How did World War I change life at home, and women’s work?

The war changed home life by pulling almost everyone into the effort, and women into jobs that had been closed to them. Women were mobilized in unprecedented numbers on all sides, mostly into the civilian workforce to replace conscripted men or to work in expanded munitions factories.

In Britain a severe shortage of skilled workers led industry to redesign jobs so unskilled men and women could do them, a change called the dilution of labour. In 1915 David Lloyd George took charge of the new Ministry of Munitions and dramatically increased the output of artillery shells. Posters appealed to women to join the workforce, though they did not show the dangerous side of the work. Munitions workers volunteered for patriotism and money, with wages often double what they had earned before, and they were nicknamed Canaries because toxic chemicals turned their skin yellow.

At HM Factory, Gretna, the UK's largest cordite factory, women from all over the world made the mixture that Arthur Conan Doyle called the Devil's Porridge. The workforce peaked at 11,576 women in 1917 and had fallen to 6,285 by October 1918.

Then came the peace. After the war women went back to the home, and their jobs went to returning soldiers.

Home was hard in other ways. In Germany, the British naval blockade had cut off food imports by 1915, and severe food shortages were reported in all urban areas.