Women's Role In World War 1 Essay

Before World War I, women typically played the role of the homemaker. Women were judged by their beauty rather than by their ability. Their position and status were directed towards maintaining the annual duties of the family and children. These duties consisted of cleaning and caring for the house, caring for the young, cooking for the family, maintaining a yard, and sewing clothing for all. Women had worked in textile industries and other industries as far back as 1880, but had been kept out of heavy industries and other positions involving any real responsibility. Just before the war, women began to break away from the traditional roles they had played.
During World War I, women worked in almost every field of industry. Women were replacing men's job such as railroad workers, auto drivers, and other machine operators. One newspaper noted that 4,000 women were working for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Some women track workers also maintained the roadbed of the Pennsylvania Railroad
In World War I, women played a vital role in keeping soldiers equipped with ammunition and in many senses they kept the nation moving through their help in various industries. With so many young men volunteering to join the army, and with so many casualties in the war, a space was created in employment and women were called on to fill these gaps. World War I was to prove a turning point for women. Before the war, women had no economic power at all. By the end of the war, women had proved that they were just as important to the war effort as men had been. Women found employment in transportation including the railroads and driving cars, ambulances, and trucks, nursing, factories making ammunition, on farms in the Women's Land Army, in shipyards, etc. Before the war, these jobs had been for men only with the exception of