British women on backbreaking work during the Great War

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Incredible WWI photos reveal backbreaking and often dangerous work taken on by British women during the Great War

The photographs, all of which were taken between 1914 and 1919, show women hard at work in roles once reserved for men. Among them are female munitions workers, or munitionettes, who worked long hours in incredibly dangerous conditions, and VAD nurses, many of whom served just behind the front lines. Other images show women working in hospitals, as firefighters and as engineers.