Before Rosie the Riveter…
A generation before Rosie the Riveter, munitionettes "manned"* Britain's factories and mines, replacing the men who volunteered for General Kitchener's New Army in 1914 and 1915.
Women were initially greeted in the work force with hostility. Male trade unionists argued that the employment of women, who earned roughly half the salary of the men they replaced, would force down men's wages.** Some argued that women did not have the strength or the technical skills to do the work.
When universal male conscription was passed in 1916, need out-weighed social resistance. By the 1918, 950,00 women worked in Britain's munitions industry, outnumbering men by as much as three to one in some factories.
The hours were long and the work was dangerous. Munitionettes were popularly known as "canary girls" because prolonged exposure to toxic sulphuric acid tinged their skin yellow. Deadly explosions were common.
Munitionettes were not the only women to enter Britain's work force in World War I. Another 250,000 joined the work force in jobs that ranged from dockworkers and firefighters*** to government clerks, nurses, and ambulance drivers. The number of women in the transport industry alone increased 555% during the war.
At the end of the war, most of the munitionettes and their fellow war workers were replaced by returning soldiers. Many of them were probably glad to go. But the definition of "women's work" had been permanently changed. The thin edge of the wedge had been inserted.
* So to speak.
** Evidently the simple solution of negotiated for women to be paid an equal wage for equal work did not occur to male dominated unions. As a consequence, women's trade unions saw an enormous increase in membership during the war.
*** Imagine fighting a fire in a long skirt and petticoats.
Whose Remembrance?
2nd Rajput Light Infantry in action in Flanders, during the winter of 1914–15
A few statistics from the Imperial War Museum in London make it clear that the First World War was a global war in more than one sense:
- Roughly 1.5 million soldiers from British India served in the war; 80,000 lost their lives. Many of them fought in the trenches on the Western Front--if you don't believe me, check out the names of fallen Sikh, Muslim and Hindu soldiers on the Menin Gate in Ypres.
- More than 15,000 soldiers from the Caribbean fought with the allied forces.
- Tens of thousands of East Africans were drafted into a non-combatant Carrier Corps to support* British troops in Africa.
- Chinese and Egyptian Labour Corps, with roughly 100,000 and 55,000 men, supported British troops in France and the Middle East
Taken together, those numbers change the face of World War I. And that's not even counting participants from French colonies and "areas of influence". Not to mention the segregated African American units who fought in France.
The Imperial War Museum is commemorating the WWI centennial with a wide ranging research project titled Whose Remembrance? focusing on the experience of the peoples of Britain's former empire in the wars. The researchers seem to be asking questions not only about the topic itself but what it tells us about how history is constructed. This is worth watching.
*That word, supported, deserves some attention.
First Known Serial Killer Terrorizes The Slums of London
"A Suspicious Character" --one of a series of images from the Illustrated London News for October 13, 1888 carrying the overall caption, "With the Vigilance Committee in the East End". (Notice the figure in the deer stalker cap--Sherlock Holmes in pursuit of Jack the Ripper?)
On August 6, 1888, Martha Tabram was stabbed to death in the Whitechapel neighborhood of London--many believe she was the first victim of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.*
Between August and November, five more women were murdered within a one-mile radius in London's East End. All were prostitutes and all but one were horribly mutilated by their killer.
The East End was a notorious slum. Violence against prostitutes was not unusual. Tabram's death received only a passing mention in the papers, described by The Daily News as a "supposed murder" even though she had been stabbed nearly forty times.* With the discovery of the second murder on August 31, the story became front-page news. The murders caught the public attention not only because of their brutality, but because of gloating letters sent to both Scotland Yard and the Central News Agency by a man calling himself Jack the Ripper. (Some or all of the letters may have been written by a journalist trying to heighten interest in the story.) Public opinion on the subject was so hot that both the Home Secretary and the London Police Commissioner resigned as a result of the failure to make an arrest.
From a historical perspective, the case provides a great deal of information about police procedure and life in the slums in Victorian London. Newspapers reported on the inquests, the investigation, and the appalling conditions prevalent in the East End. Reporters interviewed slum residents and police officers alike trying to keep the story alive.
Jack the Ripper was never caught and the number of his victims remains uncertain. (The police files included a total of eleven women whose deaths shared some of the elements associated with Jack the Ripper.) The case was officially closed in 1892, but his murders continue to fascinate armchair detectives--so much so that entire websites are devoted to "ripperology." In the 125 years since his killing spree ended, Ripper enthusiasts have offered more than 100 possible identities for the killer, ranging from a German sailor on shore leave to Queen Victoria's grandson Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence.
* AKA The Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron. Whitechapel Murderer I get, but Leather Apron???
**Bad copy-editing? An odd variation on describing someone as a "suspected" or "accused" murderer prior to conviction? Because the fact that someone was stabbed 40 times does not necessarily mean she was murdered?