Term of Award
Fall 2016
Degree Name
Master of Arts in History (M.A.)
Document Type and Release Option
Thesis (open access)
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Department
Department of History
Committee Chair
Brian Feltman
Committee Member 1
William Allison
Committee Member 2
Robert Batchelor
Abstract
The historiography of the First World War in Great Britain has focused mainly on military matters, leaving home front experiences temporarily unexplored. While the soldier’s experience remains invaluable to historians, studies of women and the home front are significant. The White Feather Campaign, which called for women to give white feathers denoting cowardice to men in civilian dress, who allegedly had not enlisted, remains vivid in British historical memory, but few scholarly works have examined it thoroughly. Historians such as Nicoletta F. Gullace and Susan R. Grayzel have shed light on British women in the war, but there remains further room for study. Because of the shared war effort and the urgent need to recruit volunteers, white feather giving spread from the mother country to its territories. As no major works have studied the connections between white feather practices in Britain and in its Dominions, specifically Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, this thesis examines this transnational aspect of the evolving relationship between war and gender.
As British and Commonwealth women distributed white feathers to accused “cowards” and “shirkers” in civilian dress, they attempted to influence political opinion. By shaming men, they aimed to convince them to be real men by enlisting to protect their homeland from the enemy. Through sending letters containing white feathers, they confronted men privately with an implied threat to do so publicly. In a national political setting which did not allow women to vote, giving white feathers was a radical way in which women could make their voices heard.
Recommended Citation
Stevens, K. Elisa. “Flight of the White Feather: The Expansion of the White Feather Movement Throughout the World War One British Commonwealth." Master’s thesis, Georgia Southern University, 2016.
Research Data and Supplementary Material
No
Included in
Canadian History Commons, European History Commons, History of Gender Commons, Oral History Commons, Political History Commons, Social History Commons, Women's History Commons
