Emma Orczy - How World War 1 affected women
A lot of women took new jobs
in war industries because the pay was better, and the work more interesting,
than what was open to them before (though the work was often hard and
exhausting). It was also a way to support the war effort and indirectly support
men they knew who were fighting.
Emma Orczy, the daughter of
the composer, Baron Felix Orczy, was born in Hungary in 1865. Educated in Brussels and
Paris, Orczy moved to London in 1880 to study art.
While in England Orczy met
and married the English artist, Montague Barstow. In 1905 Orczy published her
first novel, The Scarlet
Pimpernel. The book was a great success but the numerous
sequels such as I Will
Repay (1906) and the Elusive Pimpernel (1908) sold
poorly. Orczy also wrote detective fiction including The Old Man in the Corner (1909) and
Lady Molly of Scotland
Yard (1910).
During the First
World War Orczy was actively involved in the Order of the White Feather, an organisation
that encouraged women to give out white feathers to young men who had not
joined the British Army.
After the Armistice Orczy moved to Monte Carlo where she
continued to write novels and an autobiography, Links in the Chain of Life.
Emma Orczy died in 1947.
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