No. 57 "In the Towns: A 'bus conductress" [From 'The Great War: Britain's Efforts And Ideals shown in a series of lithographic prints: 'Women's Work' series]

Artist Archibald Standish Hartrick (1864 - 1950)

Date1917

MediumLithograph on paper

Dimensions50.8 x 40.7 cm

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by the British Ministry of Information.

Object number512

DescriptionThis is a planographic print (lithograph) on paper, and is part of a series entitled 'The Great War: Britain's Efforts And Ideals shown in a series of lithographic prints: 'Women's Work' series. There are a total of six lithographs in this particular series, and in total there are ten series. The lithographs are numbered as if the entire ten series are one, so this print is number 57.
The brief of Women’s Work, given to A.S. Hartrick was to show the varied contribution women made to the war effort on the Home Front. Hartrick made his drawings from life and showed women undertaking a diversity of jobs that were normally done by men including working the land, munitions work, or becoming bus conductors and railway workers. Working in the munitions factory, which involved both skilled and unskilled work, was especially dangerous. Hartrick recalled that he had to take off his shoes before entering the TNT packing area lest a spark from a nail would cause an explosion. The subject of the drawing Dangerous Work (Packing TNT) was a pretty girl who prefered to wear a napkin around her mouth and nose rather than the uncomfortable metal snout supplied by the army. Like most other workers, her face and hair were stained yellow due to chemical inhalation. Some believed that the best all round workers were former housemaids but women from all strata of society undertook essential work from policing, to heading up medical institutions to running air factories. At the private view of these lithographs at the Fine Arts Society in Bond Street, Hartrick recalled a fashionably dressed young woman coming up to him, unrecognisable from the young woman in overalls and headscarf he had drawn. The daughter of a Colonel, she worked alongside her mother in a factory. Women’s suffrage had not yet been granted in Britain, and considering that women were doing vital and skilled work well, many wondered what would happen after the war. In many instances, however, the refrain of ‘only for the duration of the war’ became the dominant response. Hartrick also recalled the lack of rejoicing at the end of the war. He said ‘like a nightmare, the War sat on the heads of everybody, and it seemed as if we would never be rid of it, but at last it had passed, and for long nobody cared to recall any thoughts of it.’ Hartrick’s own wife suffered a breakdown due to the anxiety of living through war time and the continuous threat of bombing raids.
Jessica O'Donnell 2014

A female bus conductor is depicting standing at the entrance to a bus. She is dressed in a jacket, skirt and hat and has a ticket machine hanging form her neck.

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