British Widows of the First World War

British Widows of the First World War
Author: Andrea Hetherington
Publsiher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2018-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781473886780

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Widows of the Great War is the first major account of the experience of women who had to cope with the death of their husbands during the conflict and then rebuild their lives. It explores each stage of their bereavement, from the shock of receiving the news that their husband had been killed, through grief and mourning to the practical issues of compensation and a widow's pension. The way in which the state and society treated the widows during this process is a vital theme running through the book as it reveals in vivid detail how the bureaucracy of war helped and hindered them as they sought to come to terms with their loss. Andrea Hetherington also describes often overlooked aspects of bereavement, and she features many telling first-hand accounts from the widows themselves which show how they saw their situation and how they reacted to it. Her study gives us a fascinating insight into the way in which the armed services and the government regarded war widows during the early years of the twentieth century.

Discourses Surrounding British Widows of the First World War

Discourses Surrounding British Widows of the First World War
Author: Angela Smith
Publsiher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2014-03-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781780932613

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Using extensive data - mostly gleaned from the National Archives - this book examines the way in which British widows of servicemen who died in the First World War were represented in society and by themselves, exploring the intertwining discourses of social welfare, national identity, and morality that can be identified in these texts. Focusing on two widows, the book encourages their individual stories to emerge and gives a voice to an otherwise forgotten group of women whose stories have been lost under the literary tomes of middle-class writers such as Vera Brittain and May Wedderburn Cannon. The discussion is further informed by a wider reading of 300 other such files, which allows wider observations to be made about the nature of the discourses examined, and offers the most complete possible picture for such data. Offering a streamlined adaptation of the Discourse-Historical Approach to critical discourse analysis, Discourses Surrounding British Widows of the First World War demonstrates how this model of analysis can be used to investigate a large body of data from a wide variety of sources, covering a long period of time. As such it will be useful to all scholars in their analysis of historical corpa.

Deserters of the First World War

Deserters of the First World War
Author: Andrea Hetherington
Publsiher: Pen and Sword Military
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2021-07-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781526748027

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The story of First World War deserters who were shot at dawn, then pardoned nearly a century later has often been told, but these 306 soldiers represent a tiny proportion of deserters. More than 80,000 cases of desertion and absence were tried at courts martial on the home front but these soldiers have been ignored. Andrea Hetherington, in this thought-provoking and meticulously researched account, sets the record straight by describing the deserters who disappeared from camps and barracks within Great Britain at an alarming rate. She reveals how they employed a range of survival strategies, some ridding themselves of all connection with the military while others hid in plain sight. Their reasons for desertion varied. Some were already living a life of crime whilst others were conscientious objectors who refused to respond to their call-up papers. Boredom, protest, troubles at home or physical and mental disabilities all played their part in men deciding to go on the run. Andrea Hetherington’s timely book gives us a vivid insight into a hitherto overlooked aspect of the First World War.

War s Forgotten Women

War s Forgotten Women
Author: Helen D Millgate,Maureen Shaw
Publsiher: The History Press
Total Pages: 157
Release: 2011-10-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780752467009

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The Second World War widows were the ' forgotten women', largely ignored by the government and the majority of the population. The men who died in the service of their country were rightly honoured, but the widows and orphans they left behind were soon forgotten. During the war and afterwards in post-war austerity Britain their lives were particularly bleak. The meagre pensions they were given were taxed at the highest rate and gave them barely enough to keep body and soul together, let alone look after their children. Through their diaries, letters and personal interviews we are given an insight into post-war Britain that is a moving testament to the will to survive of a generation of women. The treatment of these war widows was shameful and continued right up to 1989. This is their story.

Of Little Comfort

Of Little Comfort
Author: Erika Kuhlman
Publsiher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2012-03-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780814748404

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During and especially after World War I, the millions of black-clad widows on the streets of Europe’s cities were a constant reminder that war caused carnage on a vast scale. But widows were far more than just a reminder of the war’s fallen soldiers; they were literal and figurative actresses in how nations crafted their identities in the interwar era. In this extremely original study, Erika Kuhlman compares the ways in which German and American widows experienced their postwar status, and how that played into the cultures of mourning in their two nations: one defeated, the other victorious. Each nation used widows and war dead as symbols to either uphold their victory or disengage from their defeat, but Kuhlman, parsing both German and U.S. primary sources, compares widows’ lived experiences to public memory. For some widows, government compensation in the form of military-style awards sufficed. For others, their own deprivations, combined with those suffered by widows living in other nations, became the touchstone of a transnational awareness of the absurdity of war and the need to prevent it.

Behind the Lines

Behind the Lines
Author: Margaret R. Higonnet,Jane Jenson,Sonya Michel
Publsiher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 1987-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300044291

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Essays analyze the two world wars in respect to gender politics and reassesses the differences between men and women in relation to war

British Widows of the First World War

British Widows of the First World War
Author: Andrea Hetherington
Publsiher: Casemate Publishers
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2018-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781473886797

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Widows of the Great War is the first major account of the experience of women who had to cope with the death of their husbands during the conflict and then rebuild their lives. It explores each stage of their bereavement, from the shock of receiving the news that their husband had been killed, through grief and mourning to the practical issues of compensation and a widow's pension. The way in which the state and society treated the widows during this process is a vital theme running through the book as it reveals in vivid detail how the bureaucracy of war helped and hindered them as they sought to come to terms with their loss. Andrea Hetherington also describes often overlooked aspects of bereavement, and she features many telling first-hand accounts from the widows themselves which show how they saw their situation and how they reacted to it. Her study gives us a fascinating insight into the way in which the armed services and the government regarded war widows during the early years of the twentieth century.

The Home Front in Britain

The Home Front in Britain
Author: Maggie Andrews,Janis Lomas
Publsiher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137348976

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This collection of fourteen, academically rigorous and accessible chapters explores the British Home Front in the last 100 years since the outbreak of WW1. The wide range of case studies include war widows allowances, Landgirls, the role of factory inspectors in WW1 and canal boat women, national savings, Guernsey evacuees and clothes rationing in WW2. The meaning and images of the British home and family in times of war are interrogated in the past and in contemporary culture to challenge prevalent myths of how working and domestic life shifted in times of national conflict. This volume is intended to encourage a reappraisal of the place of the Home Front in British conceptualisations of war and conflict.