WOMEN AND THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD.

World War II has traditionally been viewed as an important watershed for working women. In recent years, however, scholars have begun to assess the long-term impact that the wartime experience had on women workers particularly in light of the rapid defeminization of basic industry that took place during the late 1940's and early 1950's. Writer William Chafe's book "The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles," represents the traditional view. In his 1972 book he asserted that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor swiftly erased opposition to hiring women workers and cleared the way for a massive expansion of the female labor force. Chafe in fact claimed that the war caused a greater change in women's economic status than a half-century of feminist rhetoric and agitation had been able to achieve. Writer Karen Anderson's 1981 book, "Wartime Women," supports the Chafe approach. The writer Leila Rupp, on the other hand, has argued that the war had no permanent impact on female labor market participation.