. 1942): 10Google Scholar; Nelson, Thomas, “Human Relations in Management,” Personnel Administration 7 (Dec. 1944): 7Google Scholar; “A Placement Program for the Federal Service Report for 1945–46,” attached to Sayre to Davenport, 5 Sept. 1946, Papers of Raymond R. Zimmerman, box 5, Civil Service File, CAP 1, Harry S. Truman Library (HSTL), Independence, Missouri.

30 On the persistence of this division of labor in the automobile and electrical industries during World War II see Milkman, Gender at Work.

31 Press Release, 7 July 1944, United Federal Workers of America and War Manpower Commission—Working Mother's Club, 20 March 1944, both in RG 146, FPC Project Files, box 11, C80 Child Care—Facilities, Welfare, 1944, NARA.

32 For instance, Leonard White, a highly respected academic in public administration and former civil service commissioner, suggested that as governments became compelled to use more women during the war, they consider devising “special training courses for them.” Civil Service Assembly of the U.S. and Canada, “Wartime Policies of the United States Civil Service Commission,” Special Bulletin No. 15, April 1942 (Chicago, Ill.).

33 U.S. Civil Service Commission, “Secretarial Practice,” 1942, copy in William McReynolds Papers, box 3, Committee on Administrative Personnel—II, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.

34 Ibid. Secretaries in the business world were described in very similar ways. See Davies' account of private business secretaries from the 1920s to the 1930s. A Woman's Place is at the Typewriter, 129–62.

35 U.S. Civil Service Commission, “Secretarial Practice,” 1942, McReynolds Papers, box 3, Committee on Administrative personnel, FDRL. Kwolek-Folland noted in her study of the life insurance industry that masculine and feminine character traits were assigned to different occupations. Female managers, hence, were supposed to adopt masculine business behavior and beliefs. Engendering Business, 71–73, 189–90.

Similarly, Elizabeth Faue argued that the bureaucratization of unions marginalized the contributions of women in the Minneapolis labor movement of the 1930s. Women were excluded from union leadership because the qualifications needed to operate in these positions were culturally linked to men. Faue, Elizabeth, “Paths of Unionization: Community, Bureaucracy, and Gender in the Minneapolis Labor Movement of the 1930s” in Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor, ed. Baron, Ava (Ithaca, N.Y., 1991), 297–98Google Scholar.

36 One woman on the staff of the Democratic National Committee criticized a female candidate for vice-chairman because she appeared “unable to adapt herself to either work in a group or with a group, or to delegate authority to another.” She categorized her as a “lone wolf,” just as Miss “A” was, indicating that women who tried to establish a strong, separate (and perhaps “aloof”) attitude were considered maladjusted. Picketts to McHale, 14 Oct. 1947, papers of India Edwards, box 15, Correspondence, 1947–1977, HSTL.

37 Louise Snyder Johnson, “Are You Polishing Off Those Rough Spots?” Independent Woman (Jan. 1947): 28.

38 “Democratic Attitudes Test,” Independent Woman (June 1945): 165–66.

39 Washington Evening Star, 9 July 1942; 24 Nov. 1942; 3 March 1943; 3 Nov. 1943; 16 Aug. 1949.

40 Washington Evening Star, 12 Aug. 1949.

41 Barron, “The Emerging Role of Public Employee Counseling,” 9–16; U.S. Civil Service Commission, Report of the Committee on Employee Counseling (attached to Department Circular No. 356, 10 July 1942), Committee on Administrative Personnel II, box 3; Sarre to Davenport, 11 June 1943, Council of Personnel Administration, box 5, both in McReynolds Papers, FDRL.

42 143rd Council Meeting, 21 May 1942, RG 146, FPC Meetings, box 14, NARA.

43 Ibid.

44 In 1940 there were 53,038 women working for the government in Washington, D.C. A year later the number had grown to 77,774. By 1945, it had almost doubled to 153,844. In percentage terms, 42% of government workers in D.C. were women in 1941; in 1945, they constituted 59.7% of the departmental service. Women's Bureau, Women in the Federal Service, 1923–1947, 16, 19.

45 Employee Relations Committee Meeting, 24 Sept. 1941, RG 146, Council Files, box 4, Council—Committees 14. Employee Relations, Prior to 1944, NARA. Efforts to “protect” working women through legislation was one manifestation of how managers sought to cater to the special needs of women workers. The Women's Bureau established in the aftermath of World War I, for instance, supported protective labor legislation as the best means of elevating the plight of working women. Sealander, Judith, As Minority Becomes Majority: Federal Reaction to the Phenomenon of Women in the Work Force, 1920–1963 (Westport, Conn., 1983), 76–77Google Scholar.

46 Nelson, Daniel, Managers and Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States, 1880–1920 (Madison, Wisc, 1975), 118Google Scholar. Kwolek-Folland labeled the construction of welfare departments in private business part of “corporate domesticity.” She argued that firms used gender imagery as a means of enhancing their reputation with the public. Engendering Business, 129–39, 144–59, 152–57.

Oliver Zunz also described how women changed the organizational culture of offices. He asserted that unlike federal offices where work relations remained informal into the early twentieth century, private sector firms formalized gender roles and separated the sexes. He also noted that women working in clerical jobs in the private sector had fewer opportunities than those in the civil service to engage in skilled work. While gender may not have been as rigidly defined in the public service, I argue that women changed the organizational culture, in particular federal labor relations policies, in very significant ways. Making America Corporate, 1870–1920 (Chicago, Ill., 1990), 117–18Google Scholar.

47 Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, “Recreation and Housing For Women War Workers: A Summary of Standards, Policies, Procedures,” Feb. 1942, McReynolds Papers, box 19, Labor Department: Executive and Judiciary Departments (Agencies) File, FDRL.

Brinkley, David, Washington Goes to War (New York, 1988), 243Google Scholar. Federal officials made a similar decision during World War I when the Bureau of Labor decided to house female clerical workers hired in war agencies. See Meyerowitz, JoAnne J., Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago (Chicago, Ill., 1988), 89Google Scholar.

48 See, for example, “Letters to the Star,” Washington Evening Star, 19 Oct. 1944. The author of the letter was a government supervisor in charge of orientation. While she emphatically stated that neither the Civil Service Commission nor personnel offices should be responsible for the “moral training” of women workers, she claimed that personnel directors uniformly believed that they had a duty to acclimate incoming workers through orientation and other programs. In her orientation program, this supervisor explained, she offered to help women with personal problems and asked them to maintain, at all times, “the standard of morals which they had had back home and which they had brought here with them.”

49 Washington Evening Star, 16 April 1942. Not all were pessimistic concerning the availability of dates. One guest home owner whose boarders included men and women claimed that there were five or six marriages a month, and ten to fifteen every June. Washington Evening Star, 31 Aug. 1944.

50 See, for example, Washington Evening Star, 8 Feb. 1942; 16 April 1942; 31 Aug. 1944.

51 Washington Evening Star, 30 Jan. 1942; 31 Jan. 1942; 1 Feb. 1942; 4 Feb. 1942.

52 Washington Evening Star, 8 Oct. 1944.

53 See, for example: Washington Evening Star, 11 Oct. 1944; 12 Oct. 1944; and 14 Oct. 1944; Washington Post, 10 Oct. 1944; 11 Oct. 1944; 13 Oct. 1944; and 14 Oct. 1944.

54 Washington Evening Star, 14 Oct. 1944; 16 Oct. 1944.

55 Washington Evening, Star, 19 Oct. 1944; Washington Post, 14 Oct. 1944.

56 Women entering the female military services in World War II faced nearly identical difficulties. As Leisa Meyer explained, “[w]hile the military's masculine culture encouraged man's heterosexual activity, manpower needs dictated that men should not be responsible for their sexual behavior.” Women in the services, on the other hand, were disciplined and blamed for pregnancies and “passing” venereal disease to men. Creating GI Jane: Sexuality and Power in the Women's Army Corps During World War II (New York, 1996), 100–147Google Scholar, quote from 100.

57 Washington Evening Star, 3 Nov. 1941.

58 Washington Evening Star, 19 Oct. 1944; 16 Oct. 1944.

59 Employee Relations Committee Meeting Minutes, 7 Feb. 1945, RG 146, Council Files, 1938–54, 1944–50, box 12, 3. Council Committee (14) Employee Relations 1948, NARA. The Women's Bureau agreed with the protective approach to labor policies. To support protective labor legislation, Bureau administrators consistently argued that women worked out of economic necessity rather than out of personal choice. Sealander, As Minority Becomes Majority, 104–5.

60 On the Dies Committee and its anti-communist probes, see Fried, Richard, Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective (New York, 1990), 45–49Google Scholar, and Bontecou, Eleanor, The Federal Loyalty-Security Program (Ithaca, N.Y., 1953), 8–10Google Scholar. Bontecou also reviewed a provision in the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1941, section 9A of the Hatch Act and other statues which prohibited federal employees from belonging to organizations advocating the overthrow of the government. The Federal Loyalty-Security Program, 10–21.

61 Federal Record 4 (20 June 1941Google Scholar; 18 July 1941; and 1 Aug. 1941); C. Renner to Perkins, received 1 May 1942, RG 174, Office of Secretary, box 112, Administration—Personnel 1942, NARA.

62 Federal Record 7 (6 June 1945Google Scholar; May 1946); Washington Evening Star, 27 March 1949.

63 New York Times, 18 Nov. 1948; 23 Feb. 1949; 19 March 1949; 29 July 1949; 23 March 1950; 26 March 1950; and 1 May 1951. Washington Evening Star, 27 March 1949; 17 May 1949. On the legal questions involved in the Bailey case see Bontecou, , The Federal Loyalty-Security Program 64, 119Google Scholar, 133, 138–140, 226, 229–31, 233–34.