Women's Role In World War I

Women played a major role in World War I, especially in their contribution in the American and European Society. Women have many times been known to stay away from wars and to help motivate soldiers from home. Even though multiple women have played roles in previous wars their roles were very limited. Women in the previous wars would provide the men with cooking, nursing, and laundry. It was known that women have played a part in the wars that came before WWI. When WWI came, the country realized that the help of the women can affect the end result of the war. I have chosen two sources to be able to examine the significance of women in World War I. “Women in the War Industry” is a secondary source article that mainly discussed how roles were divided by men and women. This source provides detailed statistics on the improvement on women influence on the society before and after the time of war. The second source “Women in World War I.” National Museum of American
“During the Great War, 21,498 U.S. Army nurses and 1,476 U.S. Navy nurses served in military hospitals in the United States and overseas.” (Cohan) This Nurse support became an entire women movement regarding of their racial background. Many motivated African American women to help in Nursery which allowed 18 African American nurses to participate in the Red Cross to assist injured soldiers. For the first time in American History women who were not able to become nurses were able to join armed forces allowing many males to travel overseas. A few Women joined the Navy and Marines and were given identical pay to the man. “The U.S Army allowed Nurses to enlist in the Army Nurse Corps,” but they did not receive equal pay or have military rank. Many American women were also taken to other Allied countries such as France to simply participate under any military