"The Country's Call" (McCall's Magazine, July 1917)

 Women have always worked, but in total war the working woman suddenly becomes more fashionable than the lady of leisure.  In the summer of 1917 McCall's issued a number of patterns for the patriotic war worker.

At the top (and to the top) we have a "nurses' or maids' cap and aprons" and a "nurses' uniform".  By 1917 nursing was a conventional career for a woman, and the uniforms depicted above would not have been considered startling by anyone.

The figures at the bottom, however, are more challenging.  On the right is a woman wearing a "waist" and a "ladies' sports skirt" for working outdoors.  The skirt is very short by the standards of 1917 (see the nurses uniforms by way of comparison) and the outfit is completed by a pair of "bloomers" and leggings worn underneath.  The leggings can be seen peeking out from under the skirt.  The recommended material for this costume was khaki. 

On the left is an even more shocking innovation: pants!  Or, as the magazine puts it, a "ladies' and misses' overall suit".  In its dressmaking column, McCall's Magazine goes to some length to sell the garment to potential wearers: 

The woman with the hoe is becoming more and more a familiar figure; but the hoe and the skirt, these two which have always been antagonistic, are yet to be reconciled.  The fact is that skirts must be dispensed with, however short they may be, you cannot get away from the fact that they are always a handicap in the work that farming or gardening entail.  The only practical and comfortable thing to wear for working in the fields is the overall suit with roomy bloomers, which many women have adopted.  Even if your gardening activities are limited to a small backyard only large enough to supply the vegetables for the needs of the family, you will find that you need overalls.  If you think about that shabby old skirt you had hanging in the closet ever so long and wanted to get rid of by wearing it out this summer, will do just as well, you are mistaken.

And, here may I say that many women have learned the value of using overalls for work about the house.  They are also used by women workers in factories.

Land Girl (1917-8)

 This real photo postcard can be dated almost to the year, because the sitter is wearing the uniform of the (British) Women's Land Army.  The Board of Agriculture created the Land Army early in 1917 to replace the farm workers who had gone off to war.  The uniform they finally settled on consisted of a sou'wester had, knee length coat, boots, leather leggings—and "breeches with wide posteriors, tapering to fit tightly around the calves, and sealed by gaiters."  The Land Girl in this photo appears to be showing off her crisp new uniform—and daringly, she is smoking a cigarette! 

Not surprisingly, the uniform was considered shocking, particularly by the older generation:

"The Land Army demanded references, so Annie approached the elderly wife of the canon who lived in her village, to be told: 'Do you know what it involves?  You'll be dressed as a man, and I object to that—it's a disgrace to show your ankles.'  Annie recalled the interview sixty years later, and was still not wholly convinced the canon's wife was wrong, adding, 'And it was [a disgrace], I had my skirts to the ground.'"

From Kate Adie: Fighting on the Home Front (2013)