A transnational perspective of women on the home front

Abstract

This chapter considers a range of different experiences of women’s lives on the home front during the Second World War. These differences were for the most part due to a combination of factors involving culture, language, and political affiliations, among others. The chapter’s focus on women on the transnational home front reflects the respective areas of the authors’ expertise, with Frances Davey looking at women in the United States and Joanna Salapska-Gelleri covering Central and Eastern Europe. The primary difference was proximity to combat, notwithstanding the impact that the war had on home and family generally. This chapter thus explores the everyday realities of women’s lives on the home front, wherever that home front might have been. The chapter disrupts a common conceit: that the home front, which is often presumed to refer to the United States or Britain, is contained within national boundaries. Instead, the chapter zooms out to understand the home front from a transnational perspective; specifically, the United States and Central and Eastern Europe. The chapter does this through the lens of oral history.