Women and War

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Mrs. Jack Wright and her sons Ralph and David eating breakfast at the table. September 1943.

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Mrs. Jack Wright and her two sons Ralph Wright and David Wright assist her with her shopping.

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Get Out on the Farm war poster.

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Mrs. Wright reading to her children in bed.

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Fish and Vegetable Meals Will Save Meat war poster.

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Fish and Vegetable Meals Will Save Meat war poster.

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The relative scarcity of foods and consumer goods vital for the war effort led to rationing. Every man, woman, and child received a personal set of ration books, and needed it to buy goods such as gasoline, butter, sugar, meat, tea, and coffee.

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The ongoing war increased the need for metal. Civilians, including these children at Hopewell Avenue School in Ottawa, responded by organizing scrap metal drives to support the war effort.

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Canadian troops on board a train receive packages from the Red Cross. The organization distributed these packages to Allied troops throughout the war.

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Canadian Red Cross war poster.

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Volunteers make warm clothing to send to military personnel on the fighting front.

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Master Corporal Mark Isfeld, a military engineer on peacekeeping duty, was 31 when killed in 1994 removing land mines in Croatia. These woolen dolls are called "Izzy" dolls. Before Mark Isfeld died in Croatia in 1994, his mother created them for him to hand out to Croatian children. They are still made and distributed in his memory.

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Master Corporal Mark Isfeld, a military engineer on peacekeeping duty, was 31 when killed in 1994 removing land mines in Croatia. These woolen dolls are called "Izzy" dolls. Before Mark Isfeld died in Croatia in 1994, his mother created them for him to hand out to Croatian children. They are still made and distributed in his memory.

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This award winning poster by freelance illustrator Hubert Rogers depicts a soldier with a machine gun, an industrial worker with a rivet gun, and a woman with a hoe.

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This award winning poster by freelance illustrator Hubert Rogers depicts a soldier with a machine gun, an industrial worker with a rivet gun, and a woman with a hoe.

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With so many men absent from home in the armed forces and with industries pushing for more production, the Canadian government actively urged women to work in the war effort.

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Twenty-five per cent of Canada's war workers were women. Like this welder, many worked in positions previously reserved for men.

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Unidentified Lumberjill using pike pole to handle spruce logs, Queen Charlotte Islands, B.C.

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Canadian women serving with the Royal Flying Corps overhaul a Curtiss OX-5 engine at the Engine Repair Section, Camp Mohawk, Deseronto, ON.

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In this recruiting poster, members of the Canadian Women's Army Corps (CWAC) march alongside the ghostly image of French medieval military heroine, Joan of Arc.

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In this recruiting poster, members of the Canadian Women's Army Corps (CWAC) march alongside the ghostly image of French medieval military heroine, Joan of Arc.

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In its public relations campaign, the Army stresses the positive aspects of serving in the Women’s Corps, highlighting its members’ professional activities, their confidence and charm. Ottawa, October 30th, 1943.

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Mary Laura Wong (Mah) enlisted with the CWAC (Canadian Women's Army Corps) in Vancouver, British Columbia where she was employed as a teletype keyboard operator.

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Artist Molly Lamb Bobak (born 1922). A trained artist, in 1942 Bobak enlisted as a draughtswoman in the CWAC.

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Prior to the Second World War, women were not allowed in Canada's armed forces except as nurses. This policy was reversed beginning in 1941 and, in early 1942, recruiting began for the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, the "Wrens". The women who joined performed many of the same duties as men, including equipment maintenance and communications, but did not serve aboard warships.

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Members of the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service at HMCS Coverdale, at Coverdale, New Brunswick, listen for German radio transmissions.

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Unit Office, Naval Headquarters, Ottawa Painted by Pegi Nicol MacLeod in 1944.

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Star Weekly cover of woman in navy uniform.

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RCAF Women's division.

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The intense expression on three of the women's faces draws attention to their tasks of cutting, folding, and securing the lines of the parachutes they are making. Two diagonal workbenches dramatically split the composition into three parallel bands in which their figures and arm movements create a dynamic zigzag across the surface. Painted in 1947 by Paraskeva Clark