Apartments and boarding homes played a vital role in the lives of working women during World War II.

Downtown Olympia flourished with apartments during the forties. At least half of the apartment population was made up of working women. Olympia's working women were mostly state workers and sometimes teachers and sometimes mill or veneer employees.

Living in the state capital was beneficial to women. Clerical work had become a "pink collar" trade. The state offices offered many jobs and they were near the apartments that were often the nicest homes that working women could afford.