We Enjoyed the War

Scribner's, 1934

Girls older than myself were breaking away from home in the most alluringly novel manner, joining organizations called the Woman's Volunteer Reserve which had its own uniform, training as nurses, getting curiously well-paid government jobs. It was not merely that in having stayed home they were allowed to take jobs, but that having work of this kind made them feel very important, patriotic and highly meritorious. (280)

Iris Barry

1916

There's a girl who clips your ticket for the train,

And the girl who speeds the lift from floor to floor,

There's the girl who does a milk round in the rain,

And the girl who calls for orders at your door. ...

There's the motor girl who drives a heavy van,

There's the butcher girl who brings your joint of meat,

There's the girl who cries "All fares, please! like a man,

And the girl who whistles taxis up the street.

Jessie Pope

The Maryland Suffrage New, 1918

Even before the war we were beginning to suspect the footlessness of the old idea that Divine Providence had marked out women from the beginning for not more than two or three occupations. The war has come in time to save us endless agonies of doubt and discussion as to whether women have strength enough, or brains enough, for the four hundred and fifty seven callings which war has added to those already available to women.

Mary Austin