Evelyn Dunbar Flying Hay Analysis

Showing the hardworking women of WW2, painted in 1943, Evelyn Dunbar’s Baling Hay, an oil on canvas, shows grey and pale pink sky filling the top of the painting. On the left, two women wearing green shirts and brown pants stand atop piles of hay. In front of and in the middle, a woman wearing the same attire as the other two women holds a pitchfork holding a large bundle of hay. The woman with the pitchfork is shoveling hay into a large red machine which takes up the middle of the painting. On the far side of the machine, a woman with a green shirt, brown overalls, and a red head scarf sits next to the machine, working with wire. On the direct opposite side of the woman, there’s another woman, with blonde hair, a plaid shirt, brown pants, and a teal head scarf. In the front of the painting in the right corner, a woman with a brown coat, brown hair, and a blue and pale pink headscarf, carrying wire, looks very focused. There’s not a single man painted in Dunbar’s painting, showing importance of women’s roles during times of war.
Throughout time, women have not been recognized for the work they do while their husbands, fathers, and brothers all leave to fight in war. Most women during the American Civil War stayed back home and took care of the household, the children, the farm, etc.. But what isn’t talked about is the women who supported the war. Women led organized aid societies raising money, providing food, clothing, and blankets all to support the soldiers (History.com Staff). The women canned their own grown produce and baked goods from their own materials. They also knitted socks and mended the soldier’s uniforms, as well as sewing blankets to keep them warm. It’s arguable that without women being involved on the sidelines of war, warfare would be more more gruesome and depressing, since the women wouldn’t be there to support. Women had difficult jobs during war times. …show more content…
As depicted by Evelyn Dunbar, the painting shows women baling hay, with no presence of man. By the time WW2 begun, the “expected” roles of women changed. Since men went off to fight, women took traditionally male dominated jobs. Jobs during the WW2 era included nearly 350,000 American women enlisting in the Armed services ("American Women and World War II."). Women worked repairing airplanes, providing care to soldiers as nurses, and flying planes from base to base. In the less war-stricken areas, women were chemists, engineers, weapon builders, etc. (“Striking Women"). Fighting criticism and cultural resistance, women strived in the workforce doing jobs that men were currently unable to do. As stated before, without women supporting and doing work for the war and outside of the war, things would be different. Women were, and still are, nurses to wounded soldiers. Both off battlefield and active on battlefield, women were fighting to save the lives of those injured. It takes bravery, courage, and skill to be a medic out on the battlefield. Seeing blood and gore at almost every hour, constantly being on your feet, seeing lives come to an end--it’s traumatising work (“Contributions”). The women nurses out on the battlefield had to work in harsh conditions like damp, cold, muddy fields filled with blood, germs, and death. Cleaning gruesome looking wounds