Culture+after+WWI

Hailey Edmondson

Analyze and assess the extent to which WWI accelerated European social change in such areas as work, sex roles, and government involvement in everyday life.


 * Work: **
 * Growth of the middle class
 * white collar jobs became prominent (skilled, office type jobs)
 * Growing number of women
 * Less children
 * Schools mandatory for children
 * Farming and agricultural jobs decreased (more factory and business jobs)


 * Sex Roles: **
 * More women working
 * banking, heavy industry, farming
 * Women began to dress less conservatively
 * shorter hair, shorter skirts, more makeup
 * Nineteenth amendment of the United States
 * allowed women the right to vote
 * Increasing sexual liberality between both sexes
 * Women fighting for mroe equal treatment
 * "The Second Sex" by Simone de Beauvior; women treated as second class citizens


 * Government Involvement: **
 * French Popular Front
 * Economic plans and reforms to improve lives of citizens
 * French New Deal-- reformed work (40 hour work weeks, paid vacations, minimum wages)
 * Roosevelt in USA
 * New Deal, Social Security, WPA
 * social works and deficit spending to improve the lives of citizens
 * Welfare State
 * Great Britain
 * Free milk for children at schools
 * All European countries- free or co pay medical care
 * Government financial assistance for poor, elderly, disabled, etc.


 * THESIS**: After WWI, government involvement in society increased with attempts to improve the economy and quality of life such as by welfare and deficit spending, women became a more dominant part of culture and the work force, and the middle class grew with white collar jobs and a decline in agriculture.