The Employment Opportunities For Women In 1914 At The Outbreak Of War
Before the war, women had few employment opportunities, which meant
that the jobs that were available were poorly paid. Factory owners
employed women because their fingers were thought to be very nimble,
so they could work the new machinery. Women did various different
jobs in these factories and small workshops including making nails,
chains, bricks, matches, clothes, hats and buttons.
Even though women were not meant to work in the underground mines,
many of them worked on the surface, as bosses still employed them.
Their job included working at the pit mounds where they loaded the
coal into trucks and separated the ironstone from the shale.
Some women were servants for the upper class, this was known as
domestic service. This job included washing, cooking and cleaning.
Even though they had everything provided for them such as food and
shelter, this was not a particularly good job. These women were under
the watchful eye of their masters all the time. Many worked from 6am
to midnight everyday and on their day off they had to go to church
with their master and his family.
Women were paid about half of what men were paid. For example, a
man’s average wage in the 1880s for working in an office was £2+ a
week, whereas a women’s was £1 a week. This inequality continued to
be the same at the outbreak of war.
Many working-class women worked at home as housewives. They cooked,
washed, cleaned and looked after their children. Many working class
families had a lot of children because their contraception was
expensive, which meant opportunities and time to gain employment
outside of the home were limited.
As new technology was developed, such as telephones and typewriters,
more jobs became available for women. Women’s fingers were thought to
be very suitable for the telephone switchboards, so women were
employed. Some women had received an education, so they were able to
Female employment was concentrated in a very small number of low paid areas. The memoirs provided by Emma Griffith in her book are mainly from male perspective. Therefore, the information provided by them can be misleading and in my opinion, often a lot is missed out of what men did not consider as relevant but in fact is the information which really needs be shared. Above that, the stereotype existed during this time. Men were considered as the breadwinner and women were supposed to do the household work and take care of children. But in fact, Industrial Revolution in part was fuelled by the economic necessity of many women, single and married, to find waged work outside their
is only a snapshot of one moment in history. It does not tell us about
The Great War was a war of uncertainties. At 1914 the war set to end
During the war, women played a vital role in the workforce because all of the men had to go fight overseas and left their jobs. This forced women to work in factories and volunteer for war time measures.
too pushed the men they knew too join the army as they believed it was
Because many men were involved in the war, women finally had their chance to take on many of the positions of a man. Some women served directly in the military and some served in volunteer agencies at home and in France. For a brief period, from 1917 to 1918, one million women worked in industry. Others not involved in the military and industry engaged in jobs such as streetcar conductors and bricklayers. But as the war started to end, women lost their jobs to the returning veterans.
Usually, “A working woman was an object of pity or scorn in Victorian America.” (USAHEC.org). Women usually devote their lives to caring for their husband and children; creating a nice, clean home (The History Channel Website, 2013). If they did nurse, it was only in their homes and for their family members (Egenes, 2009). The Civil War was the first time that women really played an important role in a war effort (The History Channel Website, 2013).
Some of women in this time period’s family roles are very similar to what is expected of them today. The most common jobs were “domestic work, including teaching young females their roles for later in life, cleaning the house, and preparing food” (¨DeVault¨). Men would often be working during the day. Women's jobs were very crucial because if all they did around the house. Not all kids were able to attend school so it was up to the mother. Though not every one was married at this time, “common arguments against married women working were that they were taking jobs away
Many factories became short-handed and had to hire women to cover the jobs. The factories were very dangerous and unhealthy, and the women were only getting paid half the wages of men. The women were not unionized because the Labor Union said that they had to hire many women to replace one man and that the skilled tasks were broken in to several less skilled tasks. They had no protection, so their lungs and skin were exposed to dangerous chemicals. Many women worked in munitions factories, where they worked with sulphur.
The 1940s provided a drastic change in women’s employment rates and society's view of women. With the end of the Depression and the United States’ entrance into World War II, the number of jobs available to women significantly increased. As men were being drafted into military service, the United States needed more workers to fill the jobs left vacant by men going to war. Women entered the workforce during World War II due to the economic need of the country. The use of Patriotic rhetoric in government propaganda initiated and encouraged women to change their role in society. Yet, at the end of the war, the same ideas that encouraged women to accept new roles had an averse affect on women, encouraging them to leave the workforce. The patriotism promoted by propaganda in the 1940s, encouraged Americans to support the war effort and reinforced the existing patriarchal society. Propaganda's use of patriotism not only increased loyalty to America during the war, but also, increased loyalty to the traditional American patriarchal values held in society.
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, millions of men were sent to join allied forces and many jobs were lack of labors. In the meantime, the war led high deaths and injuries. Therefore, most women had started to take a role to manage families and took the place of men and their jobs as men had gone for flight during the war. According to a research (Consena and Rubio, n.d. P.156), women usually recruited and worked in dangerous job positions, such as air flight, dangerous
When American officially entered World War II in 1941 changes occurred for many people. The draft was enacted forcing men to do their duty and fight for their country. Women were asked to hold down the home front in many ways, ranging from rationing, volunteering, saving bacon grease and making the most of their commodities they currently had. There was also a hard push for women to take war production jobs outside the home. Before the depression, just a few years before the war, it was not uncommon for a woman to work for wages, but as the depression set in, married women were at risk of losing their jobs. Numerous women were fired or asked to resign in order to make room for a man who had lost his job. Many citizens felt it was unfair for a family to have two wage earners when some families had none. (Kessler-Harris) Previously, the average workforce of women was young and single. However, when the war started, couples were married at a younger age, putting the typical worker in short supply. This led to a rapid increase in older married women going to work outside the home. “During the depression, 80 percent of Americans objected to wives working outside the home, by 1942, only 13 percent still objected.” (May) By the end of the war, 25 percent of married women were employed. (May) Although women had worked outside the home prior to World War II, their entrance into the war production labor force created change in the typical gender roles and provided an exciting and yet difficult time for many women who were gaining their independence.
On the contrary to some beliefs, the women did more work than you would expect. Since the men were usually working in factories or in the 1860’s fighting in the war, the women had to pick up a lot of slack. They would be a mother to the children, do all of the housework such as cooking,
If they did work, the jobs were considered to be of little importance. Their jobs were always considered secondary to men. Usually, a woman’s job was to take care of the house and please her husband. Women who tried to have a ‘higher’ job such as a nurse, was considered a witch. So women tended to work in the lower jobs or one a man didn’t want. Women during this era might have been a lady of the manor, nun, free townswoman, etc. The Lady of the Manor was a woman who ran manors, farms, and castles. She normally dealt with the management of the land, crops, animals, property, workers, and legal arguments. This was always considered a ‘woman’s job.’ A woman could also be a nun. A nun’s main job was to ‘work’ for God. Typically a woman’s job was to be a free townswoman, meaning they kept order of their townhouse and also assisted their husbands in business. The woman would help him in his trade or practice her own. It was rare for a woman to have any other jobs, especially one with a lot of
When the war began men had to leave their families and jobs behind. World War I was a complete war because all of the world’s assets had to be used and the entire nation’s population was involved. Anyone that had the ability to work had to work. The women had to take up jobs and went through a lot changes in order to support their families during the war. World War I gave women with the chance to have a significant part in the victory of the war which had an impact them and changed the lives of all women forever.