Ebook571 pages10 hours
The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I
By Lynn Dumenil
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this ebook
In tracing the rise of the modern idea of the American "new woman," Lynn Dumenil examines World War I's surprising impact on women and, in turn, women's impact on the war. Telling the stories of a diverse group of women, including African Americans, dissidents, pacifists, reformers, and industrial workers, Dumenil analyzes both the roadblocks and opportunities they faced. She richly explores the ways in which women helped the United States mobilize for the largest military endeavor in the nation's history. Dumenil shows how women activists staked their claim to loyal citizenship by framing their war work as homefront volunteers, overseas nurses, factory laborers, and support personnel as "the second line of defense." But in assessing the impact of these contributions on traditional gender roles, Dumenil finds that portrayals of these new modern women did not always match with real and enduring change. Extensively researched and drawing upon popular culture sources as well as archival material, The Second Line of Defense offers a comprehensive study of American women and war and frames them in the broader context of the social, cultural, and political history of the era.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 7, 2017
ISBN9781469631226
Author
Lynn Dumenil
Lynn Dumenil is Robert Glass Cleland Professor of American History Emerita at Occidental College.
Related to The Second Line of Defense
Related ebooks
William Alexander Percy: The Curious Life of a Mississippi Planter and Sexual Freethinker Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Prodigal Daughters: Susanna Rowson's Early American Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLieutenant Nun (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in France, 1917–1921: Women Urgently Wanted Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quest for Freedom: A life of Alexander Kerensky the Russian Unicorn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Old San Francisco Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAustralian Women War Reporters: Boer War to Vietnam Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs. Simcoe's Diary Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5"Truth Behind Bars": Reflections on the Fate of the Russian Revolution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Women in World War I: They Also Served Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Framingham Legends & Lore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe First Governess of the Netherlands, Margaret of Austria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRailway Crimes Committed in Victorian Britain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdith Wharton's Lenox Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNinety-Three Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZoia's Gold: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Immigrants in the Lands of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and New York City, 1870–1914 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rochdale Village: Robert Moses, 6,000 Families, and New York City's Great Experiment in Integrated Housing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Harold Frederic's "The Damnation of Theron Ware" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings200 Years Yonge: A History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiterature Companion: Ordinary People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGlobal West, American Frontier: Travel, Empire, and Exceptionalism from Manifest Destiny to the Great Depression Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTerra Mechanica Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rayners of Massachusetts: And Where We Came From Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiamond Jim Brady: Prince of the Gilded Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Richard Wright's "Bright and Morning Star" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHouse of Page's: —Also—Eng 10-1 in County of Suffolk, England Viking Influence in Denmark – France – England – Virginia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Diary of the Crimea Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Wars & Military For You
The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unit 731: Testimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Second Line of Defense
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When the United States entered the First World War a century ago, the scale of the conflict required a level of mobilization unprecedented in American history. Not only men but women as well were called upon to perform a range of new roles in life, from manual labor in industry to enlistment in the armed services. For many of these women, these new responsibilities offered stimulating challenges and economic opportunities previously unavailable to them. Some of them saw the war an an opportunity to demonstrate their role as patriotic citizens fully deserving of the vote, while others organized to oppose the nation's entry into a seemingly endless conflict that had already wasted the lives of millions.
One of the difficulties in describing the roles American women played in the First World War is in summarizing such a broad range of experiences for the socially diverse women whose lives changed as a result of the war. In response to this challenge, Lynn Dunmeil has written a book that examines the role women played in their American war effort from a broad occupational perspective, with successive chapters that look at their volunteerism at home, the work they performed, and the relative handful who crossed the Atlantic to serve in a variety of noncombatant roles in France. Dunmeil shows how these women responded to the challenges these new responsibilities posed, ones that often undermined prewar assumptions about the proper place for women in modern life. In this respect, the reversion to more traditional spheres of activity at the end of the war proved a significant setback that erased the gains many of these women had made. And while women nationwide were granted the vote soon afterward, the reimposition of most other limits was a major disappointment, one that colored their expectations and goals in the decades that followed.
Cogently argued and grounded in an impressive amount of research, Dumenil's book offers readers an excellent examination of the ways in which American women participated in the First World War and how it changed their lives. Her analysis of the role class and race played in defining their experiences is a particular strength of her book, and one that underscores the range of factors involved in shaping their relationship to the conflict. In the process, she restores women to their proper place in the history of America during the First World War -- alongside the men as active participants in it.
Book preview
The Second Line of Defense - Lynn Dumenil
b'e book_preview_excerpt.html }ے#Ǒ侑fECx1ʊŦ)vMݚ6> Df2/U
=iae?afvvW?ᗬ(4ɵ14Q@f\m8UMëjUy:郎.kJ>hW)_hP72CG
u#ZU8Us/m
cz;^Xm#lݗMi~-SoUa3ukǿYU}>rv;q!rfcu{qC[cyngٛ:4ˡXd%k-YU~s{SSdOc;qB.6':^>Nk'c;qXs[CwzhgpNDcbSuy\}_V;Ǯ26^l4srG%![_MXC-Բ'rdMz**}01RD>j=:#FSN'O4H%-V>]z 'u\@㨟IJZ~L-_hR2RƏqD2U(@yXg
ypj]
2Ch1lhLYVGE=Ńf-%Kq>?u6TXX.R8QD9hx"P`lkih_#ZwxSoFtX<ޅJ$6sb[.tnrF嬈ņ^