A woman munitions worker carrying a shell apparently drops another one on the foot of a frightened man who clearly does not realize, as she does, that they are not in danger. No doubt his foot hurt.
La Femme et la Guerre.Leroy - Aux munitions.Women and the WarTo the munitions.Signed: FFLeroy?Reverse:No. 139 - P, J. Gallais et Cie, éditeurs, 38, Rue Vignon.Paris, Visé no. 139.No. 139 - P, J. Gallais and Company, publishers, 38 Rue Vignon.
"On April 2, an accidental explosion at a munitions factory at Faversham in Kent killed 106 munitions workers, many of them women. By April 1916 almost 200,000 women were being employed in war industries."
As the need for men at the front continued to grow, women filled positions formerly held only by men. The Virago Book of Women and the Great War includes contemporary newspaper accounts that marvel at women working as messengers, currency runners for banks, streetlamp lighters, transport workers, handy women, the stage manager, scene-shifters, and limelight workers for a new play, bridge builders, welders, and workers in munitions and ironwork factories. The work could be dangerous. In the United Kingdom, 41 women died of T.N.T. poisoning in six months of 1916, those under 18 being particularly susceptible.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 238, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
1916-04-02, 1916, April, women, women workers, munitions worker
