- Sources D and G give different interpretations of the attitudes towards women that existed during the war. Why do they differ?
Source D is an extract from a book written by the historian Rex Pope. His purpose for writing the book is to enlighten the percentage of the population that buy it and read it. He has probably based it on many sources and facts from the time and he has the advantage of hindsight, the ability to look back on an event and overview the situation. Source G is an extract from a propaganda magazine. Its purpose is to persuade women to work in the factories to help the war effort. The magazine, overall, is meant to give their readers a feeling of patriotism, and to idealise the image of the war. It is written in early 1915 and so has the disadvantage of not knowing how the war will end. 1915 was a time when Britain was still relying on volunteers, and so the war needed to be portrayed in a good light.
- Why do you think Source F was taken?
The picture is of a woman dressed as a conductor on a bus during the First World War. The caption beneath is of no help and does not explain where it was taken, or why, when, or by who. It could be a private photograph of someone’s daughter on her first job, or it could be a biased view of the life of a woman on the home front taken by a patriotic newspaper. Overall there is too much uncertainty when trying to decide the provenance of the source. The only clue is the title at the top - “Doing a man’s job”. A title like that could reveal that the source possibly originated in a history textbook.
- “War work proved to be a great leap forward for British women”
Do sources A to G provide enough evidence to prove this interpretation to be true?
I believe that the sources A to G do not provide enough evidence to prove this interpretation to be true. Most of the sources that give a pleasant and warm view of women at work on the home front during the First World War are the ones that were written at the time. Source A from the “War worker” is an example of that. It shows a simplistic and patriotic view of women in the war that gained readers and sold issues. Source E is from “The daily Chronicle” – a newspaper – that reports on “the historic procession of wives, mothers and girls, all demanding the right to serve”. The third is Source G from the “War illustrated magazine” on the 24th of April 1915 that commends the women’s contribution to the war effort by saying “today’s woman is essentially a comrade to man, and a helper”. These three sources would have been written by a newspaper edited by someone like Horatio Bottomly – the owner of the war time magazine “John Bull” who would bend stories to his desire. These sources all wish to lead the reader to come to the conclusion that war work proved to be a great leap forward for British women.
The modern contemporary sources all propose a totally different view on the war at home. Source C is from a book written in 1994 that accounts of women striking by an eyewitness policewomen, Source D says that women were victimised because they took the jobs of men who were then open to conscription. Source B is the only contemporary source that conflicts with the views in the others. It says that women during the war were “able to demonstrate practically their claim to equality with men”. These sources are thought to be more reliable than the sources from the time as they have better provenance.
However, many women on the home front felt that they had achieved a great social step forward. Fashion changed – The pre-war long skirts were hired. Many women began to wear trousers and overalls to go to work in the factories and farms. Women could go out to lunches together and smoke in public. The suffragette movement had been fighting before the war and throughout the war and in February 1918 the government passed the Representation of the People Act that gave women who were over thirty and married the right to vote. These notes from video sources show that women did have a great step forward. But, after the war, many women went back to their old housewife lives when their husbands came home from fighting.
Many modern sources show that there was a slow step forward for women during the war, but not as momentous as the propagandistic sources would have us believe. Most of the sources that praise women’s involvement have an ulterior motive and are intentionally biased or subjective. One modern source (1965) does corroborate the sources written at the time, but it is the only one. Therefore I say that the sources do not prove that “war work proved to be a great leap forward for British women”.
