World War II

“Grandma has come out of the kitchen.” The North Ameri-Kansan, a weekly magazine from North American Aviation’s Kansas City, Kansas, plant, proudly proclaimed this in November 1942. It wasn’t just one, either. Thirty-nine women with grandchildren were known to by employed by North American Aviation at that time. “My family was grown and I was free to go to work,” declared Vinita Stephens. With two sons in the armed forces, she decided to support their efforts by working on the assembly line. Women of all ages were entering the work force throughout the U.S. in the early 1940s as the Allied war effort ramped up. Many of them were right here in Kansas City. Some were in occupations historically thought of as women’s work, such as secretarial jobs and sewing. Others worked on assembly lines building airplanes at Pratt and Whitney and North American Aviation, or with bullets and artillery shells at the Lake City and Sunflower Ordnance plants.