With her immaculately coiffured hair and red lipstick, she could easily pass for a Hollywood film star. But this glamorous young woman is in fact hard at work checking aircraft electronics having answered the call for female workers at the start of the Second World War. These rare color photographs released by the Library of Congress bring to life the era between the Great Depression and World War II, a period normally only seen only in black-and-white. Although the country had recovered from the economic slump many rural areas remained desperately poor. Elsewhere thousands of young men were being trained for action as America focused its industrial might on churning out the machines of war.

With her immaculately coiffured hair and red lipstick, she could easily pass for a Hollywood film star. But this glamorous young woman is in fact hard at work checking aircraft electronics having answered the call for female workers at the start of the Second World War. These rare color photographs released by the Library of Congress bring to life the era between the Great Depression and World War II, a period normally only seen only in black-and-white. Although the country had recovered from the economic slump many rural areas remained desperately poor. Elsewhere thousands of young men were being trained for action as America focused its industrial might on churning out the machines of war.