For my British Women's Social History class one day, we met at the Imperial War Museum to look at British women's role in the First World War. Wow. I loved this museum. Really well-done and I am especially interested in WWII—and now, thanks to this class and also my History of London focus on WWI, I am also really interested in WWI.
A piece of the Berlin Wall that was outside of the museum:
I thought this was particularly interesting because it shows bandages that were made out of lace. Women had a really huge and absolutely crucial role in the war effort and I imagine a women cutting up one of her pretty dresses to make bandages for the soldiers. This just really stuck out in my mind.
I guess the military would try to use pigeons as messengers? I'm not exactly sure how this would work, but interesting nonetheless I thought.
A paint set and some paintings made by soldiers on the warfront:
A display that showed women's involvement in making munitions. Thousands and thousands of women did this dangerous work, but it gave them a new sort of freedom in that it paid very well.
Propaganda posters recruiting women... I think if I had a job during WWI (which most everyone did), I would have been good at creating these posters:
There was an exhibit were you could walk through 'the trenches' and it was a bit scary...
There was also a lot about WWII which I looked at just because of my own personal interest. Something that is just really striking to me are the gas masks. Really haunting and spooky, I feel.
I sort of choked up when I saw this picture... the baby with it's 'gas mask' on:
This is an example of a bomb shelter during WWII... honestly, it doesn't look too safe to me!
This violin was made out of some wood on one of the battlefields... I just thought that was neat.
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