World War I and Women's Work
With thousands of men fighting abroad during WWI, women stepped into their vacated roles; several as factory, farm, and railway workers. Many others served overseas as nurses, cable operators, ambulance drivers, and translators.
WWI Posters Donated by Muriel Sibell Wolle, chair of CU's Fine Arts Department from 1928-1947
Posters such as these promoted women's involvement in the cause. War redefined "women's work" and prompted a re-examination of liberty and democracy, ideals for which America fought. President Wilson acknowledged this shift in a September 1918 address to Congress: "We have made partners of the women in this war… Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” Once an opponent of national woman's suffrage, he now called for its passage as "vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged." While he was unable to gather enough votes for a constitutional amendment, Wilson continued to speak in its favor.
Alice F. Milne Nursing Collection / MS 340 Donated by Heather and Karen Southwick
Alice Milne (b. 1890) was a practicing nurse in Scotland, England, Canada, and the United States from 1912-1924. During World War I, she served in the British Army’s Territorial Force Nursing Service, assigned to a hospital in Scotland. In her notebooks, Milne collected quotes and sketches from her acquaintances, in this case wounded soldiers. The number and nature of entries suggest she was held in high regard. In the illustration at left, Alice is referred to as "Our V.A.D", or voluntary aid detachment.
Alice Milne was the mother-in-law of Professor Charles Southwick (1928-2015), who joined CU’s Environmental, Pollution, and Organismic (EPO) Biology Department in 1979.
