Working Class Culture, Women, and Britain, 1914-1921

This history "from below" studies the cultural and social consequences of British working class women’s practical engagement in the First World War. As such, it aims to transform our understanding of the nature and scope of "war" as a cultural and social category, one that constructs myths of class and gender solidarity, while manipulating class loyalties, and fueling class distinctions and divisions. Because cultural identity is always mediated by class and by material conditions, an examination of the lives, oral narratives, factory newspapers and other writings of working class women proves that during and after the First World War these women were transforming Britain’s cultural politics. Culleton’s book both investigates a wide array of cultural materials hitherto ignored and explores in detail the material culture of women workers during World War I.