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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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societies did set up all kinds of situations. There never was a time when we were short of women.

But Mr. Roosevelt would occasionally get all het up about this. Mrs. Roosevelt always was for it. She thought the draft of women was only fair. Women wanted to be in this. So they do, but women have so many other things to do. They literally do have to keep the home fires burning. There were always planners planning for this. They would always sit down and talk about “potentials. “ They would talk about potential this and potential that and potential labor supply. After they talked about copper, wheat, butter fats, they would start in on the potential labor supply. The potential labor supply was broken down into the male and the female, the young and the old, the handicapped and the able, and so forth and so on. They always got startled when they saw how many women there were in the United States, and only 10,000,000 of them working. Well, they felt they should all work. Well, if they all worked then you had to hire more women to take care of the babies and do the cooking.

Another thing we got, and I used to drag these letters over to Mr. Roosevelt when I saw him weakening, was this. We had some fine volunteers. They would be told to go sign up at the employment service. They would be referred to the places where they were screaming for workers. They needed employees, men or women. The women would come back, “Well,





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