Retro Blast (and a Future Hint): Doing Their Bit

Life has been very busy these last few weeks for me on several fronts...one of them being related to this post, originally made in 2014. I’ll be telling you more about it soon; accept this as a touch of foreshadowing (mwahaha!)

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Writing a story set in 1917 has been a fascinating experience for me. It’s not a time I knew a great deal about, so there’s definitely been a learning curve...but I’ve been having tons of fun with it (as you might have noticed!)

One thing that has struck me as I do my research to write this story is how much World War I was truly the first BIG media-covered war (though the Spanish-American War in 1898 was in many ways a rehearsal for it). By 1917 the cinema had become an important part of people’s everyday lives; in the newsreels shown in theatres, moving picture footage of actual battlegrounds and armies could be seen. Also, photography was now more easily reproducible in newspapers and magazine, and both of these served to bring the war “home” in ways that just hadn’t been possible before. And let’s face it, war is big news. It sells a lot of newspapers and magazines, so there was plenty of coverage of it in popular media.

That coverage extended to media intended for a female audience. World War I was probably the first war that called strongly on all American citizens, male and female, to help in whatever way possible. For men, it was enlisting, obviously. But women, too, were encouraged—heck, exhorted, as in the editorial above from the June 1917 issue of Ladies' Home Journal—to “do their bit.” The countries at war with the Kaiser not only needed soldiers, but support personnel, war materiél, and food to feed their civilian populations. Belgium in particular was experiencing famine conditions as no one could grow food when large swathes of the country formed the battlegrounds of the war, and cross-Atlantic trade had been severely hampered by German u-boat activity.

So in a very real sense, women did have to “do their bit” for the war effort. Since they were the homemakers, they were the ones in charge of purchasing and preparing food...and they were the ones who could cut down on the use of wheat, beef, and other food that could be shipped overseas to feed troops and hungry European civilians, and learn to make do with other food sources.

But food wasn’t the only place women helped. Since so many young men were being shipped overseas to fight, young women began to replace them on farms and in factories. And let’s not forget medical personnel and other support people, from clerks and secretaries in Washington to ambulance drivers on the western front.

Girls and World War I, Part 2: Knit Your Bit

When the United States entered the war in April 1917, the government put out the call. Uncle Sam wanted young men to enlist...and he wanted everyone else to knit. The armed forces needed sweaters, vests, mittens, wristlets, caps, helmets, scarves, and above all, socks.

Much of the war was fought from trenches, where conditions were muddy and wet and in winter, muddy and icy. Army boots were made of thick cowhide which was supposed to be water repellent; unfortunately, their uppers had a tendency to come unstitched from the soles. Furthermore, their iron heels and rows of hobnails to provide traction in all that mud conducted cold directly to the feet. To protect their feet, soldiers wore boots two sizes too large and two pairs of thick woolen socks, and changed their socks as frequently as possible in order to avoid "trench foot", a highly unpleasant fungal infection. Take into consideration that the goal was to send at least million Americans across to fight, and you get an idea of the numbers of socks needed.

In the summer of 1917, the government asked America’s knitters for one and a half million pairs of socks for "our boys", as well as an equal number of sweaters, mufflers, and wristlets (rather like mittens that left the fingers free; it's hard to pull a trigger with covered fingers.) America’s knitters heeded the call. The American Red Cross undertook organizing the distribution of yarn and patterns to volunteers and the collection and shipping to Europe of finished items. Women's magazines also published Red Cross-approved patterns, like this helmet from the August 1917 edition of Women's World.

Women (and men) who didn’t know how to knit were taught. It became socially acceptable to knit everywhere: at work, at school, on the bus, at social events, in theatres, and even in church. As college campuses emptied of young men, the young women left behind knit for them; professors were exhorted to allow knitting during lectures. The Junior Red Cross set up knitting programs across America to teach schoolchildren to knit, and those who didn't learn were encouraged to "Do mother's work so she can knit" and "Be careful of  my clothes so that mother will not have to patch, but can knit." Those who, for whatever reason, didn’t take up knitting, were encouraged to buy yarn for those who could but could not afford materials.

That yarn was, of course, gray or khaki colored; it became socially unacceptable to be seen knitting anything in any other color. As an article in the University of Washington Daily stated, “When news comes that American soldiers have died merely from exposure in walking the icy decks on their watches, every stitch on a pink sweater will seem selfish.”

Girls and World War I, Part 1: Doing Their Bit

Writing a story set in 1917 has been a fascinating experience for me. It’s not a time I knew a great deal about, so there’s definitely been a learning curve...but I’ve been having tons of fun with it (as you might have noticed!)

One thing that has struck me as I do my research to write this story is how much World War I was truly the first BIG media-covered war (though the Spanish-American War in 1898 was in many ways a rehearsal for it). By 1917 the cinema had become an important part of people’s everyday lives; in the newsreels shown in theatres, moving picture footage of actual battlegrounds and armies could be seen. Also, photography was now more easily reproducible in newspapers and magazine, and both of these served to bring the war “home” in ways that just hadn’t been possible before. And let’s face it, war is big news. It sells a lot of newspapers and magazines, so there was plenty of coverage of it in popular media.

That coverage extended to media intended for a female audience. World War I was probably the first war that called strongly on all American citizens, male and female, to help in whatever way possible. For men, it was enlisting, obviously. But women, too, were encouraged—heck, exhorted, as in the editorial above from the June 1917 issue of Ladies' Home Journal—to “do their bit.” The countries at war with the Kaiser not only needed soldiers, but support personnel, war materiél, and food to feed their civilian populations. Belgium in particular was experiencing famine conditions as no one could grow food when large swathes of the country formed the battlegrounds of the war, and cross-Atlantic trade had been severely hampered by German u-boat activity.

So in a very real sense, women did have to “do their bit” for the war effort. Since they were the homemakers, they were the ones in charge of purchasing and preparing food...and they were the ones who could cut down on the use of wheat, beef, and other food that could be shipped overseas to feed troops and hungry European civilians, and learn to make do with other food sources.

But food wasn’t the only place women helped. Since so many young men were being shipped overseas to fight, young women began to replace them on farms and in factories. And let’s not forget medical personnel and other support people, from clerks and secretaries in Washington to ambulance drivers on the western front. Over the next few weeks I’ll talk a little more about how young women “went to war” in World War I.