Taming the tank: American soldiers’ views of technology, agency, and masculinity in the First World War

Abstract

ABSTRACT Soldiers fight not only with and against machines, but also with and against their ideas of those machines. Although the design and deployment of First World War tanks have been extensively researched, mental images of the technology also played an important part in the machine’s impact and have received insufficient attention (notable exceptions are Fox’s study of German tank illustrations, Searle’s analysis of the visual representations of tanks in British periodicals, and Tate’s and Wright’s cultural histories that examine British perspectives of the tank). This essay explores the ways in which soldiers and journalists serving with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) constructed ideas of the tank that reflect particularly American views of the war, technology, agency, and masculinity. Viewing the tank as less of a monster and more of a motor, American soldiers of the AEF frequently used language that infantilized, feminized, and subdued the tank, thus communicating their belief in the superiority of the United States and in their own confident virility.