12 Facts About British Women During the First World War

The First World War brought many changes in the lives of British women. It is often represented as having had a wholly positive impact, opening up new opportunities in the world of work and strengthening their case for the right to vote. Here are 12 facts about women during the First World War which help to illustrate the ways in which women’s lives changed during this period, via Imperial War Museums.

1. Women were already working

Women in paid employment were not a new phenomenon in 1914. They made up a substantial part of the industrial workforce even before the First World War, although they were mainly concentrated in textile manufacture. After 1915, when the need for shells intensified, women were brought into munitions manufacturing in large numbers. By 1918 almost a million women were employed in some aspect of munitions work.

2. Women on the beat

The first women police officers served during the First World War. One of the main responsibilities of the Women’s Patrols - as they were initially known - was to maintain discipline and monitor women’s behaviour around factories or hostels. They also carried out inspections of women to ensure that they did not take anything into the factories which might cause explosions. As is shown here, they also patrolled other public areas such as railway stations, streets, parks and public houses.

3. All aboard the transport industry

One of the areas of employment where new opportunities opened up for women was in transport. Women began working as bus conductresses, ticket collectors, porters, carriage cleaners and bus drivers. During the war the number of women working on the railways rose from 9,000 to 50,000. While new jobs did become available to women during wartime, many of these opportunities were closed to them after the war as servicemen returned to their jobs.

4. The need for childcare increased

For women with children who wanted – or needed – to take on paid work, childcare could be a problem. The pressing need for women to work in munitions did prompt the government to provide some funds towards the cost of day nurseries for munitions workers, and by 1917 there were more than 100 day nurseries across the country. However, there was no provision for women working in any other form of employment and most had to rely on friends and family to help care for their children while they were at work.

5. Women braved dangerous working conditions

Munitions work was relatively well paid - especially for women previously employed in domestic service. But it was often unpleasant, dangerous and involved working long hours. Women in large shell filling factories worked with TNT. This poisonous explosive could cause a potentially fatal condition called toxic jaundice, indicated by the skin turning yellow. There were also several devastating explosions in which women workers were killed. The aftermath of one of the worst, at Chilwell, Nottinghamshire is shown in this photograph.

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The Beatles With Fangirls in Hong Kong, 1964

The Beatles gave two concerts at the Princess Theatre at 130 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, in the Kowloon region of Hong Kong on June 9th, 1964. The support act was The Maori Hi-Five.

The venue held 1,700 seats, although neither concert was a sell-out. Beatlemania had reached Hong Kong, but the promoter’s decision to charge HK $75 – the equivalent to an average week’s wage at the time – meant many of The Beatles’ fans were unable to see them perform.

The Beatles did no sightseeing during their stay in Hong Kong, believing the fans’ attentions may prove too dangerous. The following day they flew from Kai Tak airport to Sydney, Australia.

(Photos via the Beatle Photo Blog)

45 Interesting Vintage Photographs of Bathing Machines From the Victorian Era

The bathing machine was a device, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, to allow people to change out of their usual clothes, possibly change into swimwear and then wade in the ocean at beaches. Bathing machines were roofed and walled wooden carts rolled into the sea. Some had solid wooden walls; others had canvas walls over a wooden frame.

According to some sources, the bathing machine was developed in 1750 in Margate, Kent, though this may relate primarily to the "modesty hood" (bathing costumes were not yet common and most people bathed naked).

Bathing machines were most common in the United Kingdom and parts of the British Empire with a British population, but were also used in France, Germany, the United States, Mexico, and other nations. Legal segregation of bathing areas in Britain ended in 1901, and the bathing machine declined rapidly. By the start of the 1920s bathing machines were almost extinct, even on beaches catering to an older clientele.

The bathing machines remained in active use on English beaches until the 1890s, when they began to be parked on the beach. They were then used as stationary changing rooms for a number of years. Most of them had disappeared in the United Kingdom by 1914.

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50 Amazing Black and White Photographs of the World in the 1920s and 1930s Through Martin Munkacsi's Lens

In his day, the Hungarian Martin Munkacsi (1896–1963) was one of the most famous photographers in the world. His dynamic photographs of sports, entertainers, politics, and street life in Germany and Hungary from the late 1920s and 1930s, were taken in a new, freewheeling style that captured the speed and movement of the modern era. Many of those early photographs were published in German photo weeklies, where Munkacsi made his reputation doing reportage, often from exotic locales.

In 1933, Munkacsi turned his energetic style to fashion photography, making images of models running on the beach. Those pictures revolutionized fashion photography with their informality and vitality. Soon after he was offered a contract by Carmel Snow, the editor of Harper's Bazaar, and he left for New York, where he made his fame and fortune.

Eva Szaplone in a rumbleseat, 1932

Fun on the beach—Lunabad, Berlin, 1930

Summer on the beach. A little girl opened the laces of her mother's slippers, 1929

Two women sunbathing, ca. 1929

Lovely autumn: the last warm rays of sunshine, ca. 1929

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15 Animals That Served in the First World War

Over 16 million animals served in the First World War. They were used for transport, communication and companionship. Animals were not only used for work. Dogs, cats, and more unusual animals including monkeys, bears and lions, were kept as pets and mascots to raise morale and provide comfort amidst the hardships of war.

Togo, the cat mascot of the battleship HMS Dreadnought.

The fox cub mascot of No.32 Squadron at Humieres Aerodrome, St Pol, France, 5 May 1918.

Camels carrying wounded men to safety on the North West Frontier of India, 1917.

French Red Cross dogs line up for inspection on the Western Front, 1914.

German transport driver and horses wearing gas masks on the Western Front, 1917.

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30 Interesting Vintage Photos of Swimwear Styles From the Victorian Era

In the early Victorian era women had worn serge or dark flannel bathing dresses, but by the 1860s two piece belted costumes replaced the earlier styles. The swimwear bodice top was jacket like and the swimsuit bottom part three quarter trousers which had been rejected only a decade earlier when Amelia Bloomer urged women to adopt them.

The later Victorian swimsuit outfit was still cumbersome, but was more practical and more attractive than earlier bathing clothes.

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27 Fascinating Vintage Photos of Soho, London Over the Years

Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of London’s West End. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation as a base for the sex industry in addition to its night life and as a location for the headquarters of leading film companies.

Since the 1980s, the area has undergone considerable transformation. It now is predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry venues.

Below is a collection of 27 fascinating vintage photography that catpure everyday life in Soho from between the 1910s and 1960s:

Circa 1910: The smallest shop in London at 4 Bateman Street, Soho. The shop, occupied by a cobbler, is six feet long, five feet high and two feet deep. The rent is three pounds a week.(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

10 April 1913: English lessons for Italian children at a school in Soho. Signor de Villa instructs boys in reading and spelling.(Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

14 June 1913: Crowds watch the cortege of suffragette Emily Davison, who was killed by the King's horse at the Derby, passing Eros at Piccadilly Circus.(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

November 1933: The bustling market on Berwick Street in the heart of London's Soho.(Fox Photos/Getty Images)

24 November 1933: Men raise their glasses in a public house in London's Soho.(Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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A swimmer on the beach of Deauville, Calvados, France, circa 1925

12 Vintage Photographs Show the Beauty of Women’s Legs From the 1920s and 1930s

Women’s legs have always been the focus of male attention.

Legs are, along with the eyes, the core of feminine sensuality. Not sexuality, that's boobs, butt and the like. Sensuality is the soft whisper compared to sexuality’s loud trumpet. The manner in which a woman walks, stands, sits. These tell you about her confidence in that moment.

With clothing, legs can also very handily be both revealed and concealed, which makes them almost uniquely empowered to allow women to tease and seduce men and inflame their imaginations. Legs being long, a little can be revealed, then a little more, then... and so on, all the way up. It all depends on how much she wants to show. And sometimes less can be more. In addition, the momentary flash of legs through a slit skirt while a woman is in stride or crossing her legs can burn a potent image into a receptive man's mind, both because they are beautiful in and of themselves and also because they suggest sexual availability. And if they are subsequently concealed, you yearn to see them again and also to see more. Dresses and skirts are all about advertising accessibility while also concealing and withholding.

Eleanor Ambrose, highest paid dancer in the U.S. demonstrates the legs, she is taking massage by a Negro maid. In 1926.

Kleyv Scott, named the girl with the most beautiful legs in Broadway. USA, New York.1928.

Barbara Newberry, the girl with beautiful legs. USA, Chicago, 1929.

Dancer Cecil Navarra in acrobatic pose. she has insured her legs for a million francs. France, Paris, 1929.

Dancer shows her legs insured for a few thousand dollars. USA, 1929.

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30 Amazing Vintage Photographs That Capture Everyday Life in Berlin During the 1920s

The Golden Twenties in Berlin was a vibrant period in the history of Berlin, Germany, Europe and the history of the world in general. After the Greater Berlin Act the city became the third largest municipality in the world.

Berlin experienced its heyday as a major world city and was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, music, film, higher education, government, diplomacy, industries and military affairs.

These 30 amazing vintage photographs below will show daily life of Berlin during the 1920s.

Newspaper sellers on seat sticks, Berlin, 1927.

Street scene, Berlin, 1928.

Friedrichstrasse, Berlin, ca. 1927.

Berlin, 1927.

School children, Berlin, 1925.

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Beautiful Norwegian Women's Summer Fashion in the 1950s

Women dressed ‘smartly’ in the Fifties. 1950s fashion women’s dresses were all about good grooming and a tailored look, these attributes were prized. Here’s some beautiful women's beachwear fashion in Norway in the 1950s.

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29 Rare and Interesting Classic Photos of Behind the Scenes at James Bond Auditions in 1967

In the early 1960s, movie producers adapting Ian Fleming’s novels about a suave British spy named James Bond plucked a relative unknown, Sean Connery, from obscurity and offered him the role of a lifetime. And when Connery left the franchise after five movies (although he would briefly be back, in 1971, in Diamonds Are Forever) the hunt for another Bond was on.

In 1967, LIFE sent photographer Loomis Dean to casting sessions for the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The photographer took some of interesting photos from the 1967 James Bond auditions, featuring the five top candidates — including George Lazenby, who would eventually win the coveted role.

A composite image of the five top candidates (including ultimate choice George Lazenby, bottom right). Published in the October 11, 1968, issue of LIFE.

John Richardson during James Bond auditions, 1967.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service director Peter R. Hunt oversees a test love scene between John Richardson and an actress, moving her leg just so.

John Richardson during James Bond auditions, 1967.

James Bond audition candidate John Richardson (left), in profile, 1967.

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