Before the start of the First World War, men were thought of as the breadwinners for the family while women traditionally would stay at home performing domestic tasks such as washing and cleaning and raising the children.
If they worked at all it was a menial job such as a maid, in domestic service or in work in a repetitive job in a factory.
During the war, life for women changed dramatically because so many men were away fighting. Many women took paid jobs outside the home for the first time and by 1918 there were five million women working in Britain.
The money they earned contributed to the family's budget and earning money made working women more independent and many enjoyed the companionship of working in a factory, office or shop.
For the centenary of the end of the First World War, we are hosting a display celebrating women living in Wymondham during the war and how they worked to support the war effort.
Using photos, post cards, letters and other documents our display tells the stories of the working lives of women including:
Molly and Mabel took up jobs as clerks at Wymondham Railway Station to replace the enlisted men.
Times had not moved on enough in these war years for womens' equality and, once the war was over and the men returned, Molly was one of many ladies who were released from their wartime roles to return to more typically female duties.
Elsie was a Nurse at the Red Cross Hospital at Abbotsford on Vicar Street and she would also drive the delivery van for the family irongmongers shop on Town Green taking goods to the customers out of town, something which the young men would have done prior to the war.
She also found time to fall in love and married a Methodist minister Thomas Featherstone in the summer of 1918
