drained America of her resources of white, male workers. Women and other minorities moved into all areas of the workplace - and performed well. The typical documentary photo shows Rosie the Riveter, but the wartime draft left room at the top as well. Women moved into positions of management responsibility in the corporate offices. There was no sudden influx of women executives; in the typical case, responsibility was given while the executive title was withheld. However, the fact remained obvious to all but the most die-hard that sex was no qualifier of talent, that women could be hard-thinking, responsible corporate decision-makers. Still, at war's end, white male workers were brought back, pushing their wartime substitutes out of the mainstream once again.
The social changes wrought by the war could not be completely reversed. Moreover, the unprecedented boom in America's postwar economy - which was to last until the early 1970s - quickly exhausted the supply of white males available to the workforce. Demand outraced supply: U.S. business turned eagerly to women and minorities to fill out the swelling ranks of the economic juggernaut. Barriers of hiring prejudice were also brought down during this period. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did much to remove the illogical restrictions of discrimination held over from the previous century; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission set up a series of federal "affirmative action" hiring regulations in 1971-72 that extended the rights of women and minorities into the workplace (Ginzberg & Yohalem, 1973, p. 1-2).
Beginning with the oil crisis of 1973, however, the great post-war boom waned into ten years of recession. A mid-1980s recovery was followed by another recession in late-decade that is only just ending in many regions of the nation. With the boom over, unemployment rates went up and there was a much fiercer competition for jobs. Unlike the experience of the immed...