NC's Women "Do Their Bit" During WWI

When the US entered the war in 1917, women encouraged and supported one another to “do their bit,” coordinating the efforts and leadership of existing local organizations with newly formed state and national organizations. They put together care packages for soldiers; grew & preserved food during severe shortages; raised funds through Liberty Bond drives; and converted a college cafeteria into a quarantine for locals who had fallen ill with influenza. As professionals and homemakers, as students and club women, and as reformers traditional & progressive, women assessed the importance of their wartime contributions primarily in terms of what they were able to do for others. Armed with the right to vote in the postwar years and secure in their ability to shape their world through activism, they emerged as new women knowing that what they had done for others was just as remarkable in terms of what it helped them accomplish for themselves.