First World War Photos
This is a selection of First World War photos from my collection, mostly bought from ebay. I’ve posted some horse photos over at The horse in history and culture. The ones here have more of a gender theme. Click on the thumbnails to see bigger versions.
Four male prisoners of war, two in drag. This was taken in the theatre at Cottbus PoW camp, where my great-grandad was held from 1917 to 1918. He performed in the theatre but there’s no evidence that he dressed as a woman. One of the paradoxes of the hyper-masculine environment of the 20th century British Army was that it often forced men into stereotypically feminine roles in order to stand in for the women who were excluded.
Royal Army Medical Corps group, taken in France, 1919. It clearly shows how uniforms reinforced gender roles. The men are wearing army service dress, just like combat soldiers, although their role is to provide medical care. The women are wearing long skirts and big head-dresses. Also notice that some of the men are very short. The man on the left of the middle row, standing between the corporal and the nurse with a dog at their feet, looks shorter than some of the women. If you look very closely you can see that some of the group are holding puppies.
A man and woman called Fred and Kitty, but I don’t know their surnames. Fred is a sergeant in the Army Service Corps, and Kitty is in civilian clothes. The poses reinforce the differences in dress, suggesting male dominance and female submission.
Territorial Royal Field Artillery corporal with a small boy. Probably taken in Cardiff or Pontypridd. Like the Sergeant in the previous photo, the corporal is wearing spurs. These were standard equipment for troops classed as mounted, which included field artillery and service corps because they relied on horses for transport. I love the little boy’s pose. Although man and boy are both male, they illustrate the hierarchy of masculinity: the corporal is more of a man because of his age, independence and military service.
A group of female munitions workers. The unprecedented expansion of both the British Army and the arms industry in the First World War, along with the assumption that women couldn’t or shouldn’t fight, led to more women working in munitions factories. This temporarily gave some women increased pay and freedom, but 90 years on women as a group still earn less than men as a group. Although the uniforms make some concessions to the practicalities of working in a factory, they also signify femininity.
Pingback by Airminded · Military History Carnival 21 — 12:51 pm, 15 February 2010 [permanent link to this comment]
[...] here’s what it would take to convince reasonable historians. 1914-9: The First World War sees horses used in a wide variety of roles. 1915: The many burdens of the poor bloody infantry. 1915: The first [...]
Comment by Roger — 8:43 am, 3 March 2010 [permanent link to this comment]
Men dressed as women for theatrical effects was common for prisoners of war- not only British- see Renoir’s La Grande Illusion too.
In the R.A.M.C. group the women’s dress alsoemphasises that they were civilians. WAs there a higher percentage of middle and upper class women among such workers-memoirs and histories I’ve read give that impression- whereas many of the male staff would be men considered unfit for front-line service? Given that class differences stromgly correlated with height diffferences that would explain the apparent anomaly.
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 1:05 pm, 4 March 2010 [permanent link to this comment]
You might not realize it, but that comment is dangerously close to a double standard commonly used against women’s and gender history: cross-dressing in concert parties is not unusual so there’s no story; women being taller than men is an “anomaly” so there’s no story. Similarly Lawrence Stone said that elite early-modern women were not typical and are therefore not worth studying; David Starkey said that ordinary early-modern women had no power and are therefore not worth studying. Anti-feminists give themselves the best of both worlds, all the gender issues get mansplained away, and they can go back to ignoring women and not worrying about gender inequality.
I’m not assuming that the heights in the group photo are anomalous. There might have been quite a lot of combat soldiers – especially in bantam battalions – who were shorter than at least some women. It’s true that the nurses’ dresses signify civilian as well as feminine, but the military/civilian divide is very closely linked to gender. Excluding female nurses and other support staff from the armed forces proper was and is a major gender issue. Even the WAAC was not part of the British Army. The word order was crucial there: Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps might have risked implying that it was a Corps of the Army which was composed of women, whereas Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was more likely to suggest a women’s army separate from and auxiliary to the men’s army (which was just called “the Army” because men are just “normal”). If the nurses were wearing pinstriped suits and bowler hats it would signify civilian rather than military, but it would also signify masculinity.