Mothers raise the army: Women's politics, popular culture and the Great War in America, 1914--1941
Item
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Title
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Mothers raise the army: Women's politics, popular culture and the Great War in America, 1914--1941
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:922fdbed4c59:11206
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identifier
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11618
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Creator
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Hallgren, Katherine N.,
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Contributor
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David Nasaw
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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American history | Womens studies | African American | conservative | motherhood | nationalism | pacifism | war
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Abstract
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In April 1917, after America's declaration of war on Germany, pro-war women began to lobby Congress to pass a military draft. Presenting themselves as true mothers of the nation, these women described their sons as patriotic, naturally drawn to military service in wartime. They were attempting to combat two groups: the maternal pacifists who argued that women should oppose war, and the immigrants they feared would not enlist. Even after Congress passed conscription, the heroism of mothers of soldiers and sailors captured the imaginations of pro-war artists. Sheet music, short stories, journalism and film praised mothers willing to support their sons' enlistment.;The nation's largest and most influential women's voluntary associations supported the war. Claiming to act as mothers to the nation, officers and members pressed for suffrage and morals reforms. African Americans used patriotic motherhood to remind whites of the history of black sacrifice for the nation. But while it could be used for a variety of causes, patriotic motherhood was an essentialist, conservative vision of a woman's role. As clubwomen adopted the role of mother to the nation's soldiers, they pushed for anti-prostitution measures that hurt working-class women and women of color. Clubwomen and reformers ignored their own studies showing that women engaged in prostitution because of poverty, not moral weakness. Their intense focus on the nation's soldier "boys" helped blind them to the needs of its daughters.;After the war, organizations for mothers of world war servicemen kept ideals of patriotic motherhood alive. They took part in commemorations and holiday rituals and enjoyed the status of national heroines. Starting in the early 1920s, organizations such as the American War Mothers joined antiradical causes and pursued a politics that linked a strong military defense system with nativism and antiradicalism. The mothers appeared above the political fray until in the 1930s opponents exposed their racist practices, and a new student antiwar movement attacked patriotic motherhood as a perversion of a mother's love. Debates over the Second World War exploded the patriotic motherhood of the Great War generation but did not end Americans' fascination with mothers of soldiers.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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History
