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HM Factory, Gretna was the United Kingdom's largest cordite factory in World War I. Women from all over the world came to work there, manufacturing what was known as the Devil's Porridge, a term coined by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to refer to the mixture of gun cotton and nitroglycerine that was used to produce cordite as a shell propellant. [38]
By the end of the war, there were almost three million women working in factories, around a third of whom were employed in the manufacture of munitions. Working conditions were often extremely hazardous and the women worked long hours for low pay. [2] Munitions work involved mixing explosives, and filling shells and bullets.
In the 1922 official history of women in munitions work and their wages, the government justified this by claiming that whereas "the man's wage is a "family" wage, the woman's is an "individual" wage" and by arguing that women did not unionise and fight for their rights and were therefore responsible for establishing the two standards.
The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I (U of North Carolina Press, 2017). xvi, 340 pp. Greenwald, Maurine W. Women, War, and Work: The Impact of World War I on Women Workers in the United States (1990) ISBN 0313213550; Jensen, Kimberly. Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War. Urbana: University of Illinois ...
Gretna Girls at HM Factory Gretna. The Gretna Girls was a collective nickname given to women munition workers at HM Factory Gretna in World War One.Women came from all over the United Kingdom to work at the factory, but many were drawn from the surrounding areas of Scotland and Northern England.
World War I saw women taking traditionally men's jobs in large numbers for the first time in American history. Many women worked on the assembly lines of factories, producing trucks and munitions, while department stores employed African American women as elevator operators and cafeteria waitresses for the first time. The Food Administration ...
In 1891, a law was passed requiring women to take four weeks away from factory work after giving birth, but many women could not afford this unpaid leave, and the law was unenforceable. [ 101 ] The 1870 US Census was the first United States Census to count "females engaged in each occupation" and provides an intriguing snapshot of women's history.
During World War I and World War II, the primary role of women shifted towards employment in munitions factories, agriculture and food rationing, and other areas to fill the gaps left by men who had been drafted into the military. One of the most notable changes during World War II was the inclusion of many of women in regular military units.