Around this time, the government began coordinating the employment of women through campaigns and recruitment drives. Watch this women on the home front. Some women also worked heavy or precision machinery in engineering, led cart horses on farms, and worked in the civil service and factories. However, they received lower wages for doing the same work, and thus began some of the earliest demands for equal pay.
Watch this clip which depicts the experiences of women working in an ammunitions factory during World War I. Now listen to this account Womens Munition Worker Account. It is difficult to get exact estimates because domestic workers were excluded from these figures and many women moved from domestic service into the jobs created due to the war effort.
But because women were paid less than men, there was a worry that employers would continue to employ women in these jobs even when the men returned from the war.
This did not happen; either the women were sacked to make way for the returning soldiers or women remained working alongside men but at lower wage rates. But even before the end of the war, many women refused to accept lower pay for what in most cases was the same work as had been done previously by men.
The women workers on London buses and trams went on strike in to demand the same increase in pay war bonus as men. The strike spread to other towns in the South East and to the London Underground. This was the first equal pay strike in the UK which was initiated, led and ultimately won by women. This report endorsed the principle of 'equal pay for equal work'. Despite evidence that women had taken on what were considered men's jobs and performed them effectively during the war, this did not shift popular and government perception that women would be less productive than men.
The unions received guarantees that where women had fully replaced skilled men they would be paid the same as the men - ie would receive equal pay. But it was made clear that these changes were for the duration of the war only and would be reversed when the war ended and the soldiers came back.
Using images and documents contained in the 'gallery' and text contained within the 'Women, Wages and Rights' section. On her first visit to Cradley Heath, the trade union agitator Mary Macarthur described the forges where the chains were made by women workers as akin to medieval torture chambers. While the average pay during that period was 26 shillings a week for men and 11s a week for women, the domestic chainmakers in Cradley Heath earned just 5s to 6s for a hard hour week.
The employers at Cradley Heath in the West Midlands refused to pay the new wage rate. About women workers began a strike , going on daily marches. Macarthur made a film exposing the miserable conditions of the chainmakers, which won the strikers much support and the strike gained momentum.
Collections were held outside church congregations and football grounds. The growth of Hitler's armies was in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. By then, the country was in chaos. Millions of people had been displaced. Over 5. After the surrender, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, and in the country was split in two. Economic recovery, much less reparations payments, seemed unlikely. And because West Germany was required to pay only when it had a trade surplus, the agreement gave breathing room for economic expansion.
Still, it took decades for Germany to pay off the rest of its reparations debt. Once that happened, Germany slowly chipped away at the last bit of debt. It made its last debt payment on October 3, —the 20th anniversary of German reunification. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you.
Live TV. Between bond drives, the Federal Reserve also lent at preferential rates to banks purchasing Treasury certificates —— short-term borrowings issued in anticipation of tax receipts. These fundraising efforts were very successful. As a result of Fed lending at low interest rates, credit conditions eased throughout the domestic economy, which was thriving on increased exports to Europe.
Extensive borrowing by businesses and households stimulated economic growth but also increased the money supply, fueling inflation. However, Fed leaders did not take steps to raise interest rates to fight inflation. Congress created the Fed as an independent central bank to isolate it from political pressure, but during the war monetary policy was beholden to the needs of the Treasury.
Although the Fed focused on war finance at the expense of inflation during World War I, it emerged as a major player on the world stage after the war as it developed into a full-fledged central bank. The war resulted in larger Federal Reserve gold holdings as gold flowed from Europe to pay for munitions, food, and other US exports. Under the gold standard in force at the time, every dollar in the economy was at least partially backed by the precious metal.
Some of the additional gold flowed into Federal Reserve Bank vaults as reserves, allowing the Fed to take on more assets in the form of government securities. A sizable portfolio of securities would become an increasingly important monetary tool after the war.
Just as it does today, the Fed in the s used purchases and sales of securities to influence market interest rates and implement monetary policy. By wreaking financial havoc in Europe, the war also enhanced the standing of the U.
Huge military expenditures forced warring nations to abandon the gold standard; their money could no longer be redeemed for gold coin. But the dollar remained linked to gold. As the British pound and other European currencies became unstable, financiers and traders turned to the US dollar as a preferred medium of exchange. The war created the conditions for such a market by making trade credit harder to obtain in Europe. To finance their operations, traders all over the world bought trade acceptances denominated in dollars, increasing both the international use of the dollar and business for American banks with overseas branches.
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