Cogs in the Machinery of War

Dr Vivien Newman makes a very welcome return to the Wessex WFA branch with her new talk "Cogs in the Machinery of War" which explores the vital, often overlooked roles that women played in the munitions factories and supply chains of wartime Britain.  

In the context of the munition crisis, the need for expansion driven heavily by female labour was a key component of what became a very efficient military-industrial complex. In highly dangerous conditions the hundreds of thousands of ‘Canary Girls’ gave up their pre-war identities, and as this talk highlights, how everyday women became the indispensable backbone of the industrialised home front.