The impact of war, 1914-1922, social and cultural impact

Question 1

What social changes happened in August 1914

Answer 1

Outbreak of war

Defence of the Realm Act

Question 2

When was conscription introduced?

Answer 2

January 1916=
for men aged 18-41

May 1916=
for married men up to 41

April 1918=
for all men 18-51

Question 3

How many men were taken out of the economy into the armed forces

Answer 3

6 million

Question 4

How many women entered the work force?

How many women moved from peace to wartime work

Answer 4

1 million

250,000

Question 5

By 1918 what percentage of the workforce was women

Answer 5

1/3

Question 6

By 1918, what percentage of the workforce in the shell factories were women

Answer 6

80%

Question 7

What new types of work did women do during the war

Answer 7

jobs previously done by men in factories, offices and transport and work in munitions industry

Question 8

Number of female employees in transport

Answer 8

18,000 in 1914

117,000 in 1918

Question 9

Number of female employees in banking and finance

Answer 9

increased by 600%

Question 10

Which two traditional all-male industries did women work in

Answer 10

shipbuilding and engineering

Question 11

What did some women do to enable men to be freed for the front lines

Answer 11

Served in the armed forces

Question 12

Which groups of the non-combatant sections of the armed forces did women join?

Answer 12

Women’s Royal Naval Service
Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps
Women’s Royal Air Force

Question 13

By 1918 how many women were serving in the auxiliary services

Answer 13

150,000 as clerks, drivers, wireless operators, mechanics and fitters

Question 14

What were the conditions of war work for women

Answer 14

Work in munitions factories was dirty and dangerous.
Many women workers were killed or injured in shell factory explosions and more than 100 died from diseases contracted through handling poisonous chemicals.
Women often worked long hours and sometimes at night.

Question 15

What was the pay of war work

Answer 15

Much better paid than traditional domestic services, shop work or spinning in the textile mills

Many women became the main breadwinner.
With full employment and with overtime pay rates, women workers earned more money than ever before.

Many waddle-class young women often experienced for the first time some degree of financial independence.

However women did not always receive the same pay as men for the same work

Question 16

Sex Disqualification Act

Answer 16

1919
Said women could no longer be barred from entering a career in the law or the Civil service on the basis of their gender.
This opened up Civil Service, local government and jury service for women.

Question 17

Changed in women’s fashion

Answer 17

Shorter skirts and hairstyles symbolised a new freedom for women

Question 18

Limitations to social change

Answer 18

Still a strong emphasis on women’s traditional roles, both during and after the war year. Women were portrayed as responsible for ‘keeping the home fires burning’, for bringing up the children and for nursing the wounded.

Question 19

Domestic service by 1918

Answer 19

Although employment in the domestic service fell by 400,000 during the war there were still 1.2 million domestic servants in 1918, almost of all which were female.

Question 20

What key occupations were women still excluded from

Answer 20

Coal mining and dock work

Question 21

How was the situation of women workers viewed

Answer 21

Viewed as transitionary, an emergency measure, rather than a permanent social change

Question 22

Position of women in work after the war

Answer 22

After 1918, many women returned to their pre-war jobs or to their homes.
By 1921, the percentage of women in the total workforce was little different from what it had been in 1911.

Question 23

Effect of war on female franchise

Answer 23

Critical for overcoming objections of those who believed that women should not vote or who felt that allowing any significant female suffrage was giving into violence.

Question 24

Effect of war on male franchise

Answer 24

War overcame any last remaining objections to full voting rights for men.
Soldiers, who were not resident householders, would not have been able to vote under the existing rules, and this was unthinkable

Question 25

Why was reform of franchise necessary

Answer 25

Because the government planned a wartime election

Question 26

How did the 1918 Representation of the People Act affect the electorate

Answer 26

It tripled it

Question 27

1918 Representation of the People Act

Answer 27

• All men over the age of 21 became entitled to vote.
• Men over the age of 19 who had seen active service in the war got the vote for the next general election
• Women over 30 became entitled to vote if they were a member or married to a member of the local government register, a graduate voting in a university election or a property owner

Question 28

1918 Representation of the People Act effect on women

Answer 28

Younger working-class women who had been most active in war work still did not have a vote.
Working-class women did not receive the vote until 1928 when they finally enfranchised on the same terms as men in the Representation of the People Act.

Question 29

Impact of war on trade unions

Answer 29

The war created a huge demand for extra workers which gave the trade unions huge bargaining powers which they exercised through their Trade Union Congress.

The trade unions on the whole co-operated with the government in banning strikes in essential war industry and accepting dilution and conscription.

Meanwhile, the Labour Constitution 1918 gave unions a key role in the party.

Question 30

When was the miners’ strike

Answer 30

1921

Question 31

How did war impact generally on Britain’s society

Answer 31

Changed beliefs and assumptions towards behaviour, mortality and religious practise.

The stuffier aspects of Victorian society loosened during the war and never quite returned.

Increased social mobility and changed inwoven’s political and social positions during and after the war

Question 32

How did war impact on class divisions

Answer 32

They were not broken by any means.
In female employment during war, working-class girls went mainly into munitions, middle-class girls more into nursing or administration. (yet working-class women still did not receive the vote)

In the armed forces, class divisions between officers and men remained clear cut.

However, the terrible death toll created a common bond of suffering and loss that ran across all social classes and was later expressed in the war memorials and rituals of remembrance.

Question 33

How did war impact on religion

Answer 33

War gave churches a greater public role.
Thousands of chaplains were needed for the armed forces ti cater for the spiritual and religious needs of vast armies.
Churchmen were in demand to conduct religious services, preach supportive sermons and carry out burial services.

However, the war also proved a challenge to Christian churches.
Some found it hard to justify the slaughter on the Western Front or to reconcile this with faith in God.
Some church leader, including the Pope, tried to reconcile the opposing camps and promote peace.

Question 34

How did the war challenge cultural assumptions

Answer 34

Challenged assumptions about the superiority of Western civilisation.
For four year the supposedly most civilised countries on the earth had waged an increasingly barbarous war against each other. This weakened assumptions about the innate superiority of European values and civilisation, and strengthened the ideas of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism.

Question 35

How did war impact on arts

Answer 35

Created a culture than rejected the war and the society that had allowed it to happen.
Many artists embraced ‘modernism’ which rejected the values that had been so destructive.

Question 36

Patriotism

Answer 36

Outbreak of war created a wave of patriotism.
This had been fed in Britain since the start of the century, in literature, in newspapers such as the Daily Mailm and in the music halls.
The arms race, in particular the naval race with Germany before 1914, had fed nationalist feeling and also promoted the idea that Germany was the enemy of Britain.

Question 37

Posters

Answer 37

Recruitment poster played on the patriotic duty that all men had to sign up to fight for ‘king and country’.
As a result, in the first few months, tens of thousands of young men in a fever of patriotic enthusiasm joined the British army.
Over 1 million had signed up by the end of 1914 and, altogether about 2.5 million volunteered to fight.