Source Work- Women in World War 1

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Source Work- Women in World War 1

Source 1 is a source from a London newspaper printed in 1915 intended to inform the readers as well as entertain them because of competition between newspapers. Because it is a London newspaper article, this means that the articles would be particularly focused on the regional news in a neutral view.

This particular article is about all classes of women uniting to protest for the right to serve. It says ‘some of whom may have “come to scoff”, but remained to sympathise, encourage and admire’, this supports the fact that men didn’t really like women doing what they thought was “men’s” work.  The article described it as a patriotic demonstration that will be honoured when the war had finished. The pictures with this source are proof of the huge crowds described in the article. Another picture also shows the patriotism described in the article by a woman holding all the flags of the countries against Germany.

Patriotism was beginning to wear out in the Britain home front because of zeppelin attacks in London and south east England as well as shell attacks from ships in east England. This was the first time people at home war directly affected by war. So women would feel helpless sitting at home doing nothing. In 1915, the government relied on volunteers, before conscription, so the government had lots of propaganda posters which very possible could have been moving the women, and encouraging them to do something. The suffragettes temporarily brought the demonstrating for the right to vote to a standstill for the war. However suffragettes were very headstrong and believed they could do anything men could do, therefore they would have wanted to help in the war. Also wages would be higher than women’s traditional jobs and with little income from some men fighting in the trenches, higher wages were needed. Furthermore lots of men were beginning to be announced as deceased therefore it was necessary to start working if their husbands had died. It is likely that by 1915, there would be a lot of women passionate about having input in the war.

However the reliability can be disputed. Lots of newspapers at the time were subjective and held extreme views, such as the times held strong views against women’s franchise. Contradicting this, few newspapers were for women’s franchise, this could have been one of them. Moreover, DORA meant government press control, after this was taken in affect on 1914, most editors ensured the government that articles were positive and patriotic, even if this bent or hid the truth.

In conclusion, this article doesn’t have much content about the actual demonstration. The pictures are not posed for, and the article supports all the ideas at the time. Therefore, this article is quite useful in showing a historian the attitudes of women towards the war effort.

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The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society wrote sources 3 and 4, however for different reasons. Both are letters that are written to important people, source 3 is to the minister of war and source 4 is to the Prime Minister Lloyd George. Because they are both letters, any unreliability lies in the purpose of the letter and who it is written to. Source 3 expresses opinion on women helping in the war effort, whereas source 4 demands for women’s franchise in the next reforms during the war. Both letters were also written in 1917, after conscription, when women had already started to do lots of work, such as being drivers, bus conductors, police officers, railway workers, munitions factory workers as well as working in organisations such as WAACS, Women’s Land Army, VAD and so on. By this time, Lloyd George was Prime Minister.

Source 3 is focused on advising the minister of war how to control the women’s military (WAAC, WRAF, WRNS). The NUWSS tells the minister that women must be in charge of the women to maintain control in the military units. This infers that they one of the NUWSS’ roles included advising men how to control women in the workplace while women were working during the war. Because of the society morals, women would have to be treated differently to how men were treated. Men would be used to working in strict conditions, but women simply hadn’t had experience in it, therefore they needed different treatment. This special treatment made other men think that women weren’t strong enough to be able to work. This negativity from men was exactly why men wouldn’t have been able to control women at the time. However, this letter could be trying to persuade the minister to allocate more important roles such as officers, so women could be given more authority. If this higher female authority was established it would be harder to knocked it down again after the war like all the other jobs women had worked in had been taken away. Therefore source 3 tells us that NUWSS had a role in attempting to advance female authority and expressing their own views and opinions to important people who were involved with issues that concerned women.

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Source 4 is much more direct in any attempt to further the future for women. It writes to the Prime Minister who was known to express sympathy and thanks to women replacing men in industrial jobs prior to the date of the letter. The letter was written in March 2007, when he had been Prime Minister for 4 months. He expressed thanks on January 11th, which the NUWSS has reminded the Prime Minister of – women ‘have helped to win the war and without them we could not have done it. The NUWSS have made a whole argument for ...

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