Book in the lobby. They will be able to take your credit card. Lynn will be ready to sign it. It is not true early to be making a christmas gift. [laughter] so that all the shopping done well before. Dumenil is the professor of American History at occidental college. She has taught a number of distinguished institutions, including berkeley, whitman college, and she specializes in u. S. Womens history and cultural and social history since the civil war. She is a distinguished professor, having received many honors, including being a senior fulbright lecture, and many other recognitions, which is also to say we are in for a treat. She brings to this topic a richness which i think is going to make this experience one of real memory frost. So, once again, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here and for participating in the activities of the national war or one museum and memorial. I invite you back. Please join me in welcoming dr. Lynn dumenil. [applause] dr. Dumenil thank you. I am really delighted to be here. I want to thank the museum for inviting me, of course, but also how much ie appreciate her for inviting me. And thank you for coming. When you think about it, on the surface, talking about women in war, there seems to be a connection, because we so usually associate war with male soldiers, with combat, with masculinity itself, so why talk about women and war . Well, for those of you who know the museum, you know that in total war is like world war i and world war ii civilians , become increasingly important, and women are a part of that process. They worked in munitions factories, workers nurses and they served as nurses and other aides to the military machine. And much more bureaucratically at any other war event in the past. It is actually tied to the nature of the modern state, a bureaucratic war. And this is particularly true in the United States. Women were very much involved in a wide range of activities, and their support for the war effort is, in fact, a part of the definition of how modern global wars were fought. So if womens role in wartime allows us to more fully understand the nature of war mobilization and the rhetoric in support of war, it also helps us to think about the role of world war i as a watershed, as an idea war somehow, since the things changed. , i got interested in this because i did a book on the 1920s. As i did it, people kept saying since the war, something happened something happened. It was a marker for what they thought were the extraordinary changes in the 1920s. And this was particularly true of how people talked about women. It is very interesting, because right before the war, american s started talking about this new woman. She was seemingly liberated me, i meant after the war she was seemingly liberated in terms of politics, work, and private life, especially with her sexuality. The flapper was a stereotype and she really only described in the great extent young, white, privileged women. There is no question that among least, newwomen at norms and new opportunities were expanding, and observers during the gave the war at least 1920s partial credit. According to Frederick Lewis allen, after the war, women poured out of schools and colleges into all manners of occupation, causing as he put it, the slackening of Parental Authority and encouraging the headlong pursuit of freedom. Admittedly, during world war i, dramatic changes did seem imminent. Militant women, suffrage supporters were outrageing the nation by picketing the white house. Women were taking jobs formerly thought to be exclusively appropriate to men. 25,000 women served overseas as support for the troops. Millions did work at home. But was the war really transformative . Most of the changes observers saw in the 1920s, we can see as early as 1910. For example 1910 marks a , significant upswing in womens participation in the workforce not 1920. Also extremely important in terms of women in politics. The progressive reform era saw womens heightened political involvement, and, most importantly the suffrage , movement had heated up in the teens. By 1914, 11 states had already passed womens suffrage. War, americans were talking and recognizing that women were challenging conventional roles and they were very ambivalent about this change. Another complication about this question of the impact of war on women was that many of the dramatic changes of the war, especially those concerning women getting mens jobs disappeared at wars end, like that. So, historians myself included, dont really think the war was that transformative. It wasnt causal. But we still need to account for the 1920s sense of social change since the war. For that matter, we need to understand the common belief during the war that much change in fact in terms of womens roles. These beliefs suggest the war became a marker for consciousness concerning the emergence of the new woman. So, what i am arguing here is that the war accelerator developments already underway, but specifically heightened awareness of this emerging and contested new woman. My book examines a wide range of issues, much broader than i can talk about here. Womens work, their experience abroad, ethnic and racial and Class Divisions among women, the Suffrage Movement. But today i want to hone in on this question of war as a marker of change. And to do that, i want to concentrate on visual imagery during the war concerning women and war. Before i get into the specifics, i want to point out in mainstream popular culture, women of color were virtually invisible. In reporting about womens war mobilization. This does not mean they werent there. In los angeles, for example, mexicanamerican, japaneseamerican, and africanamerican women were active in red cross auxiliaries that raised funds and provided knitted goods. When the war stimulated the great migration of africanamericans in the south and north women found , work beyond domestic and agricultural labor. But we can find evidence, especially for black women. The modern woman so celebrated during the war and afterwards was in part defined her whiteness. So my images will focus on this group. So let me turn to the images. I am going to look at both print and film. In print media, we see the representation of women reflects both traditional values concerning womens proper roles , and suggested the possibility for cultural and social change, and political change, too. Government propaganda, for the most part, followed a very conventional pattern. Posters frequently used female figures as abstract icons representing the nation and its war aims. And if you have been in the museum, you have seen many images like this, right, a beautiful women sometimes flanked by the United States flag or even dressed in the stars stripes, symbolizing what the nation was fighting for and was often explicitly used to encourage men to enlist. Here, she is encouraging everyone to buy bonds. This reveals a way in which wartime illustrators conflated and idealized woman with the nationstate. These were heroic figures, not , and the iconography was deeply rooted in western european art and religious conventions. Now, there is one kind of interesting not official poster. Africanamericans dont appear in governmenta posters, so they made their own. This is from a magazine i cant resist it because one, it shows how powerful that convention was of wrapping a woman in the flag to represent liberty, right . But the other thing that is really great about this one is you can see at the bottom, i maid in it for you, america. And made is spelled maid. So it is pretty clever to comment on the type of work women were allowed to do. Inside the magazine, they said that africanamerican women were maid in america, meaning they were the true americans, unlike those dangerous immigrants. So this is one image that is so exceptional that it is kind of a good counter to the rest of the things you going to see. So i am going to move into some of the government posters that were issued at the time. The most part, they followed these very conventional patterns. Ters for the used frequently used they represented actual women in these cases. And encouraged them to participate in more activities, including farming in the womens land army, buying liberty bonds, knitting socks or conserving foods. They rarely challenge ideas of of womens proper place and i think you can see that clearly in the lovely woman in the kitchen, the lovely grandmother, warm and welcoming her sons to win the war. The red cross one, as you may well know, one of the most popular and famous posters of the war era and it was reused during world war ii as well. And many would argue that is actually suggests a lot of power, because the woman who is holding the soldier in her arms is enormous and it looks like a baby. Right . It is a pieta. Yes, ituld argue that does show power. That it shows women in maternal power, right . I think it does fit with my argument that it is fairly conventional. For the most part, government issued posters denied or ignored the claim of women activists who insisted women who were workers who were the second line of defense. So, on the left, you will see a poster created by the ymca. It is not a government poster. Tois very typical of the y represent women workers as being crucial to the war effort. You got to admit, it is absolutely remarkable in the way it challenges conventional notions about women. They look like they are an army. Right . They are carrying heavy equipment, wrenches and the like, and it is reminding them that women are an army. They are backing our second line of defense. The only posted that i have ever found that the government issued featuring working women was the one on the right. In this case, you can see shes doing something quite conventional in terms of early 20th century. She is a secretary. She is part of the war effort, shes doing good work, but she is clearly doing something in a very conventional sort of way. Like government propaganda, commercial media usually portrayed women in traditional roles as well. Poignant depictions of soldiers leaving their women folk behind as they went off to war was a popular motif. There were romantic pictures of soldiers and their sweethearts like this one im hitting the trail to normandy, so kiss me goodbye. With the man and woman locked in a passionate embrace. This one was more erotically charged than most images of the sort, but it seems to emphasize that war is mens work , and they frame military service not just in terms of defending their country, but of also protecting their female dependence so, that notion of masculinity becomes very clear in this image. Although these images of maternal or feminine women doing their part for the war in ways that did not challenge gender roles were very evident, there were alternative representations of women in war. In particular, coverage in newspapers and magazines of womens war effort seized on the way in which women were breaking new ground. As one woman wrote in a 1918 Magazine Article she is everywhere a Salvation Army lassie, serving coffee and doughnuts on the firing line, in the red cross Emergency Hospital at the front, in the munitions factory at home filling the gaps in manmade , industry everywhere. The media was absolutely fascinated by the way in which women were taking on jobs male. Ht to be i should point out that it wasnt the case that more women were working during the war, but rather that they were working at more interesting and better paid jobs. It is a shift in the nature of their work, not an expansion of their numbers. To support my suggestion of how engaged the media was, im giving you my absolutely favorite image. This is from the philadelphia inquirer. It features an illustration of seven powder workers, which were munitions workers in a new jersey plant. The women are dressed in identical overalls and a simple cap. Their arms are around each other and they look boldly into the camera. Their smiles are bright and suggest the light, if not in the work they are doing, in having their pictures taken. The merry nature of the group photographed like this reinforces a sense of shared identity among the women as the much celebrated munitions workers. The text that accompanies the images says the girls employed here have shown that they are not afraid of their jobs as powder makers, but go to their work with the same coolness as men. This kind of image multiplies oan iowa newspaper offers a photograph of a pantswearing when nations worker standing at a formidable looking machine and explaining women workers at the frank Vogel Frankford arsenal designed the outfits the u. S. Government adopted for the use working in their plants. This attention to womens working clothes is absolutely crucial. It underscores the novelty of women taking on what were formerly mans jobs, and this will persist in the were years excuse me, this will persist in the war years for most. Although there were also slight changes in costumes for women not working in industries, for example, in the past, they were they wore a white blouse and a dark, simple skirt. The only thing that happens during the war for the kind of clothing is the hemlines go up slightly. But, for the women whose jobs require pants, overalls, or skirted uniforms, they were really breaking dramatically with convention. There masculinized clothes symbolized the way they were taking on mens jobs, especially elevator operators, conductors and alike were notable in that their apparel was linked to the notion of a military uniform. They used this type of uniform that suggested that womens work was part of their service to the nation in times of war. They were thus an expression of citizenship. Images of the crossdressing signaled the boundarycrossing new woman. It wasnt that women were just working in factories or railroads or streetcars who were wearing all these uniforms, women who served abroad as nurses, social workers, telephone operators, or volunteered at home for government quasi governmental agencies received extensive publicity about their uniforms. A ywca this one is it should be a ymca worker the Young Mens Christian Association created canteens at the front and hired women to run them. Fairly typical of the kind of image that appeared in the media. Here, what i think is interesting is not only is she wearing her uniform and looking boldly into the camera, but she is next to an enormously military truck. Thats very common that women are shown in that way abroad. My favorite image is one the museum has, but its not as good as the copy that i bought for my inhouse. It is a little bizarre to admit to have a world war i poster in your living room, but i love it, so i did. It was a present to me. This one, again remember, the ywca is not messing around in the way it talks about women being the second line of defense and this is quite extraordinary. The telephone operator in a neat uniform, competently at work at her switchboard, but behind her is the backdrop of a scene of uniformed men in battle. She, like the men, is clearly at the front, a message that her military uniform underlined. I wanted to just emphasize that it is not just women abroad, but women at home, women that worked for the red cross, who were raising funds for the liberty loan, who may be working for other nongovernmental agencies. All had uniforms and were constantly being discussed in magazines and newspapers. And so this is a good example some of these are women abroad, but otherwise, you can see the women farmer, you have a driver, and the woman driver is next to the farmer and she is very much like my lovely woman on the cover of my book. So the activities of women as wage earners, as overseas participants and homefront volunteers received their clearest expression of citizenship and the boundary new woman, in the newspaper and magazine coverage of parades, such as the liberty bond parades or the red cross ones. These, too, emphasized the uniformed women. I think this is a remarkable 1 it is taking place in new york, its a voluntary association of women, and you can see how clearly their uniforms are modeled after male uniforms of the time. This one i think is also particularly interesting. These are canteen workers for the National League for women service, an ngo at the time. They are walking down fifth avenue. So, sort of the iconic place where you have military parades , and hear these women are as part of i think this is a red cross 1 with their flags, their uniforms in perfect step, i think it illustrates my point beautifully. And for a little local color, this is young women or girls in kansas city. These are red cross volunteers in high school being seen marching in their uniforms, which is very typical of red cross parades to have children of various sorts all in uniform. Before the war, it was considered radical for respectable women to be in a public place like this. The Suffrage Movement began its parades in 1910 and they were really considered a major challenge to respectable notions of womens behavior. This bold occupation space that happens during the war, was an important demonstration of womens legitimacy as political actors. But its contested, there are people who are nervous about this. I think it is really significant that women played such an important part in patriotic parades. Now the coverage of wageearning women or overseas workers, at home volunteers offers a , pervasive vision of white women inhabiting space, public space previously thought to be exclusively male. This transgression was generally legitimated in the context of a National Crisis that literally required that women step outside convention. If not all women donned male attire or mannish uniforms or took to the street to join male citizens in parading for the national cause, many did, and their action garnered extensive publicity that offered the American Public a sense, often a striking visual one, that the new woman often debated in the years before the war had seized the war as an opportunity for challenging gender conventions in the name of patriotism. And this same kind of thing we , will see when we switch to film. And here again, there are both images that represent conventional women and images that are challenging them. Many world war i films still exist. For my research, i saw those that did exist and used fan magazines, stills, Motion Pictures distributor summaries, and the like. There were a lot of different war films. Many featured battles, as you might expect. But there was another genre that focused on war and the home front, and domestic issues, and they were quite striking in their portrayal of women. Many of these films represented war as a means to protect women in the family, so mens role in that protective situation. But others port