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... which they were paid dismal rates in comparison to that of those men and previously enjoyed. Even so, the industry also required more workers, especially after the effect of conscription. Trade unions opposed women taking mens jobs permanently but almost immediately woman were working in munitions and other factories. Women become bus and tram conductors, railway ticket collectors, postmen, gravedigger, lamplighters, mechanics and even law enforcers. They worked in offices, dockyards, laboratories and breweries and became labourers of the land and farm.
One woman helped her father run his business: My father was a blacksmith During the Great War there was no strikers to make the horses shoes, so at the age of 16 I did all the striking, and between us we managed to keep the Smithy open. At the time I was studying for my matriculation at the Holyhead Grammar School, which means that the horses shoes had to be made very early in the morning before cycling lives miles to the school. Women quickly adapted to there new roles and enjoyed the responsibility that made them feel a part of it all. However some of the labour was very intense and dangerous. Most of all, women worked in munitions factories making weapons of war. The munitionettes as the women were called, were told; A munition worker is as important as a soldier in the trenches and on her his life depends.
A French general said; If the women in war factories stopped for 20 minutes, we should lose the war. They were well paid but endured very long hours. They did a large range of jobs, such as making bullets and shells, assembling detonators, polishing the time fuses and shells, and filling the shells with gunpowder. The shells were filled with TNT, which was poisonous, and long exposure to it often turned the skin yellow. People like this were often called canaries. Besides this danger, explosions such as the accident in the London factory in 1917, which killed sixty-nine people, were also common and feared.
Australian women desperately wanted to join the services in order to see combat. Australian women were rejected and so travelled over the Britain were they could engage in work that took them to the front-line. During the war, 25 000 British women worked behind the front-line in organizations such as the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) or the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), which involved nurses dealing with some of the worst horrors of the war: Sometimes I helped in the operating room. Amputated limbs were simply swept or thrown out into the courtyard Most of the men were so badly smashed that each needed a nurse to himself. Women became basically more able, dependent and self-reliant. Married girls ran the family home on their own.
Single girls went to restaurants and theatres with out an escort. Things like dress styles changed to become more practical. Immediately, it was women worried about their menfolk in the armed forces, coping with raising prises and taxes and shortages while often lonely and wondering when it will all end. However, ultimately the war was shaping the womens future. Before the war, women had been expected to marry and content themselves with family and domestic work. Then, it was considered unsuitable or a woman to work; now, it was considered unpatriotic not to!
a) In Britain, the outbreak of the Great War was greeted with enormous enthusiasm. People were exited, proud and wanted to show their love for their country. Almost immediately, men enlisted through recruiting agencies, swayed by the glamour of fighting a war for your own country. This initial image was insisted by propagandist material such as posters telling men Your country needs you! and Enlist now! Men rushed to join the colours, otherwise known as the regular army.
Music halls resounded with choruses of We dont want to lose you but we think you ought to go The pressure on men to get into regulation khaki was enormous. It was almost a disgrace to be seen in the street without a uniform. After a few months, it became evident that the allies needed a lot more people than they had to fight with if they wanted to break away from this stalemate that had developed. Men were encouraged to enlist with their pals in order to form pals battalions which may have sounded more inviting.
Guilt was also used as a way of encouraging civilians to enlist. Men were ridiculed and called cowards in the street. They usually received a white feather in the male, representing that of a spiritless chicken. Recruitment was a huge issue that was encouraged, and later enforced through conscription, strongly by the British government. War forced other changes on the British people. They had to accept the regulations imposed by the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) passed in 1914.
For reasons of national security, the Act also interfered in peoples lives by censoring stories, pictures, diaries, letters, films and sounds from the war front, were censored to only allow British/Allied positives and German negatives to reach the publics eyes and ears. All the soldiers letters were read prior to being sent home and the keeping of dairies was forbidden. Censorship was put in place to keep spirits high and sustain popular support for the war in Britain. By showing the public only the positives of war, then there is nothing to reduce the incentive to go off to war cause Britain needs YOU! Propaganda was a major tactic used on the home front to have people thinking that it is there own duty to go to war and to feel guilty if they didnt. Many different approaches were taken in relation to propaganda.
Images of big, menacing soldiers pointing at you to come and enlist which created a personal involvement. Others showed a father being shammed by his children who ask him what he did in the Great War. Even groups like the socialists, who were pledged to non-violence, most supported the war. Even the suffragettes, after some initial heart-searching, threw themselves into war work. Moreover, the opening of hostilities led to xenophobia hatred of foreigners. Propaganda was highly effective in creating an outbreak of enthusiasm Recruitment, Censorship and Propaganda were all used in conjunction with each other in order to be successful.
Posters and signs of propaganda were initially used to recruit soldiers. In fear of civilians becoming disheartened, censorship was introduced to restrict devastating stories from the front so that recruitment remained strong due to a desperate need of soldiers to break the stalemate and launch a major offensive. In a sense, censorship is a part of or essentially a way of propaganda as the theme of war is glorified to encourage enlisting. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on British Home Front Ww
