Bringing the Homefront to the Trenches: North Carolina’s Women Challenge Discrimination, Effect Change, and Cope with War Realities

Societal attitudes have always relegated women to the domestic arena but many women believed they had a moral and patriotic responsibility to do what they could to help the nation during both World War I.  If women were aware of the challenges they would face in the hospitals, Red Cross and YMCA huts, driving ambulances, serving food, reading/writing letters for soldiers, providing entertainment, industry, and the military they did not show it as they enlisted, volunteered, and trained for service abroad.  In addition to the problems they would face helping the military wounded and refugees they also had to confront the overarching sexism that permeated American culture.  Women on the warfront faced outright obstacles as well as covert sexism; for example, one of the pressing issues in wartime was the availability of enough medical personnel in hospitals at home and abroad, yet the military, Red Cross, and YMCA units would not permit female doctors to work as physicians but rather as nurses.  According to Kimberly Jensen, in her work Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War, female physicians faced considerable discrimination even during this time of crisis.  She points out that federal regulations, military codes, and societal expectations hindered the progress of women in wartime.   The U.S. Army Medical Department refused to give women physicians the same recognition and authority that male doctors enjoyed.    Through the use of oral interviews, archival records, newspapers, and secondary sources, this paper examines the challenges women faced during World War I as they tried to respond to the nation’s call for patriotic service only to be met with negative attitudes from supervisors, co-workers, family, and society at-large.