Mary Abbott's "A Better World"

The post war era in Great Britain was a very tumultuous time. Not only did many families struggle with the reintegration of the father back into the home, but even uncontrollable factors like the weather caused problems for the British. Cold winters and low coal supplies hit families hard while floods ravaged the country once spring came. The societal trends in the post war years greatly shifted. For example, women went from wearing the boxy outfits of the interwar years, to wearing extremely feminine dresses emphasizing small waists. The television become a way to bring a family together. In essence, the British people wanted to forget the trends of the war, and revive the old world ideals. Abbott suggests a second wave of Elizabethianism occurred. However, women especially found it difficult to cope with the return to the old world. While the men were on the battle front, women had gained more power and influence on the home front. When the men returned, some wives complained that there husbands just expected things to go go to the way things used to be, which was a hard thing to cope with. The 1950's especially were a time of great change and uncertainty in Great Britain.

I would categorize this article in three categories: law, state, and church; family relationships and economics; and categories of difference. Abbott discusses the demands of families placed on the state, as well as the struggles felt by the state to provide for veteran families. She also discusses how this led to the creation of the welfare state. The article explains the strained family relationships between returning husbands and newly empowered wives in addition to children who view their father as an intruder/stranger in the home. Abbott also discusses the differences between the acceptance of change between classes. She talks about the integration of different races into British society and the issues created by homosexual couples which all represent categories of difference. Mary Abbott provides a very interesting and powerful overview of a transition period in British history.

Belgian War Refugees

The Reading was about the Belgian War Refugees and Irish Protestant Refugees. Flora Shaw and later known as Lady Lugard. Flora Shaw was awarded the Dame of the British Empire award in 1916 for her help with the war refugees . In the two documents that are placed side by side each reflect the work she has done. One was her giving a speech at 'The work of the War Refugees committee" and the other was a speech given in her honor. When World War I started she stated that it didn't matter the political or religious beliefs. Not only did she provide the refugees with housing and with a livelihood. The committee also helped after the war with finding homes and livelihoods.

'Lady Lugard's Hostels for Belgian Refugees"
Was given in her honor given by Stuart Hogg. There are 11 houses and 400 people are housed in them. Two were used as hospital like locations. Part of Lady Lugard's goal was to make each of the houses a little like the home county. All of the expenses to make the houses like homes come from the committees accounts. Also the public helped by donating food and clothing. They also have a factory for the newly arrived refugees to stay. These are just a few of of the things that Hogg stated.

'The Work of the War Refugees Committee'
It an address given by Lady Lugard to the committee. She discusses the stories that she has heard from the refugees, She mentions ones about a family who lost all their children who were killed by the German soldiers. She tells the committee how and what needs to be done to help those who arrive . She expresses thanks to those who have helped. She says that those who have helped and volunteer should be written in gold.

The website has first hand accounts of those that lived through the war.

"Women's War Work: Remunerative, Voluntary, and Familial", by Susan Grayzel

In Susan Grayzel’s article titled, “Women’s War Work: Remunerative, Voluntary and Familial” she focuses on working women in Europe during the period of World War I, specifically examining the affects of women’s wartime work on both waged labor and family maintenance. Grayzel first emphasizes that women before this time had already held both paid and unpaid working jobs. The war, however, enabled women to shift to jobs that had previously been filled by men. As women began to enter factory work, they played a vital role in sustaining the home front during the war for the government even though it sparked controversy.

Grayzel looks at a number of countries, comparing and contrasting what wartime work was like for women. She mentions that the highest active labor force was in Britain, and the lowest labor force was in Germany. With the welfare supervisors and factory inspectors that were employed during the war, they heavily pushed for the protection of women that were or potentially could be mothers. Grayzel argues that during the war “gender roles” were being challenged. Nurses, for example, “kept women subservient to male doctors….[and] did not offer a challenge to conventional gender roles” (Grayzel, p.37). The war was a time of strain and tension as men and women’s roles were being redefined in new ways.

Grayzel’s article also focuses on women as mothers and the double responsibility that they had for both work and home. Many women took on voluntary services, primarily though only the middle and upper classes, hoping to do their part for the war. Women also had a hard time managing their homes, as long work hours took them away from home and the increasing food shortages left them with little food to sustain their young ones. Laws were being passed during this time to protect the health of both mother and child. The welfare and factory inspectors helped with this as well as new laws supporting breast feeding in factories, etc, were being passed.

This article fits well under the categories of Family Economics because it focuses on the division and distribution of labor during World War I, Categories of Difference because Grayzel focuses on a number of countries comparing and contrasting woman’s experiences, and Law, State, and Church because the government had a large role in controlling women’s wartime work.

"Not Quite Pukka" by Elizabeth Buettner

Understanding European families during the after the long Nineteenth Century is very complicated. Many of the European nations, especially Britain and France, were colonial powers by this time. Families in the homeland would colonize, but they still considered themselves European subjects. This is where this article comes in. It argues that with so many families leaving Britain for India, it became socially important to know who was still British, and who had ‘gone native.” British families in Europe would ideally return to Britain, and needed to keep up their British social status. While domiciled families would not return to Europe, and so did not comfortably fit into the Euro-centric system. This would have implications in Britain itself, although this is not discussed in this paper. British peoples would be very sensitive to social markers that qualified someone as a “true Brit”

Due to the above paragraph, I would categorize this article under “Categories of Difference.” I would also categorized it under “Family relationships and family economics.” The article discusses how families would sacrifice to be able to send their children to a school in Britain. They did this because the increased social status of having their children go to Britain. For their children it was economically imperative to maintain their British markers. Without these markers British employment would be difficult, if not impossible. There would also be economic benefit for the parents. Children attending school in Britain would have been a sign that the parents were not going domiciled. Thus, it was probably a sign that they still upheld British values.

"Households and Families: Structure and Flux" by Alan Duben and Cem Behar

Duben and Behar used information from the 1885 and 1907 censuses of Istanbul and other areas of Turkey to discuss marriage and family patterns in pre-WWI Turkey. Their main conclusion was that Turkey followed the southeast marriage pattern in a some ways, yet resembled northwestern Europe in other ways. Men and women married relatively early in Istanbul, with the men about ten years older than the women. However, when married the new couples generally left their parent's house and started their own household free from their parent's influence. Extended families still had close ties with young couples but the men were free to make their own decisions for their families. In consequence of young couples moving out, households tended to be quite small which defies Hartman's arguments the SE Europe had more numerous family groups. Duben and Behar do agree with Hartman that the age at marriage is the key to many other aspects of domestic life. They also point out that patterns in Istanbul and rural Anatolia (Turkey) were quite different, with rural Anatolia conforming more to Hartman's idea os SE Europe. The Hainal line is mentioned in reference to the fact that Turkey supports Hainal's ideas in a few ways and does not support it in other. Duben and Behar shed some light on Europe as a whole by discussing Turkey in particular. The example of Turkey shows how no family pattern fits across the board - each culture had its own peculiarities.