Chinese, Mandarin

Spanish

English

Hindi

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Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Persian, Dari

Persian, Western

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek, Modern

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

World History 2

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	As the war progressed and more men set off to fight, <OpenstaxTerm>women</OpenstaxTerm> in many countries found job opportunities in traditionally male-oriented fields, most notably the defense industries and munitions plants. In <OpenstaxTerm>Britain</OpenstaxTerm>, women made up a significant percentage of war workers (<a href="#fig-00001">Figure 11.16</a>). They were sometimes called “canaries” because of the yellow hue cast on their skin and clothes from the TNT they worked with daily. Women in <OpenstaxTerm>France</OpenstaxTerm> were also disproportionately engaged in the manufacture of arms and armaments. In <OpenstaxTerm>Germany</OpenstaxTerm>, this pattern continued. While some women had worked in factories before the war, the need for more labor drew those who had worked in domestic service and other capacities, and they often earned more in the factories than in their old jobs.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/c985b591c1133691836ad20d83d9a678fd248e79" alt="Women stand in a room full of stacked artillery shells. The women stand on one side of table and assemble the shells." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1100" height="800" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1100">
	<strong>Figure 11.16</strong> This photo depicts women war workers in Great Britain during the war. They worked in munitions, providing the shells needed by the artillery in the British army. (credit: “Women at work during the First World War” by Imperial War Museums/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Link to Learning </OpenstaxNoteTitle> 
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		To read a first-hand description of the work British female war workers undertook and the way munitions are made, read an <a href="https://openstax.org/l/77MunitionsDiary">excerpt from the diary of G.M. West, a Voluntary Aid Detachment cook at a munitions factory</a> in 1916. (There are images from some pages of her diary and a link to a typed transcript.)
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
</OpenstaxNote>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Women also did significant work in the medical field during the war. Few were doctors; most served as nurses. Among them were both professional nurses (women who had been nurses before the war) and volunteer nurses who came from both the elite and middle classes. Volunteer nurses from the <OpenstaxTerm>United States</OpenstaxTerm> even began to flow into French hospitals in 1915. The <OpenstaxTerm>Red Cross</OpenstaxTerm> organized both nursing and hospital building across France and Belgium as the war progressed. Women also served as ambulance drivers and worked in x-ray units, especially mobile ones. French scientist Marie Curie’s daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, worked with and trained others for x-ray units.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Black women who wished to serve found their opportunities limited, just as they were in peacetime. In the United States, the absence of male workers meant that in restricted cases, African American women were hired for factory and office work. Overseas, <OpenstaxTerm>African American women</OpenstaxTerm> served with the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) to aid U.S. soldiers, but they numbered fewer than twenty-five. Only two African American women served as social workers with the YWCA during the war in France. Black women in Britain were similarly constrained, though a few were nurses and munitions workers.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The sense of independence and the novelty of making their own money spurred many women involved in the war effort to see political reform and voting rights as the next step. For example, many women in Britain viewed the extension of <OpenstaxTerm>voting rights</OpenstaxTerm> as a way to reward them for their war work. Suffragists had been protesting for years about the need to include women among the voting population in numerous countries such as Britain, Germany, and the United States. In 1918, Britain extended the right to vote to property-owning women over thirty. Germany gave women the vote in 1918, the first country to grant universal adult female <OpenstaxTerm>suffrage</OpenstaxTerm>, as did the United States in 1920.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Another way those on the home front felt the war’s effects was through deprivation and doing without. Shortages and later rationing came about in some countries, targeting a number of different resources but most often food. The idea was that the government would control the allotment of certain food items such as meat and sugar so they would be more equitably distributed among the population. Britain started rationing in 1918. The United States did not mandate food rationing but encouraged people to adopt it voluntarily.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Britain was particularly vulnerable to shortages because it imported approximately 60 percent of its food. Ensuring there was enough to feed the soldiers and the civilian populace was the job of the <OpenstaxTerm>Women’s Land Army</OpenstaxTerm>. In this wartime program, nearly 100,000 British women volunteered to move to rural counties and keep farms running after farmers had volunteered or been conscripted into the war. The British government also assisted with moneys for new tractors on many farms whose horses had been requisitioned by the army.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	All these changes meant that after the war, women had different expectations for the future and no longer felt as constrained by traditional mores. Even fashion had altered considerably during the war to accommodate the new kinds of work that women did. Long restrictive skirts were no more, and skirts were several inches shorter than in the early 1900s. Many European women also found themselves remaining single. The millions of men lost in the war left many unable to find a mate.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Link to Learning </OpenstaxNoteTitle> 
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		This episode of the <a href="https://openstax.org/l/77Dressed">podcast <OpenstaxEm>Dressed: The History of Fashion</OpenstaxEm></a> focuses on changes in French fashions during World War I and how keeping the fashion industry healthy during the war was important for the French economy as a whole.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
</OpenstaxNote>

11.4.2 Women’s Work

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life After College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Exchange in East Asia and the Indian Ocean

2.1 India and International Connections

2.1.1 The Mughal Empire

2.1.2 The Sultanate of Gujarat

2.1.3 The Rise of the Maratha Empire

2.1.4 European Colonialism

2.2 The Malacca Sultanate

2.2.1 The Rise of the Malacca Sultanate

2.2.2 European Malacca

2.3 Exchange in East Asia

2.3.1 Japan

2.3.2 China’s Dynastic Exchanges

2.3.3 Korea and Its Neighbors

3 Early Modern Africa and the Wider World

3.1 The Roots of African Trade

3.1.1 Saharan Trade Routes

3.1.2 The Spread of Islam

3.1.3 The Mali Empire

3.2 The Songhai Empire

3.2.1 The Rise of Imperial Songhai

3.2.2 The Reign of Askia the Great

3.2.3 The Decline of Songhai

3.3 The Swahili Coast

3.3.1 The Rise of the Swahili City-States

3.3.2 Slavery on the Swahili Coast

3.3.3 The Contest for the Swahili Coast

3.4 The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

3.4.1 The Role of Kanem-Bornu

3.4.2 The Arrival of Europeans

3.4.3 The Later Trans-Saharan Slave Trade

4 The Islamic World

4.1 A Connected Islamic World

4.1.1 Politics and Religion in the Ummah

4.1.2 Islamic Trade Networks

4.1.3 Technology in the Islamic World

4.2 The Ottoman Empire

4.2.1 Culture and Society

4.2.2 Expansion, Revolutions, and Reform

4.2.3 Science and Technology

4.3 The Safavid Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of the Safavid Empire

4.3.2 Establishing Shi‘ism as the State Religion

4.3.3 Safavid Government and Culture

5 Foundations of the Atlantic World

5.1 The Protestant Reformation

5.1.1 The Origins of the Protestant Reformation

5.1.2 Calvinists, Anabaptists, and Anglicans

5.1.3 The Catholic Reformation and the Wars of Religion

5.2 Crossing the Atlantic

5.2.1 The Rise of Maritime Nations

5.2.2 The Columbian Exchange

5.3 The Mercantilist Economy

5.3.1 The Rise of Mercantilism

5.3.2 Mercantilism and the Expansion of Empire

5.3.3 Mercantilism and Its Critics

5.4 The Atlantic Slave Trade

5.4.1 Slavery and the Triangular Trade

5.4.2 African and North American Slavery

5.4.3 The Economics of Slavery

6 Colonization and Economic Expansion

6.1 European Colonization in the Americas

6.1.1 Spain’s Encomienda System

6.1.2 English Settlements in North America

6.1.3 French and Dutch Settlements

6.2 The Rise of a Global Economy

6.2.1 The Seven Years’ War

6.2.2 British Influence in India

6.2.3 China’s Dominance in Trade

6.2.4 Colonial Resistance and Revolution

6.3 Capitalism and the First Industrial Revolution

6.3.1 From Mercantilism to Capitalism

6.3.2 Mechanization

6.3.3 Marxism

7 Revolutions in Europe and North America

7.1 The Enlightenment

7.1.1 The Authority of Reason

7.1.2 Natural Rights

7.1.3 Social Contract Theory

7.2 The Exchange of Ideas in the Public Sphere

7.2.1 Public Debate and Dissent

7.2.2 The Republic of Letters

7.2.3 Academies, Universities, and Intellectuals

7.3 Revolutions: America, France, and Haiti

7.3.1 The American Revolution

7.3.2 The French Revolution

7.3.3 The Haitian Revolution