Women's Changing Role in Society (1914-1939)

                Fresh from the Gilded Age, women took a new role in American society. One thing that helped bring this was Prohibition. Prohibition brought in the speakeasies that sold alcohol to anyone who wanted it. Speakeasies were a place where men and women frequented and got along very well. Women also got the right to vote in 1920. This empowered them more. With the new change in society with no one caring about anything but themselves, women gained much ground.

Women in the Workplace

Traditional family structure was completely changed by the First World War.

Many married women were forced into the workplace by the death of their husbands.

Other women were drafted into industries that had been depleted by military conscription.

Over the course of the war:

• 200,000 women took up jobs in governmental departments.


• 500,000 took up clerical positions in private offices.


• 250,000 worked on in agricultural positions.


• 700,000 women took up posts in the munitions industry, which was dangerous work.


• Many more women did hard heavy work, including ship building and furnace stoking. These types of jobs had excluded women prior to the war.

In July 1914, before the war broke out there were 3.2 million women in employment. This had risen to 5 million by January 1918.

1910-1919- 23.4% of women in work force, women began doing jobs previously done by men because of the war (police officers, mechanics, and truck drivers.)

1920-1929- 25% of women working, 30% of these women in clerical or sales. Women paid low wages.

1930-1939- Great depression, women discouraged from taking jobs. 22% in work force.

                Between 1920 and 1930, women in the labor force rose from 23.6 percent to 27 percent. World War I had opened up new doors for women, with many rising to white-collar office and support-staff positions. Women worked in manufacturing and textiles, domestic services and agriculture.

Education

The 1920s saw the first generation of female college graduates and women earning careers in nursing, education and social work.

 

Fashion

During the 1920s, women's fashion was revolutionized with changing music trends. Women adopted more casual modes of dress, including shorter dresses and skirts that were often frowned upon in public. Flappers epitomized the 1920s through their fashion, short-bob haircuts, dance moves, cosmetics and public smoking. By 1923, dance marathons featuring the Shimmy and the Charleston were all the rage.

Politics

Obviously, not all 1920s women were flappers. By the end of the twenties, 38 states featured nearly 150 elected female officials in Congress and state legislatures.

 

 

What did World War 1 do for Women?

The war meant women had to take on a number of traditionally male roles. Their ability to do this led to a change in attitudes.

World War 1 caused:

• Emmeline Pankhurst (leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union) called for a temporary ceasefire in their campaign so the country could focus fully on the war effort.

 

 

• Syliva Pankhurst and her Women’s Suffrage Federation were more radical and wanted the struggle to continue in spite of the situation.

When the war ended in November 1918 8.4 million women were granted the right to vote.

The Eligibility of Women Act was also passed in November 1918. This meant that some women could now be elected as members of Parliament.

World War 1 was undoubtedly the final catalyst for women to be given the vote. However, women would have to wait until 1928 to be granted the vote on equal terms with British men. This was brought by the Representation of the People Act, which stated all women over the age of 21 could vote.

 

Women in The Military

                When the United States entered the European War on April 6, 1917, it marked the first time in the history of the country that regular Army and Navy military nurses served overseas—although without rank—and the first time, women who were not nurses were allowed to enlist in the Navy and Marine Corps. A handful of women also served in the Coast Guard. The US Army, however, refused to enlist women officially, relying on them as contract employees and civilian volunteers.

Negative public opinion and hesitant military leaders limited women's roles, but the country needed their skills to pursue the war effort and to move male soldiers out of office jobs and onto the battlefield.