Women's Roles In Ww1

It all began with an assassination. In 1914, on the evening of June 28th, the Archduke of Austria would be assassinated nationalist by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian citizen. Exactly one month later from that date, war would be declared on Serbia by Austria-Hungary. The war would divide Europe into two armed camps. Later, the world would soon be divided into separate powers; The Allied Powers and The Central Powers. This would send the world into a major war, leading to the drafting of over tens of million men from each country, to fight an unknown and deadly war. All of this, which would lead to the Women’s Peace Movement, WWI Resistance, and other organizations and movements. Most of all, it led to the need of jobs and roles being filled in

As the men had been, women were drafted into the roles that their men had vacated. Due to the war, many jobs had been created as part of the war effort. The high demands for weapons created factory jobs that manufactured ammunition. This was an important job, being that the military needed weapons to fight. There was resistance to the idea of women entering the workforce, and taking on the jobs, that were seen as “men’s work.” A lot of this resistance came from the men that had not been drafted in the war. Amid all the reluctance from men in the workforce, women went ahead and filled the vacancies in these jobs. Women now had jobs that were formally reserved for men. These jobs included, civil service, bank tellers, factory machinery, postal workers, train conductors, ticket collectors, and many more. By the year of 1917, munition factories, which were now primarily occupied by women, had produced over 80% of the ammunition used in the war. Women working in these factories were nicknamed “canaries,” due to the yellowness of their skin, after handling large amounts of TNT. The women that occupied these jobs had risked their lives, working with poisonous substances, without the appropriate safety accommodations. These women, all women made a huge difference in the lives of Americans, and American

Each does its part to ensure the success of the American military. It was not just white men that fought for our country; it was African American men, African American women, as well as white women. Jobs vacated by the men in the military, needed to be filled, as they were by the strong women that stayed behind. They put their lives and health at risk to ensure that their men were taken care of. To think that they did it all while taking care of their families, without the help of men. African American women had worked alongside whites in many different companies during the war. They also worked in hand with other African American across the nation, to support every single African American troop that had entered the war. African American men enlisted in the army and fought in the war despite all the disapproval from everyone. They faced not only the enemy troops, but the hostility and violence that hailed from amongst their own ranks. Each and every role played, by each group had worked in unity to make the war a winnable one. These stories go untold, but are never