Susan R Grayzel
Biographic Data
| ID | 383778 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Susan R Grayzel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Susan R |
| FAMILY NAME | Grayzel |
| SIGNATURE | GRAYZEL S R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Mississippi |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3437-8848 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Introduction
The centenary of the First World War offered unprecedented opportunities for academics to engage with each other and the public. In symposiums, conferences, talks, and publications across the globe
The Memory-Keeping Daughter
This essay demonstrates how wartime objects can have a special resonance in families as keepers of memory, and it especially explores the role of daughters of military participants in preserving the artifacts of their veteran fathers. Using several case studies from a recent public history project collecting objects and object stories in the American southwest, it argues that a focus on daughters as caretakers of family military history offers a …
Communities under Fire
The Western Front remains the iconic site of the First World War. Despite concerted efforts to broaden our understanding of this global war in ways that pay appropriate attention to its scale in terms of geography and populations, popular media—as witnessed by the success of films such as 2019’s 1917—continues to showcase the experiences of mobilised men trying to survive amid a devastated, large rural landscape scarred by trenches, barbed wire a…
Love and Death in the Great War, by Andrew J. Huebner
A hundred years ago, the United States and its allies emerged victorious from the devastation of the First World War. Unlike most of the other participants in this conflict, the majority of Americans experienced this war for a relatively brief nineteen months, and from a marked distance. Finding a way to link the war experiences of Americans with the many other populations much more severely affected has been challenging and, unsurprisingly, much…
One British Thing
This one British thing, the baby gas mask, helps us understand the normalization of total war in modern Britain
Who Gets to Be in the War Story? Absences and Silences in They Shall Not Grow Old
This roundtable offers four diverse perspectives on Peter Jackson's innovative and controversial World War I documentary film They Shall Not Grow Old (2018). Jackson's film breaks the mold of the documentary genre in its manipulation and montage of the visual and audio archives held at the Imperial War Museum in London. Yet he puts his technical virtuosity and resources at the service of a very traditional interpretation of the war, focusing almo…
Belonging to the Imperial Nation
In anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the First World War in 2014–18, the British government set aside funds for a range of commemorative activities. These included a number of “engagement centres” that aimed to bring together academics and local community members in addition to providing separate arts-related programming.1 The Imperial War Museum reworked its main First World War galleries, which opened with great fanfare at the centenary’…
Men and women at home
The Cambridge History of the First World War
Volume 3 of The Cambridge History of the First World War explores the social and cultural history of the war and considers the role of civil society throughout the conflict; that is to say those institutions and practices outside the state through which the war effort was waged. Drawing on 25 years of historical scholarship, it sheds new light on culturally significant issues such as how families and medical authorities adapted to the challenges …
Defence Against the Indefensible
Journal Article Defence Against the Indefensible: The Gas Mask, the State and British Culture during and after the First World War Get access Susan R. Grayzel Susan R. Grayzel * University of Mississippi *Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 25, Issue 3, September 2014, Pages 418–434, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwu035 Published: 07 August 2…
Conclusion
Concern over the spread of venereal diseases, among other factors, led to more open public discussions of sexuality, including women’s sexuality. Women’s war experiences varied enormously, but, with few exceptions, they remained different from those of the majority of men conscripted into military service. No nation was willing to break this barrier and draft women to serve in its army. Even as the nature of warfare itself began to change, with w…
Documents
Chronology
This chronology of the First World War highlights events of special significance to women.
The War Begins
Vera Brittain, like other young women of her class and age, may have felt initially that little could be done to aid the war effort, and that there was little that the nation needed women to do. Thus, from the very start, wartime media in a variety of nations – whether produced by men or women – called upon women specifically. Britain, which began the war with a volunteer army and thus had rapidly to recruit men, provides a particularly potent ex…
Pacifism, Dissent and Revolution
In several places, most notably Russia, strikes and street demonstrations ultimately contributed to revolution. Thus, the situation of women protesters everywhere after March 1917 was considerably different. In various nations, as well as in international women’s organisations and their works, and in the voices of individual women, one can find echoes of all three perspectives, separately and intertwined. Galvanised into action by the crisis at h…
Women’s War Work
One of the more visible changes in women’s lives during the war came with their entrance into a wide range of occupations, some of which had never before included women. This chapter examines the totality of women’s work, from waged labour to family maintenance. Although the exact number of women who worked in the munitions industry during the war is unknown, it provided employment for more working-class women than other types of war work. Despit…
Morale, Morality and Sexuality
In part because the war was justified as a defence of women and children, and thus implicitly of traditional gender roles, there was a good deal of concern about how wartime circumstances might alter these. Sexuality, particularly in the form of alluring women, was also used to ‘sell’ the war. The behaviour of the entire population of belligerent nations was scrutinised during the war, because it became part of the war effort to preserve an ideal…
Assessing the Consequences of the War for Women
One area of intense debate among historians of women has been the war’s effect on gender roles. After all, the war brought about tangible evidence of a changed world where women could wear khaki uniforms, drive trains, trams and ambulances, and take on industrial tasks defined as beyond their capabilities. Furthermore, many women found themselves enfranchised after the war. The outbreak of war in August 1914 disrupted the suffrage movement in its…
Women in the Line of Fire
In Africa, as tensions mounted among German, French and British colonisers, for instance, African men were subject to forcible conscription and women were not immune from being used as forced labour. Perhaps the most vivid example of how the First World War affected women’s lives can be found not in their wartime mobilisation but in their wartime experience of both traditional and new kinds of warfare. Many Frenchwomen found themselves separated …
Women and the First World War
The First World War was the first modern, total war, one requiring the mobilisation of both civilians and combatants. Particularly in Europe, the main theatre of the conflict, this war demanded the active participation of both men and women. Women and the First World War provides an introduction to the experiences and contributions of women during this important turning point in history. In addition to exploring women’s relationship to the war in…
‘Many Clear Words to Say’
Women and Men
Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs
Gender, Labour, War and Empire
A lively collection of essays on the cultures of nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain. Topics range from prostitution and slavery to the effect of war on fashion magazine reporting to inter-racial
Gender, Labour, War and Empire
Women and the First World War
The First World War was the first modern, total war, one requiring the mobilisation of both civilians and combatants. Particularly in Europe, the main theatre of the conflict, this war demanded the active participation of both men and women. Women and the First World War provides an introduction to the experiences and contributions of women during this important turning point in history. In addition to exploring women’s relationship to the war in…
Women's Identities at War. Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War
Nostalgia, Gender, and the Countryside
In December 1917, an article in the Daily Chronicle , entitled ‘The New Land Lady’, stated that: One of the good things which may issue from this war is a revival of the old English countryside. The happy village may be born again. If this reformation should come, it will be the work of the women. The nostalgia evident in this call for women's wartime ‘return’ to the land to restore a lost, pastoral idyll during an event more usually associated w…
Mothers, Marraines, and Prostitutes
A novel describing French women on the eve of mobilization for the First World War, the popular French author Marcelle Tinayre remarked: 'Woman's patriotism is not of the same nature as that of man. It does not possess the brutality of an instinct or the austerity of an idea. It's a sentiment ... that does not know the bloody drunkenness of battle. The France of women is above all the hearth, the spouse, the child.'1 Here was a patriotism grounde…
The Souls of Soldiers
Defence Against the Indefensible
Journal Article Defence Against the Indefensible: The Gas Mask, the State and British Culture during and after the First World War Get access Susan R. Grayzel Susan R. Grayzel * University of Mississippi *Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 25, Issue 3, September 2014, Pages 418–434, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwu035 Published: 07 August 2…
The Outward and Visible Sign of Her Patriotism
Journal Article ‘The Outward and Visible Sign of Her Patriotism’: Women, Uniforms, and National Service During the First World War Get access SUSAN R. GRAYZEL SUSAN R. GRAYZEL University of Mississippi Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 145–164, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/8.2.145 Published: 01 January 1997
Mothers, Marraines, and Prostitutes
A novel describing French women on the eve of mobilization for the First World War, the popular French author Marcelle Tinayre remarked: 'Woman's patriotism is not of the same nature as that of man. It does not possess the brutality of an instinct or the austerity of an idea. It's a sentiment ... that does not know the bloody drunkenness of battle. The France of women is above all the hearth, the spouse, the child.'1 Here was a patriotism grounde…
Nostalgia, Gender, and the Countryside
In December 1917, an article in the Daily Chronicle , entitled ‘The New Land Lady’, stated that: One of the good things which may issue from this war is a revival of the old English countryside. The happy village may be born again. If this reformation should come, it will be the work of the women. The nostalgia evident in this call for women's wartime ‘return’ to the land to restore a lost, pastoral idyll during an event more usually associated w…
Feminist Freikorps
Received
Women's Identities at War. Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France during the First World War
French Women and the First World War
The Souls of Soldiers
Gender, Labour, War and Empire
Gender, Labour, War and Empire
A lively collection of essays on the cultures of nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain. Topics range from prostitution and slavery to the effect of war on fashion magazine reporting to inter-racial
‘Many Clear Words to Say’
Women and Men
Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs
Conclusion
Concern over the spread of venereal diseases, among other factors, led to more open public discussions of sexuality, including women’s sexuality. Women’s war experiences varied enormously, but, with few exceptions, they remained different from those of the majority of men conscripted into military service. No nation was willing to break this barrier and draft women to serve in its army. Even as the nature of warfare itself began to change, with w…
Documents
Chronology
This chronology of the First World War highlights events of special significance to women.
The War Begins
Vera Brittain, like other young women of her class and age, may have felt initially that little could be done to aid the war effort, and that there was little that the nation needed women to do. Thus, from the very start, wartime media in a variety of nations – whether produced by men or women – called upon women specifically. Britain, which began the war with a volunteer army and thus had rapidly to recruit men, provides a particularly potent ex…
Pacifism, Dissent and Revolution
In several places, most notably Russia, strikes and street demonstrations ultimately contributed to revolution. Thus, the situation of women protesters everywhere after March 1917 was considerably different. In various nations, as well as in international women’s organisations and their works, and in the voices of individual women, one can find echoes of all three perspectives, separately and intertwined. Galvanised into action by the crisis at h…
Women’s War Work
One of the more visible changes in women’s lives during the war came with their entrance into a wide range of occupations, some of which had never before included women. This chapter examines the totality of women’s work, from waged labour to family maintenance. Although the exact number of women who worked in the munitions industry during the war is unknown, it provided employment for more working-class women than other types of war work. Despit…
Morale, Morality and Sexuality
In part because the war was justified as a defence of women and children, and thus implicitly of traditional gender roles, there was a good deal of concern about how wartime circumstances might alter these. Sexuality, particularly in the form of alluring women, was also used to ‘sell’ the war. The behaviour of the entire population of belligerent nations was scrutinised during the war, because it became part of the war effort to preserve an ideal…
Assessing the Consequences of the War for Women
One area of intense debate among historians of women has been the war’s effect on gender roles. After all, the war brought about tangible evidence of a changed world where women could wear khaki uniforms, drive trains, trams and ambulances, and take on industrial tasks defined as beyond their capabilities. Furthermore, many women found themselves enfranchised after the war. The outbreak of war in August 1914 disrupted the suffrage movement in its…
Women in the Line of Fire
In Africa, as tensions mounted among German, French and British colonisers, for instance, African men were subject to forcible conscription and women were not immune from being used as forced labour. Perhaps the most vivid example of how the First World War affected women’s lives can be found not in their wartime mobilisation but in their wartime experience of both traditional and new kinds of warfare. Many Frenchwomen found themselves separated …
Women and the First World War
The First World War was the first modern, total war, one requiring the mobilisation of both civilians and combatants. Particularly in Europe, the main theatre of the conflict, this war demanded the active participation of both men and women. Women and the First World War provides an introduction to the experiences and contributions of women during this important turning point in history. In addition to exploring women’s relationship to the war in…
Men and women at home
The Cambridge History of the First World War
Volume 3 of The Cambridge History of the First World War explores the social and cultural history of the war and considers the role of civil society throughout the conflict; that is to say those institutions and practices outside the state through which the war effort was waged. Drawing on 25 years of historical scholarship, it sheds new light on culturally significant issues such as how families and medical authorities adapted to the challenges …
Defence Against the Indefensible
Journal Article Defence Against the Indefensible: The Gas Mask, the State and British Culture during and after the First World War Get access Susan R. Grayzel Susan R. Grayzel * University of Mississippi *Email: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Twentieth Century British History, Volume 25, Issue 3, September 2014, Pages 418–434, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwu035 Published: 07 August 2…
History (19 works) · Political science (14 works) · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact (14 works) · Ancient history (11 works) · World War II (11 works) · History (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · First world war (9 works) · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies (8 works) · Law (8 works)