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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.
Munitions production started in April 1916. Engineers and chemists from nations throughout the British Empire were employed to establish the production of RDB Cordite. By 1917 the largest proportion of the workforce were women: 11,576 women to 5,066 men. [7] The women munitions workers were known collectively as The Gretna Girls. [8]
The Health of Munitions Workers Committee reported that "women have accepted conditions of work which if continued must ultimately be disastrous to health". [ 2 ] In an article written in 1916 after a visit to HM Factory Gretna, Rebecca West wrote "Surely, never before in modern history can women have lived a life so parallel to that of the ...
The makeup of The Gretna Girls reflected the countrywide trends for munitions workers: the majority were working class young women. [3] However, as Chris Brader points out, unusually for Government factories, munition workers at Gretna came from an even younger demographic—a large proportion was under eighteen years of age. [ 4 ]
Munition workers were sometimes called Canary Girls, British women who worked in munitions manufacturing trinitrotoluene (TNT) shells during the First World War1 (1914–1918). The nickname arose because exposure to TNT is toxic, and repeated exposure can turn the skin an orange-yellow colour reminiscent of the plumage of a canary. [2]
Before World War II, there was persistent and systematic discrimination against women workers. The women working the labor force prior to the war were usually impoverished and minorities. [3] Women who worked outside their homes prior to World War II, had jobs as receptionists, secretaries, and department store clerks. [4]
As a munitions factory, ROF Aycliffe operated 24 hours a day, employing over 17,000 workers in three shift groups. Most of the workers were women. They were transported from surrounding areas onto the site by bus and train , with the most local workers arriving on foot or by bicycle .
Several hundred thousand women served in combat roles, especially in anti-aircraft units. The Soviet Union integrated women directly into their army units; approximately one million served in the Red Army, including about at least 50,000 on the frontlines; Bob Moore noted that "the Soviet Union was the only major power to use women in front-line roles," [2]: 358, 485 The United States, by ...