Munitionettes

Munitionettes were British women employed in munitions factories during the time of the first World War. The women had the opportunity to work in the factories because the men were at war. Roughly 80% of the weaponry and ammunition used by the British army during World War I was made by the munitionettes. Munitionettes worked with hazardous chemicals on a daily basis without proper gear to protect them. Many women worked with trinitrotoluene (TNT), and prolonged exposure to the sulfur turned the women's skin a yellow colour. The women whose skin was turned yellow were popularly called canary girls. Working with such chemicals is dangerous and on several occasions the explosives the women were working with ignited—killing the workers. Prolonged exposure to the chemicals also caused serious health risk for the munitionettes. Exposure over a long period of time to chemicals such as TNT can cause severe harm to the immune system. People exposed to TNT can experience liver failure, anemia, spleen enlargement and TNT can even affect women’s fertility. One of the most well known explosions in a munition factory was the Silvertown explosion. The explosion killed 73 people and injured over 400.

References

Cook, Bernard. Women and War: a Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present,Volume1:ABC-CLIO,2006. Print.

External links

• http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/womenww1_four.htm

Further reading

• Airth-Kindree, Anne Victoria Margaret (1987). Munitionettes: British women in munitions during the First World War. http://books.google.de/books?id=B-apNwAACAAJ. 
• Ferguson, Dr Harvie; Ouditt, Sharon (2004-03-01). "Working in the Munition Factories". Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War. ISBN 9780203359167. http://books.google.de/books?id=9MvzEaIFpBUC&pg=PA70. 
• Storey, Neil; Housego, Molly (2010-04-20). "Munitionettes and the Women War Workers". Women in the First World War. ISBN 9780747807520. http://books.google.de/books?id=TyXm0ydedlMC&pg=PA31. 
• Woollacott, Angela (1994-05-20). On her their lives depend: munitions workers in the Great War. ISBN 9780520085022. http://books.google.com/?id=7AjaXYiBMb0C. 
• Smith, Angela (2008). "€�The girl behind the man behind the gun’: women as carers in recruitment posters of the First World War". Journal of War and Culture Studies 1: 223. doi:10.1386/jwcs.1.3.223_1.