Maternalism, professionalism and industrial welfare supervisors in World War I Britain

During World War I industrial welfare work was firmly established as an occupation, especially in munitions factories under the Ministry of Munitions. This article explores the significance of the fact that the majority of the welfare supervisors employed during the war were women. Welfare supervisors are one example of the ways in which middle-class women grasped career opportunities offered by the war. Much of their work epitomized contemporary concepts of ‘womanly' duties and was designed to protect women workers as mothers of the race. Women welfare supervisors were caught between the proto-welfare state's espousal of the ideology of maternalism, and their aspirations to professionalism. To claim the status of professionals meant, not only proving their abilities, but also conforming to masculine norms of efficiency, rationality, expertise, organisation and status. By the end of the war, women welfare supervisors who sought to stay in the field had built a strong central organisation which proclaimed industrial welfare work as a professional part of management. Women's entry into the managerial level through welfare work, consolidated after the war, challenged the patriarchal hierarchy and traditions of business and industry. Thus women welfare supervisors juggled the feminine and masculine definitions of their work, but increasingly stressed its masculine managerial dimensions to claim management status

Christian ministry · Hierarchy · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Rationality · Sociology · Welfare · Australian History and Society · Engineering · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Psychology · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact

• Tying White Ribbons Around the World

  Cynthia Belaskie•Women a Cultural Review•2012

  Incluir item

• The fragmentary subject

  Open Access•A Woollacott•Women s Studies International Forum•1998

  Incluir item

• Industrial Homes, Domestic Factories

  Open Access•Vicky Long•Journal of British Studies•2011

  Incluir item

• Sexuality and citizenship

  Penny Tinkler•Women s History Review•1995

  Incluir item

• Am I That Name? Feminism and the Category of ‘Women’ in History

  Denise Riley•Feminisms•1998

  Incluir item

• The Politics of Motherhood

  Jane Lewis•The Politics of Motherhood•1980

  Incluir item

• English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980

  Janet Oppenheim Minihan, Martin J Wiener et al.•The American Historical Review•1982

  Incluir item

• We That Were Young

  Bonnie Kime Scott, Irene Rathbone et al.•Tulsa Studies in Women s Literature•1990

  Incluir item

• Employers and social policy in Britain

  Roy Hay•Social History•1977

  Incluir item

• Gendered Domains

  Linda Steiner, Dorothy O Helly et al.•Journal of American History•1994

  Incluir item

• The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain

  Nancy Seear, Allan Flanders et al.•Economica•1955

  Incluir item

• Employers' Welfare Schemes and Industrial Relations in Inter-War Britain

  Helen Jones•Business History•1983

  Incluir item

• Employers' Labour Strategies, Industrial Welfare, and the Response to New Unionism at Bryant and May, 1888–1930

  Robert Fitzgerald•Business History•1989

  Incluir item

• Welfare Work in Industry

  Harriet L Herring, Harriet Herring et al.•Social Forces•1926

  Incluir item