Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II

by Liza Mundy

He then launched into a speech in which the word “problem” appeared over and over. These problems, he explained, had been developing since the first new industrial plants were built in the United States in response to the bombing of England in 1939 and 1940. As Taft sketched it out, America now was one roiling mass of chaos. Factories and construction projects were drawing workers to communities that were hardly able to hold them. Minority groups were moving to find higher-paying work in places that had never seen them. Black churches from the South were moving entire congregations to California. New industries were setting up overnight, Taft said, without the infrastructure they required: schools, housing, playgrounds, hospitals. He talked about other changes in America’s quotidian rhythms. People were working around the clock, not just men but women too, and it was impossible to do chores in normal hours. “I send my washing home every week and I get it back every week,” confided Taft, whose family lived in Cincinnati. But even he had to contend with grocery shopping. “If you don’t provide some sort of extra night when you can shop out of hours, then you are going to find yourself with a serious problem.” But the main problem seemed to be—well, them. The women.