The Woman's Land Army
M
IDDAY WITH DAN RODRICKS
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Tuesday, January 6, 1:00-2:00 pm EST: During World War II, Rosie the Riveter was the symbol of working women on the American home front. A generation earlier, during World War I, it was the farmerette who kept the home fires burning and the potatoes growing. In World War I, with millions of men in the trenches and food supplies in jeopardy, women took over the farm work in England and the United States. The Woman’s Land Army was part of a political and social movement that challenged conventional thinking about what women should do during wartime and how much they should be paid for it. This little-known piece of American history was active in Maryland, with units in Catonsville, Fallston and Prince Georges County. The story is now told in a new book, Fruits of Victory, by my guest, Baltimore journalist Elaine Weiss. How women fed a nation while the men went to war . . . after the news from NPR.
