Onward Kitchen Soldiers: Mobilizing the Domestic During World War I

Abstract

Hear the bugle call, The Call to those who stay at home; You are soldiers all, Though you may never cross the foam. . . During World War I, social mobility was promised to American women through governmental propaganda campaigns that became the basis for a cultural re-imagining of women's social roles. On a national level, the Amer- ican home and the women who purportedly ran the American home became crucial components in the mobilization of allied forces. The various propa- ganda materials that bombarded American women in the late teens of this century served to enlighten and direct. In retrospect, however, they also dis- close the often-conservative motives that lurked behind such aggressive campaigning. Propagandistic efforts to negotiate "woman power" into the American "war machine" operated simultaneously with efforts to contain this newly sought "woman power," creating an almost impossible paradox for the patriotic American woman. The Great War not only permanently altered the home but also caused dramatic shifts in women's roles both inside and out- side of that space. Using women's magazines of the period, song lyrics, journal entries, historical accounts of the war by scholars as well as parti- cipants, and the publications of various governmental agencies of the time, this study will demonstrate that the home became an increasingly militarized and commercialized space, occupied by kitchen soldiers whose call to arms placed them and their labour in a newfound position of national importance.