WWI Social Changes

Edit 0 4 …
Maria Ota

Prompt:
Analyze and assess the extent to which WWI accelerated European social change in such areas as work, sex roles, and government involvement in everyday life.

Thesis: The social changes in World War I were shaped by the changes of work, where women were becoming employed and the industry owners prospered, women gained the right to vote in some areas, and the government seeking union cooperation.

Work
  • war brought an end to unemployment
  • women allowed in work forces to fill in for men in war
  • women called up to take over jobs & responsibilities that hadn't been open before
    • ex: clerical jobs, chimney sweeps, truck drivers, farm laborers, and factory workers (heavy industry)
  • people thought the women's new jobs were only temporary
    • at the end of war, women where rushed out of job field=many unemployed women and lower women wages
  • fortunate ones: skilled laborers who were excused from military service because they were needed to home to train workers in the war industry
  • (part of fortunate ones) owners of large industry manufacturers for the weapons of war

Sex Roles
  • male resistance to female employment, especially in heavy industry
    • concerned that employment of females at lower wages would lower their own wages
    • women demand for equal wages
  • French government created minimum wage for women and later established equal men and women wages
    • industrial women wages still weren't equal to men's
  • right to vote for women (Germany, Austria, Britain, U.S)
  • young women took jobs, had own apartments, and showed independence by smoking in public, wore shorter dresses, cosmetics, and new hair styles

Government Involvement
  • sought union cooperation and allowed trade unions to participate in making important government decisions on labor matters
    • unions cooperated on wage limits and production schedules in return
      • opened the way to widespread collective bargaining practices & increased the prestige of trade unions=attract more members
  • gave right to vote for women
  • rarely limited the big profits made by industrial owners