Gertrude Atherton’s WWI Propaganda to the Home Front: Mrs. Balfame, The Living Present and The White Morning

Abstract

Abstract Gertrude Atherton’s Mrs. Balfame (1916), The Living Present (1917) and The White Morning (1918) address the home front audience about the war front of World War I. Atherton chronicles American political transition from isolationism to new internationalism with her pro-Ally and pro-American agenda. In her novel Mrs. Balfame, Atherton reflects political polarization in American society during the U. S. neutrality and anti-German stance, referring to the impacts of war reports on public opinion. The Living Present underlines French women’s wartime services on the home front and transatlantic collaboration through Atherton’s recollections. In her novel The White Morning, German women’s suffering and sense of duty gradually carry them to the war front with women’s revolution that brings their war to an end with Prussian militarism and patriarchal oppression. Thus, Atherton’s propaganda literature encourages women’s political awareness and wartime mobilization for their postwar progress and demands as citizens.