The women who make the guns: the munitionettes in Glasgow and Paris and their lack of interaction with the far-left agitators

ABSTRACT

This article examines the relationship between women munitions workers, the ‘munitionettes,’ in WWI-era Glasgow and Paris and the radical anti-government labor unions. These two cities were the centers of industrial production in Britain and France during the war, and each contained radical, male-dominated labor unions that frequently challenged state authority. In hindsight, the munitionettes were ideal candidates for these radical unions, as they were underpaid and increasingly militant. Despite this, these unions undermined the munitionettes’ work and opposed their movements for better wages and working conditions. This article explores how male-dominated WWI-era labor radicalism failed to incorporate women in the workplace due to gendered notions of work, patriotism and identity. It demonstrates how women developed their own working-class identity, militancy and unions, as they became the most effective strikers during WWI, despite their rejection by the radical labor unions.

KEYWORDS:

• Labor
• women
• gender
• historiography
• war
• transnationalism
• intersectionality

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Dr. Sarah Fishman and Mrs. Tara Sewell-Lasater.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Most women in Britain joined the General Workers’ Union or the National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW), see Woollacott 1988, p. 339. At Parkhead, David Kirkwood’s factory, 100% were organized in the NFWW, Hinton 1973, 130. Most of the incoming workers in Paris joined the general labor union, the CGT, in France. See Downs, 1993, p. 117.

2. The 1919 argument over Scottish nationalism pre-dated the first Scottish independence party by nine years and would serve as an important moment in the debate over national or international socialist revolution.

3. In 1914 in Britain only 5,966,000 women were working out of a total of 23,721,000, or just over 25%. In Paris before mass female mobilization, working-age women’s unemployment hit 21% after thousands of domestic servants lost their jobs due to the onset of war.

4. Skilled workers viewed the mechanized reorganization of factory work, modeled on Taylorism and Fordism in America, as a concerted effort by the factory owners to end the craft of metalworking and replace it with unskilled assembly-line work. Hinton 1973, pp. 56–57.

5. In France this amounted to “half of all economically active males” at the outset. Downs 1995, p. 48. Britain didn’t pass conscription until 1916, so the British Army consisted of 733,514 out of 22,485,501 men. Another 4,970,902 would join them over the course of the war. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of Economics and History (1921). Economic and Social History of the World War: British series, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 106.

6. For a breakdown of former occupations of French munitions workers, see Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1918, p. 120.

7. Brotherstone, 1992, p. 64.

8. Fyfe 1918, p.118.

9. Defense of the Realm Act 1914. As evidence of this when the C.W.C. had their first wartime strikes in 1915 they did so under the leadership of a ‘Labor Withholding Committee,’ fearing that calling their actions a ‘strike’ would result in their arrest under D.O.R.A. Unger 1979, pp. 377–8.

10. Parliament of Great Britain, Defense of the Realm Manual, August 31^st, 1918.

11. Although some desperate women could be found working 24 to 36 hours a week.

12. STUC Report 1913, pp. 42–43).

13. STUC Report 1917, p. 35). Though wages varied according to profession. STUC Report (1920).

14. Comics regularly depicted soldiers’ wives losing their homes to well-dressed factors. While this idea was used often in propaganda (see Forward, December 5, 1915) as soon as a real case was found it was used to spur the mass anger of Glaswegian workers. Forward, June 12, 1915.

15. During the 1913–1950 period inflation per year in France averaged 13% per year, as compared to Britain which experienced a mere 3% inflation per year. Piketty (2014, p. 107).

16. Paris Municipal Police Note, June 4th, 1917, AN, F7 13366.

17. Glasgow Trades Council Annual Report 1917, 42.

18. As noted previously in this paper, most women in Britain joined the General Workers’ Union or the National Federation of Women Workers. At Parkhead, David Kirkwood’s factory, 100% were organized in the NFWW .

19. Millerand’s coalition government was composed of the Fédération républicaine, Indépendants and Conservateurs, Parti Républicain Démocratique, and the Radicaux Indépendants. For the election results, see “Élections Législatives 1919.” Retrieved from the France Politique website http://www.france-politique.fr/elections-legislatives-1919.htm.

20. Translated from ‘propagande anticonceptionnelle.’ Loi Nº 1377 du 31 juillet. Réprimant la Provocation à l’Avortement et à la Propagande Anticonceptionnelle.

21. The recorded figure of 100,000 may be an over-estimate, as it was reported by the CWC’s ongoing strike bulletin. However, regardless of the exact number, this was easily one of, if not the biggest workers’ movement in Glasgow and Scotland’s history at the time. Strike Bulletin, 30 January 1919. Manifesto of the Joint Strike Committee, Glasgow. Glasgow: Socialist Labour Press, 1919.

22. La Croix, 1 May 1920.

23. L’Humanité 5 May 1920 and L’Humanité 1 May 1920.

24. L’Humanité, 22 May 1920.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gary Girod

Gary Girod is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Houston completing a dissertation tentatively titled ‘The Rise of the Information State: Domestic Surveillance in France and Britain during World War I.’ He is the founder and host of the French History Podcast, an interdisciplinary public history project that connects scholars of all backgrounds.