They delivered medical supplies, transported patients to hospitals and drove through artillery fire to retrieve the wounded. Many women who knew how to drive volunteered to go overseas to serve as ambulance and truck drivers or mechanics. The automobile age was just getting underway in WWI, and motorized ambulances became key to medical treatment on the battlefield. She went on to become the first president of California Association of Nurse Anesthetists in 1931. in France and the only woman anesthetist with Mobile Hospital Unit #1. Gran was one of the first woman anesthetists with the A.E.F. I was just scared.” - Medical Corps anesthetist Sophie Gran. We were supposed to hit the floor, but he was out and didn’t know what was going on. “I had just given this poor boy anesthesia when a bomb hit. Most of all, women were expected to bolster the morale of their families at home and loved ones overseas.Ī nurse assisting doctor with an operation. was asked to sign a pledge card stating that she would “carry out the directions and advice of the Food Administrator in the conduct of my household, in so far as my circumstances permit.” This meant canning food for future use, growing vegetables in the backyard and limiting consumption of meat, wheat and fats. They went into every kind of factory devoted to the production of war materials, from the most dangerous posts in munition plants to the delicate sewing in aeroplane factories.” - Alice Dunbar Nelson, American Poet and Civil Rights Activist, on African American women’s efforts during the war, 1918īut even women in more traditional roles contributed to the war effort. “The women worked as ammunition testers, switchboard operators, stock takers. Recent research also shows that a limited number of African American women served overseas as volunteers with the YMCA. A French woman working as an airplane mechanic.Īs women took traditional male jobs in the United States, African American women were able to make their first major shift from domestic employment to work in offices and factories.

The home and the world summary