What has been the changes after World War 1?

Answer 1

THIS IS NOT INFORMATION RELEVANT TO WWI; RATHER, IT TALKS ABOUT WWII.

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World War I produced important changes in American life--some trivial, others profound. One striking change involved fashion. To conserve wool and cotton, dresses became shorter and vests and cuffs disappeared, as did double-breasted suits, pleats, and ruffles.

Even more significant was the tremendous increase in mobility. The war set families in motion, pulling them off of farms and out of small towns and packing them into large urban areas. Urbanization had virtually stopped during the Depression, but the war saw the number of city dwellers leap from 46 to 53 percent.

War industries sparked the urban growth. Detroit's population exploded as the automotive industry switched from manufacturing cars to war vehicles. Washington, D.C. became another boomtown, as tens of thousands of new workers staffed the swelling ranks of the bureaucracy. The most dramatic growth occurred in California. Of the 15 million civilians who moved across state lines during the war, over 2 million went to California to work in defense industries.

Women

The war had a dramatic impact on women. The sudden appearance of large numbers of women in uniform was easily the most visible change. The military organized women into auxiliary units with special uniforms, their own officers, and, amazingly, equal pay. By 1945, more than 250,000 women had joined the Women's Army Corps (WAC), the Army Nurses Corps, Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES), the Navy Nurses Corps, the Marines, and the Coast Guard. Most women who joined the armed services either filled traditional women's roles, such as nursing, or replaced men in non-combat jobs. During the first world war, the first demonstations were held to give women the right to vote.

Women also substituted for men on the home front. For the first time in history, married working women outnumbered single working women as 6.3 million women entered the work force during the war. The war challenged the conventional image of female behavior, as "Rosie the Riveter" became the popular symbol of women who abandoned traditional female occupations to work in defense industries. Social critics had a field day attacking women. Social workers blamed working mothers for the rise in juvenile delinquency during the war.

African Americans

In 1941, the overwhelming majority of the nation's African American population--10 of 13 million--still lived in the South, primarily in rural areas. During the war, more than one million blacks migrated to the North--twice the number during World War I--and more than two million found work in defense industries.

Black leaders fought discrimination vigorously. In the spring of 1941 (months before America entered the war), the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, A. Philip Randolph, with strong backing from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), called for 150,000 blacks to march on Washington to protest discrimination in defense industries. Embarrassed and concerned, Roosevelt issued an executive order prohibiting discrimination in defense industries and creating the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC).

During the war, the Marines excluded blacks, the Navy used them as servants, and the Army created separate black regiments commanded mostly by white officers. The Red Cross even segregated blood plasma.

As urban areas swelled with defense workers, housing and transportation shortages exacerbated racial tensions. In 1943, a riot broke out in Detroit in a federally-sponsored housing project when whites wanted blacks barred from the new apartments named, ironically, in honor of Sojourner Truth. White soldiers from a nearby base joined the fighting, and other federal troops had to be brought in to disperse the mobs. The violence left 35 blacks and 9 whites dead.

Similar conflicts erupted across the nation exposing, in each instance, the same jarring contradiction: White Americans espoused equality abroad but practiced discrimination at home. One black soldier told Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal, "Just carve on my tombstone, here lies a black man killed fighting a yellow man for the protection of a white man." A 1942 survey showed that many black Americans sympathized with the Japanese struggle to expel white colonialists from the Far East. Significantly, the same survey revealed a majority of white industrialists in the South preferred a German victory to racial equality for blacks.

During World War II, the NAACP intensified its legal campaign against discrimination, and its membership grew from 50,000 to 500,000. Some African Americans, however, considered the NAACP too slow and too conciliatory. Rejecting legal action, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), founded in 1942, organized a series of "sit-ins." Civil disobedience produced a few victories in the North, but the South's response was brutal. In Tennessee, for example, angry whites savagely beat the civil rights leader Bayard Rustin for refusing to move to the back of the bus.

Mexican Americans

Almost 400,000 Mexican Americans served in the armed forces during the war. For many Mexican Americans, jobs in industry provided an escape hatch from the desperate poverty of migratory farm labor. In New Mexico, about one-fifth of the rural Mexican American population left for war-related jobs.

The need for farm workers rose dramatically after Pearl Harbor. To meet the demand, the United States established the Bracero (work hands) Program in 1942, and by 1945, several hundred thousand Mexican workers had immigrated to the Southwest. Commercial farmers welcomed them; labor unions, however, resented the competition, leading to animosity and discrimination against Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike.

In Los Angeles, ethnic tensions erupted into violence. Anglo society feared and resented newly formed Mexican American youth gangs, whose members celebrated their ethnicity by wearing flamboyant "zoot suits." In June 1943, hundreds of Anglo sailors, on liberty from nearby naval bases, invaded downtown Los Angeles. Eager to put down the Mexican American youths, they attacked the zoot suiters, and riots broke out for several nights. The local press blamed the Mexican American gangs, and the riots did not end until military police ordered sailors back to their

Families

After WWI,many families also looked upon marriage as a way of escaping the reality that the American people were faced with.The sudden appearance of Southern belles seemed like the right way for one to not have to endure hardship.

Answer 2

World War I gave womenthe chance to show a male-dominated culture that they could do more than bring up children and tend a home. In addition, they were very important in keeping soldiers on the war front equipped with ammunition and other supplies. The United States needed someone at home keeping everything moving and so the women did that too. They found employment on the trains, driving buses, in factories making ammunition, and on the farms producing food. They even worked on airplanes as mechanics.

The "Woman Worker" magazine interviewed women in February 1919, just three months after the end of the war, and 65% of those interviewed stated that they would never go back to domestic service regardless of their situation.

Fuel was in short supply, so everything was done to save as much as possible. Almost all farm work was done by hand. Horses were used to plough, and planting seeds and harvesting were all done by hand. The water was carried from the well by hand, and often candles or lamps were used to conserve energy.

Some of the most important work, and certainly the most dangerous, was done by women was in the ammunition factories. There was always the very great possibility of explosions. No type of protection was available. Working with the sulfur in the factories caused the women's skin to turn yellow, thus they were called "canaries".

In World War I about 1 million women worked in munitions jobs. The women found the wages "at first livable and later lucrative." Compared with domestic work, war work "offered escape from jobs of badly paid drudgery." However, although they earned more than they would have doing women's work, the women received nowhere near the fortunes they had been led to expect when deciding to take war work. Women were paid half the wages the men made when working the same job, still thousands of women worked long hours filling shells with explosives. The employers made little or no effort to make the transition easy from working in the home to a work place.

World War I gave women a real, legitimate alternative from the traditional "homemaker" role. Because the men were gone fighting, women were given opportunities as factory workers, shop keepers, drivers, engineers, and even CEO's.

A Punch cartoon of the time shows a soldier's wife who receives an allowance: "This war is' eaven -- twenty-five shillings a week and no 'usband bothering about!"

The next step after becoming employed outside of the home was the need to dress for comfort and efficiency at the job. So, for the first time, women in the United States began to wear blue jeans, slacks, and all types of pants. As these freedoms took hold many soon followed such as smoking, very short cut hair, and taking an occasional drink.

Child care provisions did not exist. Even the essential necessities such as female bathrooms were non existent. It was very clear to these women that they were temporary employees, since no effort was made to encourage them to develop a career.

Looking back on the war time liberties, it would appear to be a time of great fun. However, I believe it was much different than that. Women did what they had to do to try to help their men get home as soon as possible. I really don't believe the average woman enjoyed driving trucks, operating cranes, and climbing around on buildings doing carpentry in all sorts of weather.

Other traditionally men's work was taken over by the women. They filled the need for doctors, lawyers, bankers, and civil servants. They went to work for pay harvesting grain, ran business, and driving trucks were all common jobs for women to take. By the end of the war, more than 30,000 were working in munitions factories.

I am certain this was a very hard time for all concerned. The men did not want to leave their homes, families, and careers to go to war, but, because it was their duty, and the right thing to do, they filled that obligation. The women, for the most part, probably did not want to leave their homes and comforts and go to work as manual laborers. Even though they did find more freedom in their life styles, they also found more labor in their life style. I believe it would depend on the individual woman and her particular circumstances, whether or not she saw the war years as a time of opportunity or a time of distress.

This was the first time in history that American women were in charge of the household. They had to make the decisions about repairs, how to pay bills, and what to buy. To make matters worse, everthing was rationed. If you wanted to drive the car to the grocery store, you had to figure of if you had enough gas ration. Certain foods were rationed, so you had to try to make do on what was available.

If a woman worker was a mother, then she had another concern. With no childcare provided by the employer, she had to find a place for her children to stay while she was at work. This was not easy since most other women were working also. Then, how was she to buy birthday presents and bake cakes, and what about Christmas and all the other celebrated holidays? All in all, I feel that it was a very difficult time for women.

After the war, the men who returned found the changes amazing. Some were able to cope with the changes and adjust, others could not. The result was the beginning of a very sad thing, the destruction of families through divorce.

War is never a good thing, but looking back through time, the overall affects of World War I was a good thing for women. Without a doubt, the role of women in the United States changed forever during World War I.

Speilvogel, Jackson, J. Western Civilization, Fifth Edition. Belmont, CA. Wadsworh/Thomson Learning. 2003. pages 771-726.

Goldstein, Joshua, S. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Visa Versa. Cambridge University Press. 2001.

Answer 3

women gained rights to vote, Europe's countries, and women's freedom