The Pittsburgh Press (July 25, 1941)
EVE IN UNIFORM
Clothes make the woman, even in wartime. Perhaps the Churchill cabinet, being a man’s government, couldn’t have expected to remember that along with all the other war lessons.
But now that lagging feminine spirits have been brought to the Prime Minister’s attention, he has moved in on the Battle of Women’s Morale by appointing a modern young lady Major-General of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, as the Army’s female cooks, clerks, chauffeurs, and bottle-washers are called.
General Mrs. Jean Knox thinks the trouble was that better-dressed women’s organizations were getting all the dates with the soldiers, so the girls just wouldn’t volunteer for the ATS. By putting more oomph into the uniform, the General says she will jump the number of recruits from 40,000 to 100,000.
General Jean says:
You have to give women the smartest uniforms possible to get the best work out of them. A woman is affected by the way she looks.
Though weak on feminine psychology, the gentlemen of the government are long on logic. If the young ladies of the auxiliaries serve best who are dressed best, why wouldn’t it work with Mother and Grandma whose morale is the strength of the home front?
So the British War Relief Society is appealing to Americans to give good clothes, especially nice underwear and hose.
We are told by the BWR:
It is hard, you know, to keep up your morale without a single pair of stockings.
Having consulted the ladies in our office to make sure this is fact and not propaganda, we hereby extend our heartfelt editorial agreement.