When radios across the UK announced that Britain would be joining WWI, women took up arms. But instead of fighting on the battlefields, they fought in the factories and warehouses that fueled the war machine. These photographs reveal that profound, almost seismic shift in what it meant to be a woman. Here we see women, whose hands were once assumed to be too delicate for anything but domestic tasks, confidently mastering heavy machinery and assembling the very munitions that armed the front lines.
In the grease-stained workshops and high-risk factories, these women discovered a resilience and competence within themselves that society had never acknowledged. They weren't just contributing to the war effort; they were fundamentally redrawing the boundaries of their own lives, proving that their strength was not a substitute for men's, but a powerful, capable force all its own.
#1 A Female Worker Employed On A Plain Net Machine At A Factory Of J. B. Tidmans Limited On Alfred Street In Nottingham
7points
#3 A Woman At Work Wearing Protective Mask And Gloves During Sand Blasting Operations In The Granite Works Of Stewart & Co. Ltd., Fraser Place, Aberdeen, October 1918
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6points
#4 A Female Worker Operating A Polishing Machine In The Granite Works Of Stewart & Co. Limited, Fraser Place, Aberdeen, October 1918
6points
#5 A Female Woodworker For The Ministry Of Munitions Operating A Circular Cutter As A Chamfering Machine With A Safety Guard
6points
#6 Nurses And A Medical Officer Standing By A Red Cross And St John's Ambulance Association Ambulance And Its Driver, In A Compound For Medical Officers
6points
#7 A Female Restaurant Car Attendant Employed By The Great Western Railway Standing In The Carriage Door, 31st March 1915
6points
#9 A Female Assistant Of The Weights And Measures Department Of The Corporation Of Glasgow Adjusting The Weights
5points
#10 Female Workers Carrying Metal Rods In A Naval Ship Building Yard
5points
#11 Female Sheet Metal Worker Opening Tin Plates At The Beaufort Tin Plate Works In Morriston, South Wales
5points
#12 Female Workers Trimming Hose In The Hosiery Works Of Moore Eady And Murcott Goode Limited At Markheaten Street In Derby
5points
#13 Female Gas Fitters Stripping And Cleaning Street Lamps And Preparing Them For Reglazing In A Gas Works
5points
#14 A Female Station Master And Two Female Porters At Irlams O' Th' Height Station, Near Manchester, Of The Lancashire And Yorkshire Railway
In 1917 the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway appointed its first female station master at Irlams o' th' Height. Soon afterward this station became the first on the network to be staffed entirely by women. By 1918 the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway was employing 4,459 women.
5points
#15 Young Female Workers Winding Wire Rope, Work Previously Done By Men, At Craddocks Wire Rope Factory In Wakefield, 23rd August 1916
5points
Many of these ladies probably never imagined they'd be wielding hammers or handling dangerous chemicals, yet here they are, sleeves rolled up and getting the job done. The next set of images shows even more of these everyday heroes, and you'll notice how they're not just surviving this massive change in their lives but many of them seem to be discovering just how capable they really were.
#16 Female Carriage Cleaners On The London And South Western Railway, Carrying Their Materials
5points
#17 A Female Worker Shapes A Wooden Aeroplane Propeller At The Aircraft Factory Of Frederick Tibbenham Limited At Ipswich
4points
#18 A Female Worker Making Limbs For Dolls At The Toy Factory Of Nell Foy On Church Street In Chelsea, London
4points
#19 Female Sub-Station Attendant Putting A Rotary Converter On Load In A Sub Station Of The Electricity Department Of The Corporation Of Glasgow
4points
#20 Female Railway Workers Of The Lancashire And Yorkshire Railway Cleaning The Outsides Of Railway Carriages In The Sidings At Manchester
4points