Nicola Hamilton – Annotated Bibliography

For my dissertation I intend to look at how attitudes towards women in Britain changed through looking at World War One propaganda. 

Primary Sources

Unknown Author. (1914). Women of Britain Say ‘Go!’. Available at: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/women-britain-say-go#

I found this primary source on the British Library Website. The source is a piece of propaganda in a poster format which was designed in World War One to encourage women to make their men to enlist in the war. It was also created to make men feel ashamed for not enlisting. The poster effectively captures the divisions between men and women at the time as it was a noble motivation for men to enlist as they were protecting women and children. 

Unknown Author. (1915). Go! It’s Your Duty Lad. Available at: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/28450

I came across this primary source while looking through the Imperial War Museum’s collection on propaganda. While the previous source was reminding all women to encourage their men to enlist, this particular poster appealed directly to mothers. The poster depicts a mother with her arm around her son claiming that it’s ‘his duty’ to enlist. It is stating that mothers should put aside their selfish reasons for not wanting their sons to enlist and ensure that they do. 

 Unknown Author. (Date Unknown). Women Wanted Urgently. Available at: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/31380

Like the last primary source, this one is also from the Imperial War Museum’s collection. While the date is unknown, I assume from reading secondary sources that it is from 1915 onwards as that is around the period when women’s role at the home front became urgent. The poster highlights the shift in attitudes towards women as women were beginning to adopt ‘male’ employment roles. By having the word ‘urgent’ in bold and in red, it conveyed the need for female workers as men were being conscripted. 

Scott, S. (1916). These Women Are Doing Their Bit. Available at: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/24057

Again, this primary source was found whilst looking through the Imperial War Museum’s collection. Like the last source, the poster is encouraging women to work in employment areas usually dominated by men – in this poster in particular it is appealing to women to work in munitions. The women in the poster looks eager to take advantage off the new employment made available to her as a result of the war. 

Secondary Sources

Monger, D. (2014). ‘Nothing Special? Propaganda and Women’s Roles in Late First World War Britain’ in Women’s History Review. Routledge 

I came across this source whilst looking through the Stirling University library catalogue. The article looks at the National War Aims Committee (NWAC) which ran a propaganda newspaper called Welcome. The NWAC romanticised women through propaganda by portraying them as cartoons undertaking domestic roles to ensure to the men at war that everything was okay at home. While the NWAC romanticised women, they also praised women’s contribution to the war through their roles as nurses, auxiliaries, munition workers etc. 

Braybon, G. (2013). Women Workers in the First World War. Abingdon: Routledge 

Chapters one and two of this book are useful in understanding the role in which women played during World War One. They explore why and how women undertook male dominated roles and how helpful their contributions were. The book also gives useful statistics such as 1 in 3 working women were ‘replacing’ a male worker in industrial roles in 1917 (p. 46).