The impact of WWI on

women
 Before the war, the most common
employment for a woman was as a
domestic servant. However, women
were also employed in what were
seen to be suitable occupations e.g.
teaching, nursing, office work.

Great Northern Central Hospital,

Greater London (1888)
 Servants at Hartwell Rectory,
Hartwell, Northamptonshire
(1902)

Office with women packaging books

and promotional posters for
Lever Brothers' products,
and processing correspondences
or invoices (1897)
 When war broke out in August 1914,
thousands of women were sacked from
jobs in dressmaking, millinery and
jewellery making. They needed work – and
they wanted to help the war effort.
When the war broke out
in August 1914,
suffragists and
suffragettes suspended
their campaigns for
the vote.
They believed that the
war was more
important than their
cause.
During the war they
The white
played an active part feather to young
persuading British men not in the
armed forces
men to join the army.
 At first, there was much trade union
opposition and the employment of women
had not increased significantly before the
summer of 1915. In July 1915, a ‘Right to
Work’ ,march was organised by a leading
suffragette, Christabel Pankhurst.
The introduction of conscription in
1916 led to an increase in the
number of women employed in all
sectors of the economy.

Women preparing projectile

heads at Cunard Shell Works,
Merseyside (1917)
Women delivering coal (1917)
Women working as machine
operator in naval factories
Women working as
street car drivers
Rail workers
A member of the
Women’s Forestry Corps
uses an axe to mark
felled tree trunks for
sawing during the First
World War.
 Female porters

A female driver lies on the

ground as she works on a wheel
with a spanner.
 Because of naval battles and
blockades during the war
food supplies from abroad
became scarce and food
production on the home front
had to be massively increased,
in Britain 113,000 women
joined the Womens Land Army
which was set up in 1917,
to provide a workforce
to run the farms.
 A kind of revolution was taking place.
Women gained access to a whole range of
jobs that had previously been the preserve
of men. The armed forces also employed
them.
 In the Women's Army Auxilliary
Corps, women largely employed on
unglamorous tasks on the lines of
communication: cooking and
catering, storekeeping, clerical work,
telephony and administration,
printing, motor vehicle maintenance.
Women also became truck and
ambulance drivers as more and
more of the men were called to
the front line.
Nurses on the front line
Women became more visible in the
world of work. They were seen to be
doing important jobs.
Wages for women rose as well. Improved
wages did permit greater independence
for some women.

‘ Palmer’s Munitionettes’: a women’s football

team made up of workers from Palmer’s
Shipbuilding Company
 After the War
1 Women were expected to give way to men returning from
the forces and return to pre-war ‘women’s work’.

2 The assumption that ‘a woman’s place is in the home’

returned.

3 The percentage of women at work returned to pre-war

levels.

4 More women than before worked in offices.

 After the War
5 Shorter skirts and hair became fashionable.

6 Women went out with men without a chaperone.

7 Women smoked and wore make-up in public for the first

time.

8 In 1919: being female or married was no longer allowed

to disqualify someone from holding a job in the
professions or civil service.