Women

Ms. Abney recounts her experiences working on airplanes at Curtiss-Wright, including the training she received at Ahrens Trade School. She discusses working conditions, women’s expectations with regard to the closing of the plant at the end of the war, and her perception of the influence these experiences had on women working outside home after the war.

Adlene Howard Abstain (b. 1943 in Montgomery, Alabama, d. 2015, in Louisville, Kentucky) describes her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement through voter registration efforts, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Rides, fair housing efforts, work as a pastor at The Fountain of Life Word and Worship Center, and community organization in Louisville.

Adams describes her experiences as a law student at the University of Kentucky in the early 1950s and as a lawyer in private practice with her husband, Charles C. Adams, in Somerset, Kentucky. She also discusses how she combined family life with her career.

summary available.

Mary Jo Arterberry relates her experiences in law school at the University of Louisville, where she graduated in 1949. She also described her career which began in private practice with a small firm specializing in real estate. She later worked in the advertising field and for Kentucky state government before returning to the practice of law as an attorney for Kentucky state agencies. She later became a federal administrative law judge and was assigned to Knoxville, Tennessee, at the time of the interview.

Ms. Ashby discusses her employment, primarily with High Rock Bottling, DuPont and Reynolds, during the war. Ms. Ashby was one of the first two Black women hired at the DuPont plant; she also describes an integrated workplace at Reynolds. She also describes her life after her husband returned from the war, and attitudes toward work during the war.

Baldauf discusses her education at the Jefferson School of Law in the 1930s and her subsequent career as a legal secretary, secretary to the dean of the Speed Scientific School at the University of Louisville, and as an auditor for the Internal Revenue Service in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Bales shared her experiences as a working woman during World War II. Born in LaRue County, Bales moved to Louisville in 1942, at the height of the war. She initially worked at Stewart's before securing a job at Curtiss-Wright, a defense company, through a connection. Bales worked in the maintenance department, checking tools in and out. She noted that while there were many women working in the plant, there were more men. Bales worked seven days a week, buying a savings bond each month from her salary. After the war, she attended beauty school and worked as a manicurist for many years. Bales believes that the war gave women the idea that they could work and hold a job, leading to an increase in working women today.

Lyndon Woman's Club history.

Past President, Fern Creek Woman's Club.