Mrs. Alberta Day, age 29, one of the first women to work aboard ships in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Her husband was in the Army. The need for workers was so strong that racial discrimination took a back seat as the government solicited black women, who had previously only had access to lower paying jobs, to join white women in driving the war effort.[1]

1. Brooklyn Connections – Social Movements Project Packet: The Civil Rights Movement in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Public Library, bklynlibrary.org, accessed 1 June 2018.