Abstract
The Second World War marks a definitive moment in British history. Never before or since has British society been so massively affected by warfare. The enormous mobilization of resources, scale of government intervention and extent of civilian involvement made this even more of a ‘total war’ than the First World War. Sometimes referred to as ‘the people’s war’, the Second World War was certainly a more ‘popular’ war than the first, although much of the population was war weary towards the end of the six long years.1 Many contemporary and early historical accounts of the war maintained that social divisions were lessened, but more recent work has failed to substantiate this.2 Events such as the Blitz have also been subjected to the revisionist treatment.3
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Notes and References
For a good overall account of the war see A. Calder, The People’s War, Britain 1939–1945 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969 Pimlico edition, 1992).
See, for example, P. Summerfield, ‘The Levelling of Class’, in H. Smith (ed.), War and Social Change, British Society in the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986).
A. Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991; Pimlico edition, 1992).
R. Broad and S. Fleming (eds), Nella Last’s War, A Mother’s Diary 1939–1945 (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1981).
P. Donnelly (ed.), Mrs Milburn’s Diaries, An Englishwoman’s Day-to-Day Reflections 1939–1945 (London: Harrap, 1979; Fontana, 1980).
C. and E. Townsend, War Wives, A Second World War Anthology (London: Grafton, 1989).
See for example, A. Marwick, War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1974) p. 160, ‘in general the war meant a new economic and social freedom for women, the experience of which could never be entirely lost’.
P. Summerfield, Women Workers in the Second World War (London: Groom Helm, 1984).
P. Summerfield, ‘Women, War and Social Change: Women in Britain in World War II’, in A. Marwick (ed.), Total War and Social Change (London: Macmillan, 1988) pp. 96–7.
S. Carruthers, ‘“Manning the Factories”: Propaganda and Policy on the Employment of Women, 1939–1947’, History, 1990, vol. 75, no. 244, p. 232.
G. Braybon and P. Summerfield, Out of the Cage: Women’s Experiences in Two World Wars (London: Pandora, 1987) p. 187.
M. Pugh, Women and the Women’s Movement in Britain 1914–1959 (London: Macmillan, 1992) p. 275.
T. Harrison (ed.), War Factory, A Report by Mass Observation (London: Gollancz, 1943) p. 36.
D. Riley, War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and the Mother (London: Virago, 1983) p. 122.
S. Walby, Patriarchy at Work (London: Polity, 1986) p. 189.
MO, People in Production (London: John Murray, 1942) p. 227.
M. Stott, Organisation Woman: The Story of the National Union of Townswomen’s Guilds (London: Heinemann, 1978) p. 67.
J. Costello, Love, Sex and War: Changing Values 1939–1945 (Pan: London, 1985) p. 201.
S. Boston, Women Workers and the Trade Union Movement (London: Davis Poynter, 1980) p. 209.
R. Croucher, Engineers at War (London: Merlin, 1982) pp. 285–91, provides a lengthy account of the dispute.
T. Katin, “Clippie”, the Autobiography of a Wartime Conductress (London: Gifford, 1944) p. 34.
D. Sheridan, ‘Ambivalent Memories: Women and the 1939–1945 War in Britain’, Oral History, Spring 1990.
M.R. Higgonet and P.L-R. Higgonet, ‘The Double Helix’ in M.R. Higgonet et al., Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987).
E. Taylor, Heroines of World War Two (London: Robert Hale, 1991). See Chap. 1, ‘Underground Operator’.
R. Minns, Bombers and Mash: The Domestic Front 1939–1945 (London: Virago, 1980) p. 77.
A. Hall, Land Girl, Her Story of Six Years in the Women’s Land Army, 1940–46 (Trowbridge: Ex Libris, 1993) p. 29.
D. Sheridan (ed.), Wartime Women, A Mass Observation Anthology (London: Heinemann, 1990) p. 139.
B. McBryde, A Nurse’s War (London: Chatto and Windus, 1978; Saffron Walden: Cakebread’s edition, 1993) p. 85.
C. Graves, Women in Green: The Story of the Women’s Voluntary Service (London: Heinemann, 1948) p. 15.
T. Benson, Sweethearts and Wives, Their Part in War (London: Faber and Faber, 1942) p. 106.
E. Summerskill, A Woman’s World, Her Memoirs (London: Heinemann, 1967) p. 74.
For example, see V. Brittain, Seeds of Chaos: What Mass Bombing Really Means (London: New Vision, 1944).
M. Bondfield et al., Our Towns, A Close Up (London: Oxford University Press, 1943).
A. Marwick, Britain in the Century of Total War (London: Bodley Head, 1968) p. 257.
J. Costello, Love, Sex and War: Changing Values 1939–1945 (London: Pan Books, 1985) p. 319.
S. Neild and R. Pearson (eds), Women Like Us (London: Women’s Press, 1992) p. 34.
Woman’s Own, 10.12.43, quoted in J. Waller and M. Vaughan-Rees, Women in Wartime, the Role of Women’s Magazines (London: Macdonald Optima, 1987) p. 76.
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© 1999 Sue Bruley
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Bruley, S. (1999). ‘We Can Do It!’: The Second World War 1939–1945. In: Women in Britain since 1900. Social History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27743-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27743-8_5
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