Sunday, March 20, 2011

Women in America during World War I

Women in America during World War I



     Women at this time before the war were typically playing the role as a stay at home mom. Their duties were taking care of the family and children. They mostly cooked, cleaned, and sewed. However all this changed at the start of World War I. Women were replacing the jobs that the men had which were leaving for overseas to fight. The number of paid women with occupations increases greatly. They came working unusal jobs women weren't looked at to do such as: bank clerks, ticket sellers, elevator operator, chauffeur, street car conductor, railroad trackwalker, section hand, locomotive wiper and oiler, locomotive dispatcher, block operator, draw bridge attendant, and employment in machine shops, steel mills, powder and ammunition factories, airplane works, boot blacking and farming. Women were seen to be aids for their nation at this time, by helping out.
              More than 25,000 U.S. women also helped nurse the wounded soldiers, provide food and other supplies to the military, work as telephone operators, and even were journalists. The women supported their troops greatly. They would entertain the men by sewing on buttons, giving out cigarettes, and sweet tasty snacks. These were the women who were sent to "keep the boys straight". 13,000 women enlisted in the US Navy just in World War I. However women at this time still could not fight in the army, but only by sent overseas to the war for clerical work.
            Women's lives were greatly affected by this war. It gave women the chance the U.S. male-dominated society that they could do more than stay at home and raise their children. Women earned a great deal of respect from their active help in labor for their country and society during this wartime crisis.

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