ABSTRACT
One of the more visible changes in women’s lives during the war came with their entrance into a wide range of occupations, some of which had never before included women. This chapter examines the totality of women’s work, from waged labour to family maintenance. Although the exact number of women who worked in the munitions industry during the war is unknown, it provided employment for more working-class women than other types of war work. Despite the continuing wage differential between men and women, French women still sought wartime factory jobs out of financial necessity. Some German women, particularly those with dependent children, were unlikely to enter ‘skilled’ munitions work because they assumed such jobs would not last beyond the end of the war. In France, voluntary efforts to provide canteens for women workers began with the entrance of women into factories in increased numbers.
