Women Navvies pushing loaded wheel barrows in Coventry during World War I.

These incredible vintage photos captured everyday life of British female war workers during World War One. Women war workers, including the distinctively white-capped and aproned VAD nurses, parade outside Buckingham Palace in 1918. Members of the Women's Royal Air Force arrive at Buckingham Palace, London, to attend a party for war workers in 1919. Female ambulance workers, such as this group photographed in November 1915, served both at home and on the front line. While some women became nurses, others worked in hospital workshops, such as this one at the Kensington War Hospital, making prosthetic limbs. 950,000 female workers were employed in British factories, including this worker, pictured making shell cases in a Vickers factory in January 1915 . 400 women died in munitions factories, between 1914 (when this image was taken) and 1918, when the war ended. Exposure to toxic sulphur left many workers with yellowed skin, while others were killed in explosions. One 1917 incident killed 73 and flattened 900 homes Despite being paid less than their male counterparts, many of the female munitionettes undertook dangerous and fiddly work. Members of the Women's Fire Brigade with their Chief Officer photographed in their uniforms beside an extinguished fire in March 1916. Members of the Women's Fire Brigade are put through their paces during a fire drill with hoses and extinguishers at full force in March 1916. A member of the Women Porters At Marylebone Station Group, pictured in 1914 giving a Great Central Railways carriage a thorough clean. Women employed in the transport industry increased by 555 per cent during the war, and included this pair of female porters at Marylebone Station in 1915. As this 1917 photograph shows, female war workers didn't just run trains and buses - they fixed and maintained them too. As part of the war effort, old paper had to be reused. These women are pulling apart old ledgers belonging to the London & South West Railway. The paper, as this photo taken on the 16th April 1917 shows, then had to be sorted into piles and stored. Women even took on tough, physical roles such as moving rubble, as seen in this photograph taken in Coventry during 1917. (via Daily Mail Online)

As countries caught up in the war sent soldiers to the front lines, they also built support behind the lines and at home, with women taking many roles. As villages became battlefields, refugees were scattered across Europe.

From dairy work to felling trees, the work of the Women's Land Army was integral to the British war effort during the First World War.

How 'plucky' heroines of 1914-18 conflict seized chance to advance women's freedoms

During WWI (1914-1918), large numbers of women were recruited into jobs vacated by men who had gone to fight in the war. New jobs were also created as part of the war effort, for example in munitions factories. The high demand for weapons resulted in the munitions factories becoming the largest single employer of women during 1918. Though there was initial resistance to hiring women for what was seen as ‘men’s work’, the introduction of conscription in 1916 made the need for women workers urgent. Around this time, the government began coordinating the employment of women through campaigns and recruitment drives. These vintage photographs show the incredible range of essential products made by women during the war. A large number of women were employed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway during the first world war. Here, a group pose on a 4-4-2 High Flyer class locomotive, No 1406, at Low Moor engine shed near Bradford, 23 March 1917. Photograph: SSPL via Getty Images. A woman at work in an armaments factory, during the first world war. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images. A woman driving a wagon and horses in north London during the first world war. The picture was taken on 16 August 1916. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty. Women railway employees during the first world war. Photograph: Branger/Roger Viollet/Getty Images. A woman tram driver, pictured in 1916, during the first world war. Photograph: Royal Photographic Society/SSPL via Getty Images. Five women ambulance drivers of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry during the first world war, pictured at Calais in January 1917. Photograph: IWM via Getty Images. Lady Florence Norman, a suffragette, on her motor-scooter in 1916, travelling to work at offices in London where she was a supervisor. The scooter was a birthday present from her husband, the journalist and Liberal politician Sir Henry Norman. Photograph: FPG/Getty Images. A woman 'land girl' driving a tractor ploughing a field in March 1918. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty. A woman mechanic repairing a car at a Women's Volunteer Reserve garage. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images. Two women porters at Marylebone station in London in 1914, loading wicker baskets onto a trolley. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images. A woman assembly line worker at a munitions factory in 1917, during the first world war. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis. Members of the women's police service during the first world war. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty. Women workers feed a charcoal kiln used for purifying sugar at a refinery in Scotland during the first world war. Photograph: IWM via Getty Images. A women bus conductor has a warming drink of hot milk beside her south London bus, in February 1916. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty. Women window cleaners working in Nottingham during the first world war, in 1917. Photograph: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy. Workhouse women watch female workers demonstrate rescuing skills, as part of firefighting training, in April 1917. Photograph: American Press Association/Corbis. Women workers assembling artillery shells at a Vickers munitions factory, during the first world war. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORB. Female construction workers push wheelbarrows loaded with earth, in Coventry, during the first world war. Photograph: Central Press/Getty Images. Female workers at an engineering factory, in 1917, during the first world war. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis. (via The Guardian)

Manejando sierras circulares en la Royal Gun Factory. Arsenal de Woolwich, Londres, Mayo 1918. En 1921, se publicaba el censo de la población de Inglaterra y Gales: - 18.082.220 hombres - 19.803.022 mujeres Es decir, aproximadamente 1.700.000 mujeres solteras. Con 750.000 soldados británicos muertos, en la década de 1920 comienza a hablarse de "las mujeres del excedente". Este es el tema principal que desempolva Virginia Nicholson en su libro "Singled Out. How Two Million Women Survived without Men after the First World War", en castellano "Ellas solas (un mundo sin hombres tras la Gran Guerra)", Turner, 2008 y traducción de Rocío Westendorp. Singled Out tells the story of a generation of women, brought up in the unquestioning belief that marriage was their birthright, who discovered after the 1914-18 war that there were, quite simply, not enough men to go round. In the 1920s they were known as the 'Surplus Women’ (de la página web de Virginia Nicholson) “¿Cuál era el sentido de ganar la guerra (...) si ninguno de los hombres que la ganaran iba a vivir? Los periódicos titulaban sin cesar “¿Quién muere si Inglaterra sobrevive?” Pero, después de todo, ¿qué era Inglaterra?”, se preguntaba la novelista Irene Rathbone. A finales del siglo XIX, se esperaba que las mujeres se casaran: era “la máxima aspiración en la vida de una mujer”, para “lo que había nacido”, “el matrimonio era el modo de vida normal.” Las ilusiones iban desde la preparación de la boda y las damas de honor al color del vestido para la "luna de miel". Por otra parte, el mercado laboral no ofrecía posibilidad de emanciparse: “Para ser respetable, una mujer podía convertirse en institutriz o en dama de compañía, pero en nada que tuviese que ver con el comercio”, escribe Virginia Nicholson. Y continúa: “Una hija soltera de clase media viviría en casa cuidando a unos padres (…) hasta que murieran, y (…) si era afortunada, le dejarían lo justo para mantenerse (…) En caso contrario, buscaría entre sus familiares a algún hombre que se sintiera moralmente obligado a mantenerla”. El temor y crítica del mundo masculino a las mujeres solteras aumentó según fueron demostrando su capacidad de ganar dinero: “como consecuencia de una tragedia histórica, dejaron de depender económicamente de los hombres y se vieron obligadas a construir su propia identidad y su futuro bienestar”. Pero fue un proceso difícil y paulatino: “En 1917, la directora del instituto femenino Bournemouth se dirigió a una asamblea de sexto curso (la mayoría guardaba luto por algún miembro de su familia) de la siguiente manera: “Voy a deciros algo terrible. Sólo una de cada diez de vosotras se casará (…) Casi todos los hombres que se podían haber casado con vosotras está muertos. Debéis abriros paso en este mundo lo mejor que podáis”. Rosamund Essex escribiría en sus memorias, sesenta años después: “No habría maridos, ni niños, ni sexo”. "Todos los informes de la época dan por supuesta la escasez de hombres y que las mujeres percibían el terreno de la seducción como un campo de batalla en el que el fracaso significaba la perdición. La prensa hizo su pertinente y malévola aportación, agitando las cifras del censo de 1921" con titulares como ”El problema de la mujer del excedente: dos millones que nunca serán esposas”; incluso sugirió que las mujeres “sobrantes” debían ser enviadas a las colonias. Florence Underwood (de la Liga de las Mujeres Libres), escribía al Daily Chronicle: “Decir que una mujer sobra, simplemente porque no se ha casado, es una impertinencia”. Incluso una destrozada Vera Brittain se vio en este equívoco tratando de conocer más detalles sobre la muerte de su hermano a través del que había sido su coronel: en el hospital, “rondaba a los pies de su cama” y aprovechaba cada oportunidad para hablar con él, pero se mostraba “engreído, frío y distante. Parecía creer que la pretensión de cada mujer que conocía era casarse con él”. Proliferaban anuncios interesándose por caballeros mutilados de guerra, etc.: “cualquier marido era mejor que ninguno”. Unos dos millones de mujeres habían sustituido a los hombres en las fábricas, como mecánicas, conductoras de autobús... Pero había un consenso generalizado sobre la devolución de esos trabajos a los hombres cuando volvieran de la guerra: "Las mujeres que protagonizan este libro aprendieron a no ser dependientes de sus maridos (…) entendieron esto como una necesidad vital, y al hacerlo muchas de ellas se reinventaron valientemente.” Cartel de 1917. Howard C. Christy (1873-1952). Biblioteca del Congreso. La Armada de los Estados Unidos comenzó a solicitar mujeres para determinados servicios durante Gran Guerra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeoman_(F) Muchas aunaron fuerzas, y comenzaron a vivir en parejas de amigas, por economía pero también buscando apoyo; se asociaron para defender sus intereses, por ejemplo en el tema de las pensiones. Y en los años 20 iniciaron un cambio de imagen: melenas más cortas, moda de aires masculinos… Pero no sería sólo estético. Años 20: charleston en un escenario londinense Se había concedido el voto a las terratenientes mayores de treinta años en 1918; pero la mayoría de los hombres “consideraba que reconocer el derecho al voto para las mujeres era algo antinatural”. Habrían de pasar unos cuantos años más. En el último capítulo, que titula "El espléndido ejército de las mujeres", Virginia Nicholson cita unas palabras de Doris Lessing recordando "con ira" el desastre que fue la Primera Guerra Mundial en su autobiografía ("Bajo mi piel", 1994): Vidas sin vivir. Niños sin nacer. Con qué perfección hemos olvidado el daño que hizo la guerra a Europa. Pero aún vivimos con él. Quizá si "la flor de Europa" (como se los llamaba) no hubiera muerto, y aquellos hijos y nietos hubieran nacido, no estaríamos viviendo ahora en el continente tal mediocridad, desorden e incompetencia. For many of the ‘Surplus Two Million’, being denied marriage was a liberation and a launching pad. If they had not refused to be marginalised, women might still lack the professional, political and social status that they have today. Instead, in the twenty-first century, women feel empowered by history to expect the equality, respect and rights accorded to them by law and justice. Through sheer force of numbers, they steered women’s concerns to the top of the agenda, and there they have remained (de la página web de Virginia Nicholson). Cronológicamente, han pasado 100 años. Es un gran trabajo sobre nosotras, las mujeres; cómo, paradójicamente, la tragedia de una guerra mundial abrió el significado de nuestras vidas; sobre reinventarse; sobre las leyes que regulan derechos. El reconocimiento de nuestra igualdad como personas que respiramos no brota de las fuentes ni de los árboles espontáneamente, ni han sido regalos de Navidad: son luchas muy concretas de personas muy concretas, ha habido que luchar por ellos, que pelear, que estar ahí, a precios muy altos la mayoría de las veces. Para recordar que no es fácil, que nunca es fácil. Enlaces -Entrevista con Virginia Nicholson (nieta de Vanessa Bell, la hermana de Virginia Wolf): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-1024405/INTERVIEW-Meet-Virginia-Nicholson-author-Junes-book-Singled-Out.html -Página de Virginia Nicholson: http://www.virginianicholson.co.uk/singled-out

Belinda Davis: World War I plunged millions of women across the globe into “men’s jobs” even as they kept home and hearth. The legacy continues into today.

As Britain marks 100 years since it entered the First World War, we celebrate the women that helped the war effort from 1914-1918 – By

She died in terrible agony. She died in terrible pain. They said that they reckoned that black powder, it burnt the back of her throat away.As the First World War intensified, each belligerent nation found that more and more armaments were needed for its fighting forces. On the home fronts, workers were recruited for the growing number of munitions factories. Lily Smith, from Derbyshire, explained why she took a job in one.