Ideas and Ideals of Domesticity and Home in the First World War

Abstract

The munitions worker and the Women’s Land Army are familiar images of the Home Front in First World War and the number of women in paid employment increased during the conflict; however the majority of women remained in the home1 or retained domestic roles and responsibilities alongside paid work. Nevertheless domestic life can still be categorised by Gilbert and Gubar as part of the ‘unofficial female history’ of First World War 2 which has received limited academic attention. This chapter suggests that during the conflict, the home and women’s associated domestic and emotional responsibilities for nurturing and supporting men were sustained, reworked, stretched and developed in Britain. A range of letters, diaries, memories, newspapers and posters, particularly from the West Midlands, will be utilised to draw attention to the significance of the domestic activities women undertook in wartime. Women cared for or supported men in their domestic lives and in voluntary activities beyond their homes; hence gender roles and status were not fundamentally challenged. Indeed the seeds were sewn for a new privileging of the domestic3 within private life, the imagination and public discourses4 in the post-war era.