More than Munitions

Clare Wightman explores the key issue of gender in explaining the experience of men and women at work. She uses women's employment in the engineering industries between 1900 and 1950 to confront many of the contentious debates in women's history. She shows that the two World Wars did not produce radical changes for women at work.

Clare Wightman

Women's employment, 1900-1950; the engineering industry, 1900-1950; World War I - munitions work and its impact, 1914-1919; women's employment between the wars; disputes - the significance of collective bargaining, 1919-1939; "a specialized line" - women and trade unions, 1919-1939; World War II - dilution, "an arrangement for men"?; would women stay? the effects of war work; post-war divisions of labour.