Amelia Mills LeBlanc

Meet Amelia Mills LeBlanc, a member of the Bay Mills Ojibwe Tribal Community near Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Amelia got her start as a WWII Rosie the Riveter at a National Youth Administration War Production Training Center.

The NYA centers were created in 1935 and converted to war production in WWII. It was one of the few non-segregated opportunities open to women and minorities and was a favorite program of Eleanor Roosevelt. Amelia was trained for war production work at an NYA center in Michigan’s upper peninsula, where thousands of women were trained in sheet metal work, welding, machine shop operation, and foundry work. During the war NYA Training Centers in the lower peninsula of Michigan were located at Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Traverse City and Cassady Lake near Chelsea. NYA shops in the upper peninsula, operated as part of the Houghton unit, were located in Houghton, Ironwood, Laurium, Iron Mountain, and Sault Ste. Marie.

The program targeted young people between 17 and 24 years old, and the trainees were paid $26 per month for their work. They actually produced war materiel during training, and upon completing their courses were ready to apply for war jobs in production factories, with pay that ranged anywhere from 75c to $1.18 per hour (very good pay at the time.)

According to the Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian network, fully 1/4 of Native American women worked in war industries during WWII, often in faraway cities. With a shortage of male labor, Native women on reservations confronted new challenges and embraced novel opportunities. In Wisconsin, Menominee women worked in their nation’s sawmill. Pueblo women drove trucks, hauling freight.

The war offered unprecedented opportunities to Native women. About 800 joined the service as Army WACs and Navy WAVEs, including Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe’s daughter Grace. Women joined the military for many of the same reasons as Native men: to demonstrate patriotism, protect tribal communities, and win the war.

You can learn more about Amelia Mills LeBlanc as part of the WWII exhibit at the Sault Ste. Marie Municipal Airport.