On Her Their Lives Depend

A lively and scrupulous account of one of the wartime occupations that fostered crucial transformations in women's socioeconomic status during the early twentieth century. . . . Extremely useful both to scholars of women's history and to students of modernism.-Sandra M. Gilbert, coauthor of The Madwoman in the AtticA stunning achievement. . . . A wide-ranging, multifaceted, and beautifully nuanced rendering of the experiences of munitions workers in World War I. Especially impressive is the way that Woollacott incorporates a detailed analysis of the differences among women into a narrative that illuminates how gender and class together shaped the affect of the war on women's lives. Woollacott draws out the implications of her inquiry to propose a considered assessment of the extent to which the war was a watershed in the history of British women in the twentieth century.-Sonya O. Rose, author of Limited LivelihoodsWoollacott bursts some myths and corrects some misapprehensions in her excellent study [that] tells us how World War I changed the lives of women and contributes to our greater understanding of how women changed the life of Britain.-R. J. Q. Adams, author of Arms and the Wizard: Lloyd George and the Ministry of Munitions, 1915-1916A thorough and excellent discussion of the role and significance of women's work in munitions in the First World War. . . . Indubitably offers an original and unusual contribution.-Philippa Levine, author of Private Lives & Public Commitment: Feminist Resistance in England, 1860-1900An important intervention in the growing literature on women and the Great War. . . . Woollacott has told an essential part of that story, and has done so with learning, grace, and modesty. A fine book, indispensable to students of the period.-J. M. Winter, Cambridge UniversityA pioneering study. It illuminates, to an extent not achieved hitherto, two entwined aspects of Britain's war experience: the conversion to war needs of a peace economy; and the central part played by women in this transformation.-Trevor Wilson, author of The Myriad Faces of War: Britain and the Great War 1914-1918