Get a War Job - Special Committee Formed in WWII Kansas City to Recruit 30,000 Workers

As part of a massive wartime recruitment campaign, the Citizens War Manpower Committee placed more than 100 billboards throughout the Kansas City region in 1944 encouraging civilians to seek employment in essential war industries. Courtesy of Jeremy P. Amick

​The War Manpower Commission was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the early years of World War II. The agency called for the “elimination of wasteful labor turnover in essential activities … the direction of the flow of scarce labor where most needed in the war program … (and for) the maximum utilization of manpower resources,” explained an article published in the October 29, 1943 edition of the St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times.

As the war intensified, industrial centers across the United States struggled to maintain production levels. Thousands of skilled workers had either entered military service or relocated to defense-related positions elsewhere, creating serious labor shortages in many critical war industries.

“Our country saw fit to locate at Kansas City, the Heart of the Nation, the production of large quantities of the most important munitions of war,” wrote Kansas City Mayor John B. Gage in a proclamation dated May 6, 1944.

He continued, “At the very time when the greatest battles of this war are to be fought—when planes, engines, explosives, landing craft and other vital material of war produced here are most needed—a shortage of workers fully to man the war plants has developed.”

Under the auspices of the War Manpower Commission, Mayor Gage moved to address the growing labor shortage by establishing the Citizens War Manpower Committee, which sought to recruit an additional 30,000 workers for Kansas City-area war plants. The mayor appointed Elmer C. Rhoden, president of the Fox Midwest Amusement Corporation, to serve as chairman of the committee.

Only a week after the committee’s formation, members approved an “advertising approach” designed to “appeal to older men who may fear they are not adequate to the jobs that are open.”

The committee also emphasized the patriotic duty of workers employed in non-essential industries.

“We must appeal to both men and women who are in non-essential or less-essential jobs and convince them it is their duty to surrender their present security and take up work on the production line in the manufacture of the implements of war,” committee members noted.

The committee’s advertising division was headed by W.J. Krebs of the Potts-Turnbull Advertising Company and included volunteers from a variety of Kansas City-area advertising specialties. Together, they launched a multifaceted publicity campaign featuring advertisements on buses and streetcars, billboard displays, notices enclosed with utility bills and short promotional film clips shown before movies in local theaters. One of the campaign’s most visible slogans urged citizens to “Get a War Job.”

To support the influx of workers, officials also promoted housing assistance throughout the city.

“The services of the War Housing Centers are available to assist employees of essential industries in finding suitable quarters,” explained the booklet War Workers Guide: Greater Kansas City. “Anyone who has a vacancy can make a real contribution by listing their vacancy with the War Housing Centers ….”

With many local men already serving overseas, the committee additionally sought to reassure women who might otherwise hesitate to enter the workforce because of childcare concerns.

“Mothers who feel impelled to take a war job can rest assured their children will be well cared for,” the booklet stated. “There are 32 child care centers operated by the public school system, which can be expanded to meet future needs.”

A centralized War Jobs Headquarters was established at 1120 Grand Avenue in Kansas City, where applicants were interviewed, evaluated and referred to essential industries by representatives of the U.S. Employment Service and area war plants. Several major companies—including Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, Hercules Powder Company and North American Aviation—also opened local employment offices to process applicants directly. The committee’s efforts quickly produced results.

In his final report to Mayor Gage on July 31, 1944, Chairman Elmer Rhoden wrote, “During the period of the Citizens Committee campaign, 90,000 persons responded to the appeal, 60,000 of these were referred to employers, and 30,000 were placed in jobs.”

Rhoden noted that the success of the campaign would not have been possible without the assistance of numerous civic organizations, businesses and volunteers. He further observed that the majority of the new workers came from within Kansas City itself, “proving the claim that the labor supply was available … and the effectiveness of the committee’s campaign.”

Pratt & Whitney Aircraft likewise credited the campaign with helping sustain wartime production of its Wasp family of aircraft engines, which powered many American military aircraft during World War II. L.C. Mallett, assistant general manager of Pratt & Whitney’s Kansas City operations, wrote to Rhoden on July 13, 1944, “The members of the committee are to be congratulated on their performance. There is no question in our minds that their efforts assisted all war industries in this community and that the results could not have been attained without their assistance.”

Following the campaign’s success, Rhoden quietly stepped away from his voluntary wartime role and returned to private industry. Yet before doing so, he offered a final reflection on what the committee had accomplished during one of the nation’s most demanding periods.

“Now that the Citizens War Manpower Committee has completed its task,” Rhoden wrote, “your chairman feels he can resign his responsibilities with sincere and profound thanks to all those who served with him, and with renewed faith in the belief that the citizens of Kansas City can accomplish anything they set out to do.”

Jeremy P. Ämick is author of the upcoming book "415 Days," which is the biography of World War II POW Wilburn Rowden. 

The Citizens War Manpower Committee produced a variety of advertisements urging Americans to “Get a War Job” in support of the nation’s World War II production efforts. The campaign helped recruit thousands of workers for Kansas City-area defense industries in 1944.