American women in World War I

[1][2] Additionally, women made an impact on the war indirectly by filling the workforce, becoming employed in the jobs left behind by male soldiers.

They served stateside in jobs and received the same benefits and responsibilities as men, including identical pay (US$28.75 per month), and were treated as veterans after the war.

Wartime newspapers erroneously reported that twin sisters Genevieve and Lucille Baker were the first women to serve in the Coast Guard.

Applicants for the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit had to be bilingual in English and French to ensure that orders would be heard by anyone.

Not until 1978, the 60th anniversary of the end of World War I, did Congress approve veteran status and honorable discharges for the surviving women who had served in the Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit.

The high demand for weapons and the overall wartime situation resulted in munitions factories collectively becoming the largest employer of American women by 1918.

As a result, women not only began working in heavy industry, but also took other jobs traditionally reserved solely for men, such as railway guards, ticket collectors, bus and tram conductors, postal workers, police officers, firefighters, and clerks.

[17] World War I saw women taking traditionally men's jobs in large numbers for the first time in American history.

[23] The Committee appropriated projects to voluntary organizations such as the Red Cross, Women's Temperance Union and others, in order to drum up support for the war and mobilize the female half of the population amidst rising manpower concerns.

One argument commonly made was that the United States should not have been intervening abroad, when they were still not providing equal rights and assurances to its own citizens, including still not allowing women to vote.