Around 400 women died from overexposure to TNT during WWI.
When did world war 3 end skin#
Known as ‘canaries’ because they had to handle TNT (the chemical compound trinitrotoluene that is used as an explosive agent in munitions) which caused their skin to turn yellow, these women risked their lives working with poisonous substances without adequate protective clothing or the required safety measures. However, they received lower wages for doing the same work, and thus began some of the earliest demands for equal pay.īy 1917 munitions factories, which primarily employed women workers, produced 80% of the weapons and shells used by the British Army (Airth-Kindree, 1987). Some women also worked heavy or precision machinery in engineering, led cart horses on farms, and worked in the civil service and factories. This led to women working in areas of work that were formerly reserved for men, for example as railway guards and ticket collectors, buses and tram conductors, postal workers, police, firefighters and as bank ‘tellers’ and clerks.
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