Letters from the war factory: Women workers in World War Two

Abstract

This article begins to investigate how women working in factories in World War Two dealt with the day-to-day challenges of working life. The research is an exploratory study into an under-researched area that draws on the account of factory work contained in Mass-Observation's contemporaneous publication entitled War Factory. Data is analysed by means of a qualitative content analysis of 30 letters written by women working in a factory in the UK and major themes emerging from the data are identified. The findings suggest that the account of women's work provided in Mass-Observation's publication War Factory does not reflect the true nature of factory life or women's contribution to the war effort.