social and political statements in the form of questioning whether women should have more independence. However, one reason why ‘Cinderella musicals’ were so appreciated at the time may have been that female audiences were able to see the beginnings of the concept of women achieving successful careers and working in the 20s. During the second industrial revolution more jobs became available for women (Burnette, 2011, p.56). The increased visibility of women in the workplace was being reflected in these musicals. Such as Mary Thompson in The Gingham Girl (1922) ‘who follows her boyfriend to Manhattan, only to out-succeed him in business’ (The New York Public Library, 2018, para.20). The second world war, 1939-1945, brought about a lot of change as well as providing ‘extraordinary job opportunities for women’ (Colman, P. 1995, n/a). To elaborate, due to men going away to war, women had to become more active in the labour force and the idea of woman became more frequently synonymous with working people, bringing the concept of the working woman. Since musical theatre always strived to reflect real life, it made sense that this change offered a whole new side to women which was used in musical theatre as new interesting roles to represent the everchanging roles in society. This can be seen in the Rodgers and Hammerstein show Oklahoma (1943), when instead of seeing a group of chorus girls opening the show, which was more common in the revue where ‘as many as 280 chorus girls might be used;’ (Mates, 1987, p.148), the curtains rose to reveal the simple scene of a woman churning butter, something that at this time would be considered a normal task. As theatre has always strived to represent real life, as previously mentioned, this shows how women >