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British and American women workers during World War I
Abstract
World War I, the first large-scale twentieth century conflict, in addition to demanding enlarged military forces, required dramatic rises in production, which in turn dictated the need for an enlarged labor force that the traditional male working population alone could not fulfill. Under such circumstances, British and American women by the tens of thousands entered durable industrial manufacturing. The first world war brought about dramatic economic strains and the British and American governments reacted accordingly. Realizing the need to control domestic economic affairs in order to preserve national well-being and conduct a successful war effort, the Asquith, David Lloyd George, and Wilson administrations all took charge and dictated key manpower and industrial mobilizations. From 1914 through 1918, World War I witnessed an influx of female labor that broke down the barriers against their participation in traditionally off-limits industrial pursuits. Therefore, women's numbers greatly increased in durable manufacturing fields, growing by greater percentages than the labor forces employing them. Finally, once the war concluded, employers threw women out of their wartime positions. Both during and after the war, societal conditions and expectations dictated the nature of British and American women's service. Pressing labor force demands required that women replace men on important industrial lines and in sufficient numbers. Thus, external conditions directed the female labor force mobilization. In addition, the war's inability to alter long-held stereotypes concerning women's economic roles fostered an environment that disapproved of women in traditionally male industrial occupations and thus forced them out of their positions. Women's employment patterns in Britain and the United States mirrored one another. Similarities in social working expectations, organized labor's concerns, and government priorities all combined to trigger similar wartime and postwar outcomes in the allied nations. Importantly, all the developments concerning women's employment during World War I foreshadowed the humanpower mobilizations in World War II, and in the case of the United States, the Korean Conflict.
Subject Area
History|European history|American history|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Lacasa, Laura Noble, "British and American women workers during World War I" (1997). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9804329.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9804329