Drafting for domesticity: American deferment policy during the Cold War, 1948–1965

Abstract

This article uses military manpower policy to illustrate the pervasiveness and unintended consequences of militarisation in the United States between 1948 and 1965. Conscription fuelled America's Cold War military. Over time, however, the Selective Service widened its deferment criteria to include more students and family men, purposefully guiding them into civilian occupations and domestic arrangements it defined as in the national interest. This practice coalesced into ‘manpower channelling’ in the mid-1950s, a policy that militarised certain civilian activities, but that also highlighted the limits of military service in the United States. Ultimately, it helped separate military service from masculine citizenship obligations.