From Camp Follower to Lady in Uniform: Women, Social Class and Military Institutions before 1920

During the nineteenth century, middle-class female volunteers began to replace lower-class camp followers in providing essential military support services. Nursing was first, and military nurses wore uniforms as much to distinguish themselves from camp followers as to achieve more positive goals. As the century progressed, women in growing numbers found reasons to wear uniforms. The hundreds of thousands of women who patriotically volunteered for service in the First World War, civilian as well as military, eagerly donned the uniforms that validated their claim to citizenship and justified their demand for suffrage. [Author]