How Did World War One Change In American Society

World War I brought great change to American society. It brought new stressors on societal norms, conventions, and expectations for the roles and responsibilities of women in all branches of the American public. In the later years of the 1800s and the beginning of the new century, women began to take on new roles outside the home and to step out of traditional norms of society’s expectations. One place that women stepped into new roles was as members of the Army Nurse Corps, a group of professional female nurses established in 1917 in service to wounded soldiers. There was an increasing prominence of nursing as a woman’s occupation, needed for the War effort. The women who served were pioneers and paved the way for the women who serve proudly today although they had to face many obstacles …show more content…
But because women were paid less than men, there was a worry that employers would have to continue to employ women in these jobs even when the men returned from the war. Thus, women were wither discharged to make way for the returning soldiers or women remained working alongside men but at lower wage rates. But even before the end of the war, many women refused to accept lower pay for what in most cases was the same work as had been done previously by men. Following numerous strikes, women endorsed the principle of “equal pay for equal work”. But their expectation was that due to their “lesser strength and special health problems”, women's productivity would not match to that of men. Despite evidence that women had taken on what were considered men's jobs and performed them effectively during the war, this did not shift popular (and government) perception that women would be less productive than men. It was made clear that these changes were for the duration of the war only and would be reversed when the war ended and the soldiers came