"Work or Fight!": Race, Gender, and the Draft in World War One

ISBN-13: 9781403961754 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 194 str.

Gerald E. Shenk

Opis

During World War I, the US demanded that all able-bodied adult men "work or fight." But fighting was mostly assigned to single white men who were not engaged in "productive" work. White men who were proper husbands and fathers, owned property, or worked at approved jobs, and who participated in civic activities, had the full benefits of citizenship without fighting. Women, men of color, and poor white men were often barred from achieving these benefits. This book uses the records of local draft boards and state draft officials in Georgia, New Jersey, Illinois, and California to tell the stories of men and women whose lives were touched by the Selective Service System.

Recenzje

"A probing, complex, and provocative study of the state, citizenship, and local power in early twentieth-century America. It combines in depth case studies with a remarkable analysis that privileges the intersections of race and gender in the unfolding of public policy and social conflicts. And, in drawing our attention to the dynamics of military conscription, it speaks directly to the political and moral issues of our own time." - Steven Hahn, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration

"Extensively researched, engaging, and provocative. Simply the best account available on the actual operation of the draft and its relationship to power and identity in America in World War I. A real tour de force!" - John Whiteclay Chambers II, Rutgers University, editor-in-chief of The Oxford Companion to American Military History

"Shenk's richly textured analysis not only delivers a compelling and vividly told history but provides a complex view of the operation of white supremacist patriarchy. He helps us see how small decisions of both cooperation and resistance serve to shape but not undermine that ideology. Nevertheless, the stories are a testament to human will. Who would have thought that the lessons gleaned from the operation of the Selective Service during World War I would be so relevant today as we wage war in Iraq? We have much to learn from this powerful history." - Jane H. Aiken, William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law,

Washington University, St. Louis

"[A] powerful analysis of race, class, gender, sexuality and citizenship that sets an ideal benchmark for writing U.S. history. Meticulously researched, this excellent work could not be more timely in detailing the fundamental goals of draft officials as the protection of privileges associated with property, patriarch, and white supremacy. An invaluable contribution!" - Mary Romero, Arizona State University, author of Maid in the USA

"Gerald Shenk has given us a history that keeps its unerring eye on the subversive 'others' and the patriarchs calling the shots." - Akasha Gloria Hull, University of California, Santa Cruz

Spis treści

Introduction 'The Finest Type of Manhood': Local Government and the Grounding of White Manhood Picking 'The Flowers of American Manhood': Local Draft Boards and Their Communities 'The Darkness in Georgia': State Selective Service in Georgia A Man is No Man That is Not Willing To Fight: State Selective Service in Illinois 'He's His mother's Boy; Go and Get Him': State Selective Service in New Jersey 'But No Negroes': State Selective Service in California 'The Final Report'

O autorze

GERALD SHENK is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Menterey Bay, USA.