Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 119 Women Shipbuilders 1939 - 1945 Roughly one million women were employed in Canadian industry during the Second World War (1939-45). As war production increased, and more men enlisted for military service, women filled the labour shortage by entering traditionally male-dominated jobs - including in Canada’s shipyards on both coasts and along the St. Lawrence River. Some 4,000 female workers thus helped build naval and merchant vessels essential to the struggle for Allied victory. In the Maritimes, hundreds of women shipbuilders laboured alongside their male counterparts. At the yard in Pictou, Nova Scotia alone, 24 Park-class cargo ships were built for Canada’s Merchant Navy. At peak production in 1943, more than a third of the Pictou yard’s 2,000 employees in various trades were women. Female workers such as Mrs. Martin (Malti) (pictured), a Mi’kmaw mother, were praised for their tenacity and work ethic in all weather conditions. But they also faced numerous challenges, including gender biases, lower wages than their male colleagues, and pressing need for childcare. continued ... Image: National Film Board of Canada, Library and Archives Canada continued ... After the Second World War, most working women returned to their domestic roles. Yet, the industrious legacy of Mrs. Martin and her trailblazing coworkers in breaking gender barriers in the trades, continues to this day. Image: Irving Shipbuilding
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