The New Milford Unit

Formed in June of 1918, the New Milford unit was the largest in Connecticut. The approximately 40 women in this unit came from various cities including Hartford, New Haven, Stamford, and Bridgeport. New Milford was located in western Connecticut, near the New York border, and consisted of mostly small tighly knit farms. The women assigned to New Milford lived in a building that had previously been a boarding school called the Ingleside School for Girls. It was reasonably close to the center of town and only a few miles from the farms. The women occupied the servants’ quarters of the building and had access to a large living area and washhouse.

The WLAA had assigned a unit to New Milford after a tobacco grower had requested laborers from the organization. While initially concerned about providing laborers to farm tobacco rather than food, ultimately the WLAA agreed to send a unit of farmerettes. Many American soldiers smoked cigarettes and the military provided them for free to keep morale up. This meant that helping with the tobacco crop was still a valuable part of the war effort. It also freed up the men who were currently farming the tobacco fields to do other work.

Dorothy Jagels was the captain of the unit in New Milford and while she was responsible for the unit’s earnings, she was also one of the laborers. The unit had chaperones that ran the household as well. In addition to cooking, laundry, and buying supplies, the chaperones communicated with the farmers and set the work schedule. The rest of the chores were shared amongst the women in the household and were rotated weekly. Chores included working the unit’s garden and growing vegetables, which were an important part of the women’s diet.

In squads of 2, the New Milford women traveled to work everyday by car or horse-drawn wagon to 17 different farms. The farmer paid the squad leader weekly and the leader in turn gave the money to the captain of the unit. The captain then paid each woman after removing approximately $4.50 for expenses. The women in the unit ended up earning more than twice the guaranteed amount of $15.

The demand for labor in that part of the state meant that the WLAA women had to forego their preliminary training and learn on the job. Farmers and farmhands provided training in planting, hoeing, and worming tobacco, which consisted of removing harmful horn worms from the tobacco plants and killing them by squeezing them between their fingers. The women also learned how to use various farm tools and machinery while the farmers supervised all of their work in the fields. In addition to cultivating tobacco plants, women farmed vegetables, picked fruit, gathered hay, and worked with cattle, among other things. The New Milford farmerettes carried out their work all the while singing, which was common for the WLAA. Once their shift was over, the women traveled back to the boarding house and spent time with each other or walked to downtown New Milford. The sight of women farm workers attracted attention in the community but the residents of New Milford welcomed the farmerettes. They held dances for them, hosted picnics, organized hayrides, and named an icy treat after them. A local shop offered the “Farmerette Parfey,” which consisted of vanilla ice cream with pineapple and chocolate syrups.

By all accounts the New Milford unit of the Connecticut WLAA was a success. Newspaper articles reported that farmers were impressed with the farmerettes and praised their hard work and endurance. The women had expertly tended the bumper crop of tobacco and were credited with saving the huckleberry crop. Through their diligence and pleasant dispositions, the women of the WLAA had not only made a significant contribution to the war effort, but they had also fostered cooperation with a rural community, which was one of the goals of the WLAA.