Keith Robbins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198263715
- eISBN:
- 9780191714283
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198263715.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity, Church History
This chapter examines the First World War, considering reactions to the outbreak and British intervention. Civil war in Ireland (and perhaps in the UK as a whole) appeared imminent and bitterly ...
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This chapter examines the First World War, considering reactions to the outbreak and British intervention. Civil war in Ireland (and perhaps in the UK as a whole) appeared imminent and bitterly divided church communities. Events in 1916, the Easter Rising, and after confirmed these divisions. In the Great War the churches stood with the state. The chapter notes their justification for doing so, but also mentions the small pacifist minority. The opportunities (and perils) for Roman Catholics receive particular attention. Thoughts for a future peaceful world order are considered as well as the attempted reconciling role of the papacy. The place of churches, both on the Home Front and with the army on the battlefield (chaplains), is given some treatment; there was perhaps some new ‘space’ for women. Finally, patriotism, peace, and progress are evaluated.Less
This chapter examines the First World War, considering reactions to the outbreak and British intervention. Civil war in Ireland (and perhaps in the UK as a whole) appeared imminent and bitterly divided church communities. Events in 1916, the Easter Rising, and after confirmed these divisions. In the Great War the churches stood with the state. The chapter notes their justification for doing so, but also mentions the small pacifist minority. The opportunities (and perils) for Roman Catholics receive particular attention. Thoughts for a future peaceful world order are considered as well as the attempted reconciling role of the papacy. The place of churches, both on the Home Front and with the army on the battlefield (chaplains), is given some treatment; there was perhaps some new ‘space’ for women. Finally, patriotism, peace, and progress are evaluated.
Patrick Deer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199239887
- eISBN:
- 9780191716782
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239887.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Chapter 4 examines wartime writers' challenges to official projections of an “island fortress” under siege at the heart of a loyal, but distant empire. During a wartime revival of popular ...
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Chapter 4 examines wartime writers' challenges to official projections of an “island fortress” under siege at the heart of a loyal, but distant empire. During a wartime revival of popular imperialism, Graham Greene and Elizabeth Bowen excavated buried histories of empire, representing the home front as a hallucinatory, haunted space. The chapter explores their secret war work as agents in British intelligence and their ironic representations of the corrosive effects of wartime surveillance, secrecy and espionage. In the dislocated perspectives offered by unpatriotic, transgressive figures like the spy, the spiv, the wounded veteran, the adulterous wife, or the rootless “mobile” woman conscripted into the war effort Bowen and Greene turn a sceptical eye on the mythology of “Deep England” and the “People's War.” Their work reveals that the island fortress was constituted by the contradictory relations between an insular Englishness, an expansive British imperial identity, and cosmopolitan traditions of anti-colonialism.Less
Chapter 4 examines wartime writers' challenges to official projections of an “island fortress” under siege at the heart of a loyal, but distant empire. During a wartime revival of popular imperialism, Graham Greene and Elizabeth Bowen excavated buried histories of empire, representing the home front as a hallucinatory, haunted space. The chapter explores their secret war work as agents in British intelligence and their ironic representations of the corrosive effects of wartime surveillance, secrecy and espionage. In the dislocated perspectives offered by unpatriotic, transgressive figures like the spy, the spiv, the wounded veteran, the adulterous wife, or the rootless “mobile” woman conscripted into the war effort Bowen and Greene turn a sceptical eye on the mythology of “Deep England” and the “People's War.” Their work reveals that the island fortress was constituted by the contradictory relations between an insular Englishness, an expansive British imperial identity, and cosmopolitan traditions of anti-colonialism.
Kathleen Riley
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199534487
- eISBN:
- 9780191715945
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199534487.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter gives examples of some of the mediated ways in which Euripides' Herakles has infiltrated the current cultural climate, and examines in further detail the current phase in the reception ...
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This chapter gives examples of some of the mediated ways in which Euripides' Herakles has infiltrated the current cultural climate, and examines in further detail the current phase in the reception of Euripides' Herakles, that of the ‘neo-Senecan Herakles’. Out of the escalating horrors of our post-9/11 world, and in direct response to the Iraq War, several new stage adaptations of Herakles have emerged. Apart from their record number, what is fascinating about these productions is that, although they are consciously inspired by Euripides, they have been unconsciously Senecanized, filtered through a sense of despair that is supremely Senecan and at the same time utterly contemporary. One of the modern productions discussed is Daniel Algie's Home Front (2006), in which the redemptive might of Euripidean philia is finally cancelled.Less
This chapter gives examples of some of the mediated ways in which Euripides' Herakles has infiltrated the current cultural climate, and examines in further detail the current phase in the reception of Euripides' Herakles, that of the ‘neo-Senecan Herakles’. Out of the escalating horrors of our post-9/11 world, and in direct response to the Iraq War, several new stage adaptations of Herakles have emerged. Apart from their record number, what is fascinating about these productions is that, although they are consciously inspired by Euripides, they have been unconsciously Senecanized, filtered through a sense of despair that is supremely Senecan and at the same time utterly contemporary. One of the modern productions discussed is Daniel Algie's Home Front (2006), in which the redemptive might of Euripidean philia is finally cancelled.
Elizabeth Vlossak
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199561117
- eISBN:
- 9780191595035
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199561117.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter explores Alsace's experience of the First World War. It describes Alsatian women's employment and daily lives on the home front and within proximity of the battle lines, and compares ...
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This chapter explores Alsace's experience of the First World War. It describes Alsatian women's employment and daily lives on the home front and within proximity of the battle lines, and compares them to those of the women in the rest of Germany and in France. War also affected women differently than men, particularly in the ways it defined Alsatian women's shared identity and relationship to the nation-state. The chapter argues that the women of Alsace had a unique war experience they did not share with either the women of Germany or France. Their experiences also varied greatly within the region, especially between those who remained in German-controlled Alsace, and those who were ‘liberated’ by French troops in August 1914. What these women did share was a deep-seated uneasiness about a war beyond their control and in which they struggled to find a role.Less
This chapter explores Alsace's experience of the First World War. It describes Alsatian women's employment and daily lives on the home front and within proximity of the battle lines, and compares them to those of the women in the rest of Germany and in France. War also affected women differently than men, particularly in the ways it defined Alsatian women's shared identity and relationship to the nation-state. The chapter argues that the women of Alsace had a unique war experience they did not share with either the women of Germany or France. Their experiences also varied greatly within the region, especially between those who remained in German-controlled Alsace, and those who were ‘liberated’ by French troops in August 1914. What these women did share was a deep-seated uneasiness about a war beyond their control and in which they struggled to find a role.
Patrick Deer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199239887
- eISBN:
- 9780191716782
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239887.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This book remaps the history of British war culture by insisting on the centrality and importance of the literature of the Second World War. Offering an account of the emergence of modern war ...
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This book remaps the history of British war culture by insisting on the centrality and importance of the literature of the Second World War. Offering an account of the emergence of modern war culture, it explores how writers like Ford Madox Ford, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, James Hanley, Rex Warner, Alexander Baron, Keith Douglas, Henry Green, and Graham Greene challenged and contested the dominant narratives of war projected by an enormously powerful mass media and culture industry. Modern war cultures, the book contends, are defined by their drive to normalize conflict and war making, by their struggle to colonize the entire wartime cultural field, and by claims to monopolize representations and interpretation of the conflict. The book argues that the Great War failed to produce an official war culture, famously producing instead a war literature of protest, marked by modernist tropes of alienation and disintegration. Challenging conventional maps of modern culture, it contends that the interwar period saw a parallel logic of consolidation and reconstruction as the imperial war machine struggled to reinvent itself, culminating in the emergence of a fully mobilized and persuasive official war culture during the Second World War. The book reads war literature as one element in an expanded cultural field, which also includes popular culture and mass communications, the productions of war planners and military historians, projections of new technologies of violence, the fantasies and theories of strategists, and the material culture of total war.Less
This book remaps the history of British war culture by insisting on the centrality and importance of the literature of the Second World War. Offering an account of the emergence of modern war culture, it explores how writers like Ford Madox Ford, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, James Hanley, Rex Warner, Alexander Baron, Keith Douglas, Henry Green, and Graham Greene challenged and contested the dominant narratives of war projected by an enormously powerful mass media and culture industry. Modern war cultures, the book contends, are defined by their drive to normalize conflict and war making, by their struggle to colonize the entire wartime cultural field, and by claims to monopolize representations and interpretation of the conflict. The book argues that the Great War failed to produce an official war culture, famously producing instead a war literature of protest, marked by modernist tropes of alienation and disintegration. Challenging conventional maps of modern culture, it contends that the interwar period saw a parallel logic of consolidation and reconstruction as the imperial war machine struggled to reinvent itself, culminating in the emergence of a fully mobilized and persuasive official war culture during the Second World War. The book reads war literature as one element in an expanded cultural field, which also includes popular culture and mass communications, the productions of war planners and military historians, projections of new technologies of violence, the fantasies and theories of strategists, and the material culture of total war.
Ashley Jackson
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207641
- eISBN:
- 9780191677762
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207641.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This book is a full study of an African country during the Second World War. Unusually, it provides both an Africanist and an imperial perspective. Using extensive archival and oral evidence, the ...
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This book is a full study of an African country during the Second World War. Unusually, it provides both an Africanist and an imperial perspective. Using extensive archival and oral evidence, the author explores the social, economic, political, agricultural, and military history of Botswana. He examines Botswana's military contribution to the war effort and the impact of the war on the African home front. The book focuses on events and personalities ‘on the ground’ in Africa, and also on their interaction with and impact upon events and personalities in distant imperial centres, such as Whitehall and the wartime British Army headquarters in the Middle East. The attitudes, aims, and actions of all levels of colonial society – British rulers, African chiefs, military officials, ordinary African men and women – are considered, producing a ‘total history’ of an African country at war.Less
This book is a full study of an African country during the Second World War. Unusually, it provides both an Africanist and an imperial perspective. Using extensive archival and oral evidence, the author explores the social, economic, political, agricultural, and military history of Botswana. He examines Botswana's military contribution to the war effort and the impact of the war on the African home front. The book focuses on events and personalities ‘on the ground’ in Africa, and also on their interaction with and impact upon events and personalities in distant imperial centres, such as Whitehall and the wartime British Army headquarters in the Middle East. The attitudes, aims, and actions of all levels of colonial society – British rulers, African chiefs, military officials, ordinary African men and women – are considered, producing a ‘total history’ of an African country at war.
Mark Rawlinson
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184560
- eISBN:
- 9780191674303
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184560.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book is the first study to provide a detailed critical and historical survey of British literary culture in wartime. Concerned as much with war as with writing, it explores the significance of ...
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This book is the first study to provide a detailed critical and historical survey of British literary culture in wartime. Concerned as much with war as with writing, it explores the significance of cultural representations of violence to the administration of the war effort. A theoretical account of the symbolic practices that connect military violence to policy provides a framework for analysing imaginative and documentary literature in its relation both to propaganda and to Peoples' War ideals of social reconstruction. The book evaluates wartime fictions and memoirs in the context of official and unofficial discourses about military aviation, the Blitz, campaigns in North Africa, war aims, the conscript Army and the Home Front, prisoners of war, and the Holocaust. It uncovers the processes by which the meanings the war had for participants were produced, and provides an extensive bibliographical resource for future scholarship.Less
This book is the first study to provide a detailed critical and historical survey of British literary culture in wartime. Concerned as much with war as with writing, it explores the significance of cultural representations of violence to the administration of the war effort. A theoretical account of the symbolic practices that connect military violence to policy provides a framework for analysing imaginative and documentary literature in its relation both to propaganda and to Peoples' War ideals of social reconstruction. The book evaluates wartime fictions and memoirs in the context of official and unofficial discourses about military aviation, the Blitz, campaigns in North Africa, war aims, the conscript Army and the Home Front, prisoners of war, and the Holocaust. It uncovers the processes by which the meanings the war had for participants were produced, and provides an extensive bibliographical resource for future scholarship.
Jay Winter
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693627
- eISBN:
- 9780191741258
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693627.003.0020
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
German defeat was built into the structure of the war effort of the Kaiserreich. The fact that defeat was deferred for so long was due to two phenomena: (1) Allied blunders and misconceptions were as ...
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German defeat was built into the structure of the war effort of the Kaiserreich. The fact that defeat was deferred for so long was due to two phenomena: (1) Allied blunders and misconceptions were as disastrous as those of the German leadership. These failures enabled Germany to avoid the logical consequence of her profound strategic disadvantages, which arose out of the greater capacity of the Allies to solve the problems of supply and distribution, at the heart of industrial warfare. (2) The strength and sophistication of the German army, in particular in defensive positions, enabled it to hold its own and to win on the Eastern front long after its overall strategic position in the war had become untenable. After March 1918, everything came apart. Front and home front unraveled at the same time, requiring Germany to seek out an Armistice ending a war she could never have won.Less
German defeat was built into the structure of the war effort of the Kaiserreich. The fact that defeat was deferred for so long was due to two phenomena: (1) Allied blunders and misconceptions were as disastrous as those of the German leadership. These failures enabled Germany to avoid the logical consequence of her profound strategic disadvantages, which arose out of the greater capacity of the Allies to solve the problems of supply and distribution, at the heart of industrial warfare. (2) The strength and sophistication of the German army, in particular in defensive positions, enabled it to hold its own and to win on the Eastern front long after its overall strategic position in the war had become untenable. After March 1918, everything came apart. Front and home front unraveled at the same time, requiring Germany to seek out an Armistice ending a war she could never have won.
Laura Heins
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037740
- eISBN:
- 9780252095023
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037740.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter compares Hollywood and Nazi uses of melodrama during World War II and demonstrates that the American home front film portrayed the war effort as a defense of middle-class domesticity, ...
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This chapter compares Hollywood and Nazi uses of melodrama during World War II and demonstrates that the American home front film portrayed the war effort as a defense of middle-class domesticity, while the Nazi home front melodrama suggested that war provided a means to intensified erotic experience. Home front melodramas featuring female main protagonists, contemporary settings, and a thematization of the war were produced in Hollywood and in Babelsberg, but the form and extent of this treatment was not identical in the two cinemas. The chapter considers the approaches to cinematic propaganda advocated by the leadership of both sides, by looking at the paradigmatic Hollywood home front films Mrs. Miniver and Since You Went Away (1944) in detail. It then examines Nazi home front melodramas in relation to conventions established by these Hollywood films.Less
This chapter compares Hollywood and Nazi uses of melodrama during World War II and demonstrates that the American home front film portrayed the war effort as a defense of middle-class domesticity, while the Nazi home front melodrama suggested that war provided a means to intensified erotic experience. Home front melodramas featuring female main protagonists, contemporary settings, and a thematization of the war were produced in Hollywood and in Babelsberg, but the form and extent of this treatment was not identical in the two cinemas. The chapter considers the approaches to cinematic propaganda advocated by the leadership of both sides, by looking at the paradigmatic Hollywood home front films Mrs. Miniver and Since You Went Away (1944) in detail. It then examines Nazi home front melodramas in relation to conventions established by these Hollywood films.
Edmund L. Drago
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823229376
- eISBN:
- 9780823234912
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823229376.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This chapter discusses the idea that the Civil War's greatest impact on children came through its impact on their family life. Households in South Carolina experienced severe problems because the war ...
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This chapter discusses the idea that the Civil War's greatest impact on children came through its impact on their family life. Households in South Carolina experienced severe problems because the war drained their districts of doctors and skilled artisans important to the functioning of their communities.Less
This chapter discusses the idea that the Civil War's greatest impact on children came through its impact on their family life. Households in South Carolina experienced severe problems because the war drained their districts of doctors and skilled artisans important to the functioning of their communities.
S. P. MacKenzie
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198205777
- eISBN:
- 9780191676789
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205777.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Military History
Today we laugh at ‘Dad's Army’, but in 1940 the threat of a German invasion of Britain was a very real one. This book's history of the Home Guard offers a new perspective on the men who took up the ...
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Today we laugh at ‘Dad's Army’, but in 1940 the threat of a German invasion of Britain was a very real one. This book's history of the Home Guard offers a new perspective on the men who took up the challenge. Despite its popular image of old men and teenagers playing soldiers, the Home Guard, often as large as the wartime army, became an astonishingly strong political force in its own right. Quite literally the people in arms it proved able to exert a good deal of influence on policy. The threat of invasion receded and the Home Guard was never called upon to fulfil its military role, though there was a brief attempt to resurrect it in the 1950s. Since then it has been largely neglected by military historians and there have been few serious examinations of the part it played in the Home Front.Less
Today we laugh at ‘Dad's Army’, but in 1940 the threat of a German invasion of Britain was a very real one. This book's history of the Home Guard offers a new perspective on the men who took up the challenge. Despite its popular image of old men and teenagers playing soldiers, the Home Guard, often as large as the wartime army, became an astonishingly strong political force in its own right. Quite literally the people in arms it proved able to exert a good deal of influence on policy. The threat of invasion receded and the Home Guard was never called upon to fulfil its military role, though there was a brief attempt to resurrect it in the 1950s. Since then it has been largely neglected by military historians and there have been few serious examinations of the part it played in the Home Front.
Joseph T. Glatthaar
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693627
- eISBN:
- 9780191741258
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693627.003.0016
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter employs the Army of Northern Virginia as a test case to study how soldiers lose faith in the favourable outcome of the war. Glatthaar examines the external and internal wartime strains ...
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This chapter employs the Army of Northern Virginia as a test case to study how soldiers lose faith in the favourable outcome of the war. Glatthaar examines the external and internal wartime strains that pressured and ultimately eroded support among soldiers, many of whom had served for three or four years, for continuing the fight. Undermanned and under-resourced, the Army's limited margin for error deteriorated over four years of war, cutting into the very fabric of the Confederate society and its war effort. Staggering casualties, widespread food and supply shortages, concern for loved ones at home, and continual, demanding service at the front compounded. Intense and sustained Union pressure created fissures in every aspect of Confederate life, placing the army on a downward spiral and ultimately bringing down the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederacy.Less
This chapter employs the Army of Northern Virginia as a test case to study how soldiers lose faith in the favourable outcome of the war. Glatthaar examines the external and internal wartime strains that pressured and ultimately eroded support among soldiers, many of whom had served for three or four years, for continuing the fight. Undermanned and under-resourced, the Army's limited margin for error deteriorated over four years of war, cutting into the very fabric of the Confederate society and its war effort. Staggering casualties, widespread food and supply shortages, concern for loved ones at home, and continual, demanding service at the front compounded. Intense and sustained Union pressure created fissures in every aspect of Confederate life, placing the army on a downward spiral and ultimately bringing down the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederacy.
Ashley Jackson
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207641
- eISBN:
- 9780191677762
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207641.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
While the notion of ‘home front’ is commonly found in discussions regarding the historiography of Britain during periods of war, and is often used to represent domestic manifestations within the war, ...
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While the notion of ‘home front’ is commonly found in discussions regarding the historiography of Britain during periods of war, and is often used to represent domestic manifestations within the war, such can also be applied to how the war had been able to impose significant and direct impacts on the economic and social lives of the people in Bechuanaland. During the period between 1939 and 1945, it was made evident through the various rationing measures, price and tax increases, and other such economic measures, that the Protectorate had made considerable economic contributions to the war. Intensified control and regulation measures and the extraction of resources are commonplace descriptions of the African economies during the war. In this chapter, the different aspects of the economic history of wartime in Bechuanaland are analysed to provide an outline of the war's key effects.Less
While the notion of ‘home front’ is commonly found in discussions regarding the historiography of Britain during periods of war, and is often used to represent domestic manifestations within the war, such can also be applied to how the war had been able to impose significant and direct impacts on the economic and social lives of the people in Bechuanaland. During the period between 1939 and 1945, it was made evident through the various rationing measures, price and tax increases, and other such economic measures, that the Protectorate had made considerable economic contributions to the war. Intensified control and regulation measures and the extraction of resources are commonplace descriptions of the African economies during the war. In this chapter, the different aspects of the economic history of wartime in Bechuanaland are analysed to provide an outline of the war's key effects.
Matthew L. Basso
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226038865
- eISBN:
- 9780226044224
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226044224.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines society's new expectations for masculinity articulated in discussions about the military draft, patriotism, and home front versus frontline service from 1940 through 1942. The ...
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This chapter examines society's new expectations for masculinity articulated in discussions about the military draft, patriotism, and home front versus frontline service from 1940 through 1942. The miners and smeltermen of Montana challenged the suggestion that the men who served in uniform were the most masculine and valuable, and that they had to discard their independent working-class masculinity for sacrificial masculinity. Instead of joining the armed forces, many Montana copper men defended their roles as essential workers and family providers. Home front culture was permeated by wartime propaganda comparing soldiers to industrial workers.Less
This chapter examines society's new expectations for masculinity articulated in discussions about the military draft, patriotism, and home front versus frontline service from 1940 through 1942. The miners and smeltermen of Montana challenged the suggestion that the men who served in uniform were the most masculine and valuable, and that they had to discard their independent working-class masculinity for sacrificial masculinity. Instead of joining the armed forces, many Montana copper men defended their roles as essential workers and family providers. Home front culture was permeated by wartime propaganda comparing soldiers to industrial workers.
Brooks Blevins
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042737
- eISBN:
- 9780252051593
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042737.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Chapter 3 continues a linear discussion of the war but also notes the Civil War’s metamorphosis into a different kind of conflict in its final two years in the Ozarks. Following the Battle of Prairie ...
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Chapter 3 continues a linear discussion of the war but also notes the Civil War’s metamorphosis into a different kind of conflict in its final two years in the Ozarks. Following the Battle of Prairie Grove in December 1862--chronicled in the previous chapter--the remainder of the conflict sees little action by large armies of either side. Instead, the official military activity concentrates on raids, counterinsurgency efforts, and punitive attacks. Much of the chapter deals with life on the home front in the Ozarks no-man’s-land and the guerrilla fighters who came to represent the region’s war over the final two years.Less
Chapter 3 continues a linear discussion of the war but also notes the Civil War’s metamorphosis into a different kind of conflict in its final two years in the Ozarks. Following the Battle of Prairie Grove in December 1862--chronicled in the previous chapter--the remainder of the conflict sees little action by large armies of either side. Instead, the official military activity concentrates on raids, counterinsurgency efforts, and punitive attacks. Much of the chapter deals with life on the home front in the Ozarks no-man’s-land and the guerrilla fighters who came to represent the region’s war over the final two years.
Dennis Showalter
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693627
- eISBN:
- 9780191741258
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693627.003.0019
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The greatest risk a soldier can take in combat is surrendering. It involves a primal act of trust towards ‘others’ who directly seek your death. During World War I, however, surrenders were ...
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The greatest risk a soldier can take in combat is surrendering. It involves a primal act of trust towards ‘others’ who directly seek your death. During World War I, however, surrenders were frequently negotiated not personally, but in command contexts. This essay asserts the key underlying issue in such surrenders was trust. Under Great War conditions trust existed on three levels: the unit, the system, and the state. If even one of those functioned, surrenders could be negotiated — or rejected. If one broke down, whether confidence in immediate commanders, confidence in the army's culture of competence, or confidence that the state was fulfilling the social contract implied by universal conscription, the tendency was towards entropy: mutiny or revolution.Less
The greatest risk a soldier can take in combat is surrendering. It involves a primal act of trust towards ‘others’ who directly seek your death. During World War I, however, surrenders were frequently negotiated not personally, but in command contexts. This essay asserts the key underlying issue in such surrenders was trust. Under Great War conditions trust existed on three levels: the unit, the system, and the state. If even one of those functioned, surrenders could be negotiated — or rejected. If one broke down, whether confidence in immediate commanders, confidence in the army's culture of competence, or confidence that the state was fulfilling the social contract implied by universal conscription, the tendency was towards entropy: mutiny or revolution.
Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813123868
- eISBN:
- 9780813134840
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813123868.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines Hollywood war films about the U.S. home front, particularly those that defied conventions and presented a version of American life at odds with the official depiction ...
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This chapter examines Hollywood war films about the U.S. home front, particularly those that defied conventions and presented a version of American life at odds with the official depiction promulgated by most films. These so-called B movies were low-budget, quickly made, and usually action-oriented. They are usually designed to film the second half of a double bill by the major studios. Examples of these films include The Doughgirls, Standing Room Only, and Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore.Less
This chapter examines Hollywood war films about the U.S. home front, particularly those that defied conventions and presented a version of American life at odds with the official depiction promulgated by most films. These so-called B movies were low-budget, quickly made, and usually action-oriented. They are usually designed to film the second half of a double bill by the major studios. Examples of these films include The Doughgirls, Standing Room Only, and Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore.
Matthew L. Basso
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226038865
- eISBN:
- 9780226044224
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226044224.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
“I realize that I am a soldier of production whose duties are as important in this war as those of the man behind the gun.” So began the pledge that many home front men took at the outset of World ...
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“I realize that I am a soldier of production whose duties are as important in this war as those of the man behind the gun.” So began the pledge that many home front men took at the outset of World War II when they went to work in the factories, fields, and mines while their compatriots fought in the battlefields of Europe and on the bloody beaches of the Pacific. The male experience of working and living in wartime America is rarely examined, but the story of men such as these provides a crucial counter-narrative to the national story of Rosie the Riveter and GI Joe that dominates scholarly and popular discussions of World War II. This book describes the formation of a powerful, white, working-class masculine ideology in the decades prior to the war, and shows how it thrived—on the job, in the community, and through union politics. It recalls for us the practices and beliefs of the first- and second-generation immigrant copper workers of Montana while advancing the historical conversation on gender, class, and the formation of a white ethnic racial identity. The book provides a context for our ideas of postwar masculinity and whiteness, and finally returns the men of the home front to our reckoning of the Greatest Generation and the New Deal era.Less
“I realize that I am a soldier of production whose duties are as important in this war as those of the man behind the gun.” So began the pledge that many home front men took at the outset of World War II when they went to work in the factories, fields, and mines while their compatriots fought in the battlefields of Europe and on the bloody beaches of the Pacific. The male experience of working and living in wartime America is rarely examined, but the story of men such as these provides a crucial counter-narrative to the national story of Rosie the Riveter and GI Joe that dominates scholarly and popular discussions of World War II. This book describes the formation of a powerful, white, working-class masculine ideology in the decades prior to the war, and shows how it thrived—on the job, in the community, and through union politics. It recalls for us the practices and beliefs of the first- and second-generation immigrant copper workers of Montana while advancing the historical conversation on gender, class, and the formation of a white ethnic racial identity. The book provides a context for our ideas of postwar masculinity and whiteness, and finally returns the men of the home front to our reckoning of the Greatest Generation and the New Deal era.
Ryan W. Keating
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823276592
- eISBN:
- 9780823277117
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823276592.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
This chapter argues that the focus on patriotism and loyalty on the home front and, in particular, expressions of this through women’s war work, often obscures the realities of life for the women and ...
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This chapter argues that the focus on patriotism and loyalty on the home front and, in particular, expressions of this through women’s war work, often obscures the realities of life for the women and families of soldiers in the field. Although public professions of support for the war effort were vital to creation perceptions of stability throughout the war, families did suffer when their men went to war, and those sufferings ere expounded with the death of a soldier. The ways in which the war impacted the lives of the wives, families, and dependents of soldiers from Connecticut, Illinois, and Wisconsin help to illuminate the collision of public and private spheres as the war forced soldiers and civilians to contend with the personal as well as political consequences of the war.Less
This chapter argues that the focus on patriotism and loyalty on the home front and, in particular, expressions of this through women’s war work, often obscures the realities of life for the women and families of soldiers in the field. Although public professions of support for the war effort were vital to creation perceptions of stability throughout the war, families did suffer when their men went to war, and those sufferings ere expounded with the death of a soldier. The ways in which the war impacted the lives of the wives, families, and dependents of soldiers from Connecticut, Illinois, and Wisconsin help to illuminate the collision of public and private spheres as the war forced soldiers and civilians to contend with the personal as well as political consequences of the war.
Anne Spry Rush
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199588558
- eISBN:
- 9780191728990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588558.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter examines the experiences of West Indians in the First and Second World Wars, exploring their contribution to the war efforts along with native British reactions to their participation ...
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This chapter examines the experiences of West Indians in the First and Second World Wars, exploring their contribution to the war efforts along with native British reactions to their participation overseas as well as on the British and Caribbean home fronts. British Caribbean peoples served in the armed forces, as civilian war workers, and as advocates for the British cause. They experienced both discrimination and encouragement from British officials and ordinary native Britons as they endeavored to support the mother country during the wars. Their uneven treatment angered many West Indians, but others choose to interpret their experiences in ways that reinforced their identification with Britain, even as the war created circumstances that allowed them to also take pride in their achievements as Caribbean peoples.Less
This chapter examines the experiences of West Indians in the First and Second World Wars, exploring their contribution to the war efforts along with native British reactions to their participation overseas as well as on the British and Caribbean home fronts. British Caribbean peoples served in the armed forces, as civilian war workers, and as advocates for the British cause. They experienced both discrimination and encouragement from British officials and ordinary native Britons as they endeavored to support the mother country during the wars. Their uneven treatment angered many West Indians, but others choose to interpret their experiences in ways that reinforced their identification with Britain, even as the war created circumstances that allowed them to also take pride in their achievements as Caribbean peoples.
