1. Cory Ihnotic
Period 4
2-1-12

2. Prompt
Analyze and assess the extent to which the First World War accelerated European social change in such areas as work, sex roles, and government involvement in everyday life.

3. The First World War

4. The Impacts on Work
In order to have a chance at winning the war, generals and politicians noticed that pure patriotism would not be enough.
This led to the outrageous need for men and for military weapons.
The Auxiliary Service Law
Men who didn’t get drafted into the war were still required, between the age of seventeen and sixty, to work at a job that was crucial to the war effort.
This law applied to just about everyone else as well. Aged men, women, and children had to work in war factories, mines, and steel mills, mainly focusing on things that would only help the war.
Now as all of the men were being recruited into army, many job opportunities were opening up and now everyone who could now had the ability to work.
This differed from the early ways of overpopulation and poverty due to unemployment.

5. Labor Unions
A change brought about by the availability of jobs was greater power and prestige for labor unions.
They cooperated with war government on work rules, wages, and production schedules in return for real participation in important decisions.
This entry of labor leaders and unions into policymaking councils paralleled the entry of socialist leaders into the war governments.
The war also promoted greater social equality, making the gap between the rich and the poor smaller and smaller.
This was most apparent in Great Britain.
The bottom third of the class lived better than ever before due to the shortage in labor.
This also caused an increase to the economy of the local stores because people were now able to afford more with their new jobs and wages.
In continental countries, greater equality was reflected in full employment, rationing according to physical needs, and a sharing of hardships.
This caused the society to become more uniform and more egalitarian (more equal as a whole).

6. Sex Roles During the War
The need for men during the war was great as millions left theirs homes to serve for their country.
This gave the women of the community a large chance to improve their social status in every day life.
Because of all of the job openings, women were able to work in jobs like bank tellers, mail carriers, and even police officers.
Nearly 43 percent of the labor force in Russia was made up of women.
Women also showed a growing spirit of independence during the war.
They showed this independence by subtle matters such as bobbing their hair, shortening their skirts, and even by smoking in public.
By the end of the war, Britain, Germany, and Austria granted women the right to vote.
The aristocrats of labor (skilled workers and foremen) were often spared from war in order to train the newly recruited women and older unskilled men.

8. The Involvement of the Government
In each country, a government of national unity began to plan and control economic and social life in order to wage total war.
Free market and capitalism was abandoned. Instead, government planning boards established priorities and decided what was to be produced and consumed.
Rationing, price and wage controls and even restrictions on workers freedom of movement were imposed by the government.
This made the war a war of whole peoples and entire populations meaning that everyone was involved with it to help their nation win.
By having the government manage and control this highly complicated government, socialism was strengthened as it became the first realistic economic blueprint rather than a utopian program
There were national variations but similar movements toward planned economies commanded by the established political leadership.

9. Walter Rathenau
A talented, foresighted Jewish industrialist in charge of Germany’s largest electric company.
He convinced the government to set up the War Raw Materials Board in order to ration and distribute raw materials.
From this, every useful material from foreign oil to barnyard manure was inventoried and rationed.
The board launched successful attempts to produce substitutes such as synthetic rubber and synthetic nitrates, both needed to make explosives and essential to the blockaded German war machine.
An aggressive recycle campaign greatly helped these efforts portrayed by the War Raw Materials Board.

10. Relations to Each Other
War
Government taking control of economy and social life.
Millions of soldiers drafted for war
Job openings
Total war
War Raw Materials Board
Free market and capitalism was abandoned
Women earn more rights in work
Labor unions took advantage of situation
Women earn rights to vote

11. Thank you