How WWI Furthered the Feminist Movement

By Hannah Strader

Beneath the gargantuan, looming Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, Carol Bobek from Arkansas wandered the halls of the National World War I Museum. Her knowledge of the war was limited, and she was eager to learn. In a glass room, she sat down in one of four interactive reflection booths and listened to a small library of classic literature and songs with deep connections to the war. One of those pieces of literature was Vera Brittain’s “A Testament of Youth”, a memoir reflecting on Brittain’s experience as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, working in both London and France.

“[The passage] talked about her pre-war efforts with women’s issues and suffragettes,” Bobek said. “It sounds like what happened with women in World War I just caused [the women’s movement] to be expanded and built upon and more important.”

Bobek, in town for a church convention, said she wanted to expand her knowledge on the war. She was surprised to find so much information on suffragettes and the women’s movement as it progressed during this time.

“I wasn’t aware of the level of involvement in World War I. It appears that they took advantage of the pre-war skills women had developed with nursing or telephone operators. They took those skills and incorporated them in the war,” Bobek said.

According to displays at the museum, over 25,000 women volunteered to serve in the war overseas as doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, relief workers, secretaries, telephone operators and more. The U.S. Signal Corps operators, referred to as “Hello Girls” worked so closely to the front lines that they slung gas masks and helmets on their chairs for emergencies.

“The girls had to speak both French and English and they also had to understand American doughboy French. The night before St. Mihiel drive opened … I was awakened about 1:30 a.m. by the low roar of guns. Within a half hour I was back in the office,” Grace Banker Paddock once said of her time working with the Signal Corps in 1918.

Other women involved themselves more directly by tending to the wounded or serving as ambulance drivers, often using their own cars in the efforts. The situation was stressful and dire, despite whatever capacity the women were working in.

“I just had given this poor boy anesthesia when a bomb hit. We were supposed to hit the floor, but he was out and didn’t know what was going on. I took a tray and put it over our heads. It wasn’t because I was brave, I was just scared,” Medical Corps anesthetist Sophie Gran is quoted as saying in a museum display featuring female doctors and nurses.

On the home front, however, things were vastly different. Suffragists picketed the White House to criticize Wilson’s need to “fight for democracy” during an era that actively prevented women from voting. These women, along with other dissenters or draft evaders, were sent to prison. There, they would be force-fed by prison personnel during their attempts to enforce a hunger strike.

“It’s rather interesting for me to observe so many similarities in our culture right now to the pre WWI period,” Bobek said. “With the differences in economic levels … and the activism that is happening right now in our political situation, … with the number of women candidates who are running for office this year and the next election coming up, I think the parallels are interesting. Just like I’m learning about it today, I’m sure there are opportunities for other people to learn also.”

As our political climate continues to challenge women’s roles in society, perhaps it is time to reflect on that age old adage: “Those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it.”