How Did Women's Roles Change From The Industrial Revolution To World War I

By Tae H. Kim

Before the World War I, women typically played the role of the homemaker.  Women were judged by their beauty rather than by their ability.  Their position and status were directed towards maintaining the annual duties of the family and children.  These duties consisted of cleaning and caring for the firm, caring for the young, cooking for the family, maintaining a thou, and sewing clothing for all.  Women had worked in material industries and other industries as far back equally 1880, simply had been kept out of heavy industries and other positions involving any real responsibility.  Only before the war, women began to suspension abroad from the traditional roles they had played.

Every bit men left their jobs to serve their country in war overseas, women replaced their jobs.  Women filled many jobs that were brought into being past wartime needs.  Every bit a result, the number of women employed greatly increased in many industries.  In the U.S. there were, before the war, over eight million women in paid occupations.  After the state of war began, not merely did their numbers increased in common lines of work, but as one newspaper stated, "There has been a sudden influx of women into such unusual occupations equally bank clerks, ticket sellers, elevator operator, chauffeur, street motorcar conductor, railroad trackwalker, section paw, locomotive wiper and oiler, locomotive dispatcher, block operator, depict bridge attendant, and employment in machine shops, steel mills, powder and ammunition factories, airplane works, boot blacking and farming."[1]  Many of these women were married, and some were mothers whose husbands or older sons had gone to front.  Women were as well seen equally vital resources for wartime aids, and various wartime slogans such as "You should aid nation in the war"[2] and "Everyone has to be a helper"[3] emphasized patriotism and created the environment for women'southward active involvement in many industries.  Past looking through diverse newspapers including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Times, dated from 1917 to 1918 as my main master sources for the research, I began to empathize the function that women played during Globe War I.

A. General feminine jobs

            Even though many women were in high demand for industries where previously men were dominant, long-established feminine jobs were still common during the war.  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Seattle Times had a total list of open positions for general housework and other general domestic jobs.  The state of war actually created more domestic jobs because many women who worked in factories and outside their homes were not able to care well enough for their children.  Help wanted ads and state of affairs wanted ads looking for general housework were very piece of cake to find in newspaper "help wanted" sections.  Ads such as: "Widow: xl; very good appearance, whose merely support has gone to war would like some light work to help out"[4] and "Wanted – Reliable neat school girl to assist general housework. Nice dwelling house"[5] were show for the fact that there were many women, regardless of age and status, who were willing to work, either to aid nation to win the war or to sustain the life of their family in absence of their husband and father.

B. Increment in war emergency jobs

            As more and more men were drafted and had to leave their jobs, the U.Southward. regime and various industries were seriously looking for female workers who could replace their men's jobs.  Especially during 1917 and 1918, there were a vast number of demands for female stenographers, telegraphers, and phone operators.  The Women'due south Defense force League was also placing a lot of try to fill the gap.  Potential telegraphers had to acquire the code through memorization or by familiarizing themselves to carry out their work efficiently.  Ane newspaper wrote, "Women are more apt than men in this line of work."[half-dozen]  The diverse railroad companies of the country employed hundred of capable women operators, considering they were known to be not but adept, but as well dependable.  In many newspapers, ads looking for stenographers and other clerical works were increasing over time.  In "situation wanted" sections of the newspapers, two thirds of the total ads were looking for female stenographers, an example being, "Thoroughly competent bookkeeper, cashier, and stenographer, six years with last business firm in charge of books and collections, desire position of responsibility."[7]  Evident in this ad, women were willing to take more responsible jobs and were becoming not just a substitute labor strength, only skillful workers.  The government was also in need of thousands of wartime positions open to women to piece of work every bit government clerks, stenographers, and telegraphers.

C. Red Cross, Patriotic League, and YWCA

Organizations such every bit the Red Cross, Patriotic League, and YWCA too made efforts in supporting wartime hardships that the nation might face.  The Red Cantankerous organized not-professional women to help in relief work.  To help the state of war attempt, many women joined the Red Cantankerous as nurses. While they were in the Scarlet Cross, they rolled bandages, knitted socks, and worked in military hospitals.  Virtually of the women were wives and mothers of soldiers of all classes.  The Red Cross war quango also created a women's bureau, which appointed a national informational commission of women that made an effort to recruit every available woman in the campaign to brand adequate funds and supplies.  Women in the Crimson Cross were also helpful in recruiting men who had not joined the state of war.  One method was past showing a man in civilian clothes with white feathers every bit a marker of cowardice.  Another method was by making women speak at public meetings, encouraging others to take nothing to do with men who had not joined the war.  Women also went over seas as members of the Voluntary Aid Disengagement of the Ruby Cross.  Volunteering brought them out of the house and into the public.  Women had no trouble filling the gaps left by men who went to war.  The Red Cross continued to encourage many women to join the Ruby-red Cross by saying "It's the patriotic duty of every human, woman, and child to join the Red Cross.  Why wait to exist asked?  Be a volunteer."[viii]

The Patriotic League also organized girls for wartime activities.  A branch of the Patriotic League, the National Organisation for Girls, which was active in social service work and war services.  It was organized in Seattle in 1918 to organize the metropolis'due south patriotic girls for real war activities.  An editorial piece in the Seattle Argus newspaper covered the story of young girls who had donated bed shirts to the Carmine Cantankerous with the coin that they had made at work.  One article pointed out that, "Hundreds – Probably thousands are doing their utmost to assistance win the war.  They are the individual soldiers."[nine]  Girls and women were soldiers armed with patriotism and difficult work.

            The Young Women Christian Association's northwestern field committee was besides concerned with the needs of the war.  The commission occasionally discussed the bang-up increase in the duties of employment agencies of the YWCA because of the war.  In those discussions they came to the determination that training girls to take the place of the men was necessary.  One paper wrote, "The necessity of training girls to take the place of men, and besides piece of work in connection with the hostess houses at Camp Lewis, Vancouver barracks and Bremerton, has made every bit many demands upon the Northwest."[10]  Further advancement in the development of women's work was strengthened by the withdrawal of millions of men from the American industry.

D. Non-traditional jobs

Before the wartime, it was unusual in this state for women to enroll in higher courses of mathematics considering the women's role wasn't to piece of work in male dominated industries.  Therefore, getting college didactics and obtaining specific skills wasn't a mutual road that most women followed.  During Globe War I, all the same, women worked in virtually every field of manufacture.  Newspapers started to encompass more women's work related articles, help ads, and spoke out nigh women'southward peachy successes in pedagogy, sports, and various other areas in society.  In that location was the example of an Argentinean woman who had go a ceremonious engineer, and was praised in U.S. newspapers, showing the development of women's statuses visible through the catamenia of war.  Women were replacing men'south job such equally railroad workers, car drivers, and other machine operators.  One newspaper noted that 4,000 women were working for the Pennsylvania Railroad.  "In five months, the number increased from 1,494 to 3,700."[11]  I newspaper I read had several articles about women railroad workers' accounts.  Some of them discussed the need for women workers on the railroads, whereas some of the manufactures were talking about the disagreement betwixt employers and women employees due to the unequal pay and poor working conditions, even though they performed the same type of jobs that men had washed before they went to the war.  Women were, "wielding picks and shovels on the American Railroad because of shortage of men for work."[12]  Some women track workers besides maintained the roadbed of the Pennsylvania Railroad betwixt New York and Pittsburgh.  The President of the company, "…testified before the Interstate Commerce Commission, gave this example of the difficulties the railroads faced in property their men (due to the draft)."[13]  Women also held many jobs besides working in factories that were traditional men's' work.  They assumed positions of doctors, lawyers, bankers, and civil servants.  Harvesting grain, running businesses, and driving trucks were all common jobs for women to take.  Considering of the state of war demands, the role of women changed and they had new attitudes.

Working conditions of female person workers

By the belatedly 1918, and so many men went to war that women had to accept over their jobs. Labor unions fought hard against hiring women in factories. Women were paid half the wages of men and worked in atmospheric condition that were sometimes unsafe and unhealthy.  In munitions plants, acid fumes from high explosives damaged workers' lungs.  In addition, it also turned their skin brilliant yellow.  Thousands of women worked long hours filling shells with explosives.  Accidental explosions were e'er a take a chance.  Little effort was fabricated to ease the change from working in the home to the work place.  Few employers provided childcare for working mothers or fifty-fifty set aside toilets for female workers.  Female workers were also less unionized than male workers, "This was because they tended to exercise office-time work and to work in smaller firms, which tended to exist less unionized."[fourteen] As well, existing unions were ofttimes hostile to female workers.

Feminist pressure level on established unions and the formation of separate women'due south unions threatened to weaken men-only unions.  Nonetheless, women'due south unions began to grow, "The National Women's Trade Union League representing 150,000 organized working women take met together for counsel and for activeness."[15]  Yet, the state of war did not raise women's wages.  Employers got around wartime equal pay policies by employing several women to replace 1 human, or by dividing skilled tasks into several less skilled stages.

War machine auxiliary jobs

A. Nursing

            Immature women and girls worked as nurses during World State of war I.  Help wanted ads looking for nurses increased as days passed past, "Girl: xvi years, wants a position as a nurse."[16]  When the United States entered Globe War I in April 1917, the Navy had 160 nurses on active duty.  Over the next yr and a half, this number increased more than than eight-fold as the Nurse Corps expanded to meet the war's demands, "Growth was gradual, with 345 Navy Nurses serving past mid-1917, 155 of them members of the U.S. Naval Reserve Force."[17]  Young women volunteered to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and First Assist Nursing Yeomanry (FANY).  VAD'due south came from a diversity of backgrounds: cooks, domestic servants, laundry workers etc.  Their medical training was bones, but the fact that they went to the state of war zone meant that they could assist badly wounded soldiers and give them basic medical treatment.  VAD's did not get paid, as it was a voluntary appointment.  Those who joined the FANY's had a less thrilling time than VAD's.  They had to drive an ambulance and run soup kitchens for the soldiers and helped to organize baths for those soldiers given some time off from the front line.

B. The Women's Land Ground forces

            With and so many men away fighting, someone had to bring in the harvests and keep the farms going.  The government decided that more than women would take to become more involved in producing nutrient and goods to support their war attempt.  The Women'south Land Army played a crucial function in doing this when the men who would ordinarily work on the farms never returned or returned disabled from the war.  One of the comments made by women in the WLA was that, "Their feet were never dry even in dry weather - simply considering they had to work early in the morning and the dew on the grass would enter the boots through the lace holes."[eighteen]

C. Manufactory Workers

            Some of the most of import work done by women was in the ammunition factories.  With the young men abroad fighting, this very important piece of work was done past women.  It was very dangerous to piece of work with explosive chemicals because it meant that ane explosion in a factory could trigger many other ones.  Non only women worked in ammunition factories merely they as well worked every bit power machine operators and in naval station machine shops also.  One example being, "Authority to employ women for piece of work in the various shops at the navy m has been received from Washington D.C. and according to commandant of the naval station, the majority of ane,000 employees for shop work, for whom calls are now out, will be women."[nineteen]  They were used to some extent in all of the shops, but most of the fourth dimension the women employees worked in the machinery, supply, and public works departments.  Other manufacturing industries were as well in need of female power motorcar operators due to the lack of male person workers.  In effort to supply more skilled female workers into factories, schools had been gear up up to railroad train women in upholstering, trimming, and other piece of work calling for skilled operatives.  I mill manager was quoted equally maxim, "Women were seen equally quick learners and that in some departments they are more than efficient than men, although those departments have been employing men exclusively for years."[xx]

Conclusion

            Earth War I was to requite women a run a risk to show a male person-dominated lodge that they could practise more than merely bring up children and stay at home.  In World State of war I, women played a vital office in keeping soldiers equipped with ammunition and in many senses they kept the nation moving through their assist in various industries.  With then many young men volunteering to join the ground forces, and with so many casualties in the war, a infinite was created in employment and women were called on to fill these gaps.  Globe War I was to prove a turning signal for women.  Before the war, women had no socio-economical power at all.  By the terminate of the war, women had proved that they were just as important to the state of war effort as men had been.  Women institute employment in transportation including the railroads and driving cars, ambulances, and trucks, nursing, factories making armament, on farms in the Women's Land Army, in shipyards etc. Earlier the state of war, these jobs had been for men simply with the exception of nursing.

            Equally time passed by, I could see the progress how women began to earn a nifty deal of respect through their active participation in labor and society during the wartime crisis.  The views seen and the voices heard through these one-time newspapers that I researched showed a clear tendency of a more than broad and accepting women's role in America.  Women finally had the opportunity to bear witness the world that they had just as much to contribute and had the right to take on as much responsibility as the men.

Bibliography
General Readership Newspaper
Seattle Mail service-Intelligencer. Microfilm editions from 1917 to 1918: Suzzallo library UW.
Seattle Times. Microfilm editions from 1917 to 1918: Suzzallo library UW.
Seattle Argus. Microfilm edition for a year of 1918: Suzzallo library UW.
Washington Standard. Microfilm edition from 1915 to 1918: Suzzallo library UW.
Labor and Radical Newspaper Co-operative News. Microfilm edition from 1914 to 1918: Suzzallo library UW.
Northwest Labor Periodical. Microfilm edition from 1914 to 1918: Suzzallo library UW.
Seattle Union Record. Microfilm edition for a twelvemonth of 1918: Suzzallo library UW.
Secondary Sources
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwone/women_employment_02.shtml. Accessed May ten, 2003
http://world wide web.history.navy.mil/photos/prs-tpic/nurses/nrs-e.htm. Accessed May 19, 2003
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wland.htm. Accessed May xix,2003
http://www.nurse-at-war.org. Accessed May 23, 2003.

Footnotes

[1]  "Protecting the working mothers"  Seattle Spousal relationship Record.  April 24, 1918

[2]  "Slogan"  Washington Standards.  July xx, 1917

[3]  "Slogan"  Washington Standards.  April five, 1918

[4]  "Situation Wanted-Female person"  Seattle Daily Times.  June xiv, 1918

[v]  "Female person Help Wanted"  Seattle Daily Times.  Baronial 1, 1917

[6]  "Notice women are apt"  Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  June 24, 1917

[seven]  "State of affairs Wanted Ad"  Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  June 16, 1917

[eight]  "Scarlet Cantankerous Slogan"  Northwest Labor Periodical.  May 25, 1917

[9]  "These girls are doing their durndest."  Seattle Argus.  March thirty, 1918

[10]  "YWCA plans for war work"  Seattle Spousal relationship Record.  April 26, 1918

[11]  "Do they go men'southward pay?"  Co-operative News.  December twenty, 1917

[12]  "Women on railroad"  Seattle Mail service-Intelligencer.  November 27, 1917

[13]  "Women picks on railway roadbed"  Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  November 16, 1917

[xiv]  "http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwone/women_employment_02.shtml" Accessed May 10, 2003

[fifteen]  "Organized working women to meet in convention"  Northwest Labor Periodical.  May 4, 1917

[16]  "Assist Wanted Ads"  Seattle Postal service-Intelligencer.  June xvi, 1917

[17]  "http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/prs-tpic/nurses/nrs-e.htm" Accessed May 19, 2003

[18] "http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Wland.htm" Accessed May nineteen,2003

[19] " Women to work in Naval Station machine shops"  Seattle Daily Times.  June 30, 1918

[twenty]  "Women prefer not to wear overalls at work"  Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  Dec 2, 1917

©2003 Tae H. Kim

Source: https://depts.washington.edu/labhist/strike/kim.shtml

Posted by: smithfoure1955.blogspot.com

Share this post