The home front (source based work) 1914 - 1918.

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OLGA VAN RAVESTEYN 10 LB

THE HOME FRONT 1914 – 1918 COURSEWORK ASSIGNMENTS

  1. In source A it suggests that when women started changing jobs during the First World War they usually changed for the better. The women who wrote this letter in source A said that she worked in domestic services before the war and ‘hated every minute of it.’ This implies that she did not like her work as a domestic servant and would love it if she could do something else. When know that her work during the war changed for the better as she writes that ‘So when the need came for women ‘war workers’ my chance came to ‘get out’.’ This is saying that when England needed women to help with the war effort as things like the munitions crises were occurring, she got her chance to leave the domestic service job that she ‘hated’ and go to another job that she enjoys more. The job that she moved to may even be a job previously done by a man. Source A also suggests that as well a women having an improvement in their jobs, with that an improvement in wages usually followed. The women in Source A wrote that ‘I was in domestic service…earning 2 pound a month,’ but after changing her job and now working in a factory she writes that ‘I thought I was well off earning 5 pound a week.’ This proves that she was better off as she now earned 10 times more than she did before.

  1. The evidence of Source C supports the evidence of Source A about women’s work during the First World War. Source C is a book written by a factory owner in 1917. In this book he states that ‘observation show that women prefer factory life.’ This is supported by the evidence in Source A, which is a letter written in 1976 by a women who lived during the war, as she writes that ‘ So when the need came for women ‘war workers’ my chance came to ‘get out.’’ The reason why theses two quotes support each other is because I know from my own knowledge that women disliked domestic services so much that they loved it when they were able to change their jobs to now work in factories, the one quote informs us that when women were given the chance to leave their old jobs and take on jobs previously done my men in factories the women were delighted, the other quote just spots you from having any doubts about the subject as it informs us that women liked the factory life more than life in domestic service.  The factory owner in Source C also writes that ‘The children,…were better off than before, better fed, housed and clothed.’ This is supported my Source A as the women writes that ‘I thought I was well off earning 5 pounds a week.’ Where as before she was only earning ‘2 pounds a month,’ in domestic service. Therefore, after changing jobs, the women is earning 10 times more than before. If we then link the two quotes one can see that the reason for the children being better off than before is because the family now earns 10 times their usual wages and can use the extra money to ensure a better lifestyle.

However, Source C also contradict Source A, as in Source A the women mentions that ‘We worked twelve hours a day, apart from the journey morning and night.’ This shows us that even though the wages might have been better the hours certainly was not as good as in domestic service where they only worked from ‘6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.’ Strangely enough the factory owner in Source C then writes that ‘They like…the social life.’ However nobody can have a social life if they work twelve hours a day six days a week, therefore, I am to believe that this might have been a false statement and that the factory owner did not want to include the truth in his book that was to be published and read my hundreds of people in fear of a bad reputation.

The evidence in source C does not supports the evidence in Source B about women’s work during the First World War. Source B is part of a book written by Sylvia Pankhurst (a suffragette) in 1932. The source states that ‘It was common…for six or more of the 30 dope painter to be lying ill on the stones outside the workshop,’ but the factory owner in Source C writes that ‘observations show that women prefer the factory life.’  These two source do not support each other as no worker, male or female, can like factory life more that domestic service if they are to be sick many times a day. Source B then goes father, writes that ‘they were at a wage of 15 shillings a week’, were often expected to work over time, and were made ‘normal wages for the overtime.’  If you study these quotes, you would think that as well as having bad conditions in the factory they were also paid poorly and unfair. However, when one studies Source C it is obvious that it totally contradicts this statement. The factory owner writes that ‘The children…are better off than before,’ well no family could be better of if they are earning 15 shillings a week unless they were unemployed before. The factory owner also writes that ‘ They like the freedom,’ but if you are ‘expected’ to work overtime for the same wages as normal time it can hardly be called freedom!

However, Source C does support the evidence in Source B as the women in Source B must of ‘prefer factory life’ as the factory owner stated in Source C otherwise they would not stay and work for that factory. One can also believe that Source B was exaggerated as it was written by a suffragette, who might of wanted to show the people of England that women were trying to help their country win the war even though they were treated badly and had to work under bad conditions.

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Overall, I think that Source C does Support the evidence in Source A about women’s work during the First World War as the women in Source A writes that she were in domestic service before going to work in a factory and ‘hated every minute of it.’ The quote from source C to support her view is that the factory owner writes that ‘observations show that women prefer factory life.’ These quotes support each other because if the women hated ‘every minute’ of domestic service, she could not possibly dislike factory life more even if she wanted to, therefore, she ...

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