Called upon to replace the husband, father and son who had gone off to fight, French women saw their daily lives turned upside down during the WWI. First mobilized in the countryside, then in cities and factories, they were forced to work in jobs reserved for men, facing hardship and demonstrating a hitherto disputed ability. Enlisted each in their own way, they were an indispensable support to the war effort.
War - Day of the 75mm field gun ; World War One. Day of the 75mm field gun. Paris, on February 7, 1915.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
Paris - Woman driving a streetcar ; World War One. Woman driving a streetcar in Paris.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Barracks manageress ; World War One. Barracks manageress.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women working as railroad employees ; World War One. Women working as railroad employees. France.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women working as railroad employees ; World War One. Women working as railroad employees.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Rally of French and Belgian women volunteering to serve as auxiliaries in the army ; World War One. Rally of French and Belgian women volunteering to serve as auxiliaries in the army, on January 11, 1916.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Updating identification-number files in a military mobilisation office, in 1916.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women at work ; World War I. Women turning shells in an ammunition factory.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women at work ; World War I. Women working in an ammunition factory.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
Waitresses in a Parisian café ; World War One. Waitresses in a Parisian café.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Woman working at producing trench clogs. Soles pumiced by grindstone.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women at work ; World War One. Women working in an ammunition factory. France.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
Aubervilliers - Red Cross post ; World War One. Red Cross post at the Aubervilliers train station (France). 1914.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Convoy of wounded soldiers repatriated from Germany ; World War I. Train convoy of severely wounded soldiers arriving from Germany. Lyon (France), 1915.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - ; World War One. Women replacing male waiters. Paris.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Women at work in the wood-veneer industry. Hand-cutting wood veneer sheets. France 1917.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women working in a French ammunition factory ; World War One. Women working in a French ammunition factory.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Women working in a gunpowder factory. France.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women working in a French ammunition factory ; World War One. Women working in a French ammunition factory.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Officer in charge of material, seconded by a woman. France, 1916.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. The "Day of the 75mm field gun in Paris". Charity initiated by the Touring-Club de France and supported by the President of the French Republic, in order to collect and send to soldiers millions of things needed for their health, well-being and mood. Photograph published in the newspaper "Excelsior" of Monday February 8, 1915.
Reporters / Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. Woman checking tickets in a streetcar, early September 1914.
Caudrilliers / Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Women making helmets for the French army: molding visors. France, 1915.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women at work ; World War One. Women working in the kitchens of a camp. France.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One - Red Cross ; World War One. Red Cross women preparing their first-aid kits. France, August 1914.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women at work ; World War One. Women working in an administration. France.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women at work ; World War One. Women working in a joiner's workshop. France.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Postwoman delivering mail. France.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
Paris - Delivery woman ; World War One. Delivery woman working for the Printemps department store, Paris.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
Paris - Dressmakers on strike ; Dressmakers ("Midinettes") on strike. March at the place Vendôme. Paris, on May 18, 1917.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. Women picking some deadwood in the forest during a coal shortage. L'Isle-Adam (France), early February 1917. Photograph published in the newspaper "Excelsior", on February 4, 1917.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. Former milliners who became chimney sweeps, working on a roof. Paris, late November 1917.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. New jobs for women since the beginning of the war: woman in overalls. Paris, June 1917.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. New jobs for women since the beginning of the war: line guard at the Gare du Nord train station. Paris, June 1917.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. New jobs for women since the beginning of the war: deliverery woman for the Bon Marché department store. Paris, June 1917. Photograph published in the newspaper "Excelsior" of Sunday, June 24, 1917.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Strikes in Paris about the vote of the English week (rest on Saturday afternoons for the fashion workers), and the expensive life, late May 1917. Apprentice seamstresses, dressmakers, milliners, corset-makers and furriers at the gate of the Palais-Bourbon.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. Workers of a French helmet manufacture, typical war industry. Adjusting of the crests. Photograph published in the newspaper "Excelsior", on January 29, 1916.
Wackernie / Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. Visit of Emile Rimailho (1864-1954), French Colonel, at the Saint-Chamond steelworks (France), August 1915. Woman assemblying shells for 75mm field guns. Photograph published in the newspaper "Excelsior" of Sunday, August 15, 1915.
Piston / Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. Breton women working in a shell manufacture.
Collection Roger-Viollet / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Women washing dishes in the barracks, in 1916.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Canteen at the Citroën factories. 143 quai de Javel. Paris, 1917.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women at work ; World War One. Woman cleaning a street with a hosepipe. Paris.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women at work ; World War One. Women in a workshop. France.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. Nurse of the Red Cross at the Hôtel de Malte. Toulouse (France), circa 1915.
Collection Roger-Viollet / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Women standing in line in front of food stores. France.
Neurdein / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Woman cleaning railway car door frames with an electric brush. France.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Women repairing military uniforms. France, 1916.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Women at work, cleaning railway cars. France.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. Railway car maintenance in France. Woman using a welding machine. France, 1918.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Day of the 75mm field gun ; World War One. Day of the 75mm field gun, on February 7, 1915.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - Women working in the fields ; World War One. Women working in the fields, 1917.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
War - High school students working in the fields ; World War One. High school students working in the fields.
Maurice-Louis Branger / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. New jobs for women since the beginning of the war: gardener in a park. Paris, June 1917.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War I. New jobs for women since the beginning of the war: car driver. Paris, June 1917.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
World War One. New jobs for women since the beginning of the war: line guard at the Gare du Nord train station. Paris, June 1917.
Excelsior - L'Equipe / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.
Guerre 1914-1918. Travail des femmes. Fabrication des instruments d'optique. Machine à graver. 1917.
Jacques Boyer / Roger-Viollet
Prior permission required for all advertising & promotional use or use on consumer goods & derivative products.