 |
| Women war workers, Lorraine Ohio (May 1917) |
“What a
good time the women are having in the war! And, in a way, they really are. For
into that somewhat drab thing called every-day life has come the call of duty
that makes every one, man, woman, and child, who has red blood, get up and do
whatever duty bids.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer, Oct. 28, 1917*
In
1919, the Souvenir Publishing Company printed two books within one binding: Nice Poems by Nice War Workers and Naughty Poems by Naughty War Workers, compiled
by Jean of the A.G.O. Each half of the book had its own title
page and thirty-two pages of poetry, with titles such as “Buy a Bond” (from Nice Poems) and “Me for the Cave-Man
Stuff” (from Naughty Poems). The Nice Poems section of the book also
included a poem that parodied a popular song of the day:
Where
Do We Go from Here
Where
do we go from here, girls?
Where
do we go from here?
The war
is won,
Our
work is done,
And
we’ve not shed a tear.
We’ll
pack our trunks
And say
good-bye
And
leave by the first of the year,
But Oh,
girls, Oh, girls,
Where
do we go from here?
—Composed Friday, December 13, 1918
by Ollie Parnell
The
poem would have been immediately familiar to most as a variation on the popular
tune “Where Do We Go from Here [Boys],” published in 1917. That song follows the adventures of Paddy
Mack, a cab driver from New York who joins the American Expeditionary Force
(you can listen to it here):
First
of all, at the call
When
the war began
Pat
enlisted in the army
As a
fighting man
When
the drills began,
They’d
walk a hundred miles a day
Tho’
the rest got tired,
Paddy
always used to say:
Where
do we go from here, boys,
Where
do we go from here?
Slip a
pill to Kaiser Bill
And
make him shed a tear;
And
when we see the enemy
We’ll
shoot them in the rear,
Oh joy,
Oh boy,
Where do
we go from here?**
Ollie
Parnell’s variation on the tune reminds readers of women’s contributions to the
war and the uncertainty they faced in the post-war world. Historian Lynn Dumenil notes,
During World War I, observers routinely described women
workers, especially those who were breaking down barriers that had limited
their work opportunities, as the “second line of defense," whose service in the
nation’s interest paralleled that of male soldiers.”***
During
the war, women workers were needed to fill jobs that had previously been open
only to men. They completed the work professionally and competently, whether working in munitions factories, on subways and tram cars, or at agricultural and forestry
positions. After the war, these
women “presented themselves as competent individuals who contributed significantly
to the winning of the war. They insisted that they had thus earned equal
citizenship, a claim that became an important part of the final drive for woman
suffrage and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.”****
 |
| Women picket White House, 1917 |
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* Cited
in Lynn Dumenil’s The Second Line of
Defense: American Woman and World War I, University of North Carolina
Press, 2017, p. 1.
** Song
by Howard Johnson and Percy Wenrich, Leo Feist, Inc., 1917.
***
Dumenil, The Second Line of Defense, pp.
1-2.
****
Dumenil, The Second Line of Defense, p.
2.
