Every now and then in history, you’ll find a paradox: a moment where something happens that is at odds with common sense. I found one of these when looking into British rehabilitation programs, which set up workshops to retrain disabled men. These programs were part of a popular rehabilitation movement, spreading from the United States internationally, which proclaimed that disability could be overcome by gaining new skills, assistive technologies, and an unyielding drive for self-improvement. Over the 1910s-20s, British rehabilitation workshops took up disabled servicemen to be respected as ‘whole’ members of society. In these workshops men crafted consumer goods, hospital supplies, and prosthetics, reshaping both their bodies and lives. These institutions were built on capitalistic ideals of independence and self help, working to restore men as active, uplifted, productive members of society. With their new skills, some of these men would have a fresh start even better than their pre-war life. This was not a charity, proponents argued; the men would not depend on the public to thrive. Yet despite their grand claims of independence, rehabilitation workshops were overwhelmingly dependent on public support. While politicians like pensions minister John Hodge shouted praise for the programs in newspapers, the government was ultimately very hesitant to fund workshops themselves. As a result, workshops were forced to request financial support in newspapers, becoming charities in all but name. Paradoxically, the ideal of independent, self-supporting work could only be achieved through a dependence on public support. In the eyes of servicemen workshops were also paradoxically repressive. In 1917 only 15% of disabled servicemen joined national training initiatives, notes historian Julie Anderson in War, Disability and Rehabilitation in Britain. Several hospital-based instructors complained of men refusing to come to their classes, choosing instead to rest or seek unskilled work. Why endanger one’s long-term independence and financial stability that skilled work offers, stated The Times in 1916 (paraphrasing rehabilitation proponent John Galsworthy), for the short-term benefits of immediate work? The ironic answer, according to historian Jeffery Reznick, was that men broadly feared workshops would take their freedoms away. Training infringed on men’s recreation time, straining the already tense relationship between men and the restrictive medical institutions. Conspiracies also emerged that the work would invalidate their pensions and that the workshops would become yet another workhouse. The fears of a loss of control was not baseless: several proponents for rehabilitation (including Galsworthy) called for training to be mandatory, while the government halved pensions to those refusing recommended training. This compulsion added to feelings of powerlessness and emasculation under hospital programs. After suffering war, wounding, and years of military discipline, yet more steps to return to ‘normal’ life was too much. Despite the efforts of the rehabilitation programs, they saw limited success in making men independent. By the 1920s public sympathy and employer investment in disabled veterans declined. Many employers preferred to hire women and foreigners over government-sponsored disabled men. Public support was able to keep these men out of poverty, notes historian Deborah Cohen, but ensured they were dependent on medical institutions and the public rather than reintegrated them into working society. Thus, despite the intentions of these institutions, the lack of support by disabled men, the government, and employers turned the system on its head. Independence became a product, with workshops being dependent on the public, policy makers, and the patients themselves to buy in and keep the system running.
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Over the last few months I have moved from researching to writing my essay. As a result, my well of research discoveries has run dry, leaving me with little to discuss in these posts. Fortunately, as that project moved on a new project began: digitising a sample from The Times and measuring which terms wounded soldiers were associated with. In this sample, I selected 48 Times articles on wounded men spread evenly across 1915, based on emotive search terms like “happy”, “depressed”, and “brave”. I then counted how often these terms emerged. The results can be found at the bottom of this post. However, today I'm not going to discuss these results. Instead, I want to talk about hidden bonus I found in changing my research method from qualitative to quantitative. By selecting articles blindly across only one year, and not limiting myself to articles on British servicemen, I discovered a trove of reports on wounded men from other nations. So why am I only looking at other nations now? Well, I decided to limit myself to how British newspapers viewed British men, as a study into how they reacted to the wounded of different nation's could fill its own essay. Ethnicity is also not a big concern for my essay, except when newspapers distinguish English, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish men. The only time an article associated ‘race’ with wounding was when author Ian Hay wrote in Answers: “Beneath the mud and blood they are men - white men”. This was in contrast to the beast-like Germans, “With their shifty eyes and curiously-shaped heads…”. Yet one journalist cannot reflect the attitudes of all papers to ethnicity; you need to compare multiple sources. This is where this miniature study comes in. In 1915, The Times wrote extensively on multiple battlefields: the French-German front, the Italian front, the invasion of Serbia, the middle-eastern (Mesopotamian) theatre, and of course, the Gallipoli campaign. Smaller conflicts also emerged, including the Sepoy mutiny in Singapore. Due to this vast coverage, wounded German, Turkish, French, Italian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Indian, Canadian, Australian and New Zealander men all marched forth through the British papers. The descriptions of these wounded men varied based on their nationality, but not how you may expect. Firstly, the German wounded were described without racist caricature, insults, or moral judgements. One German deserter pretending to be wounded was only described in factual, unemotive language. The Times made no association between his deception and German enemy in general, despite the possible propaganda value. This same article recounted a French officer’s grand salute to a brave Bavarian officer, implying that the British media was not afraid to sometimes praise the enemy. Overall, servicemen were described in brief, neutral terms. This is more than can be said for the Turkish wounded, who's only mention is as a statistic. So while the ideal of the ‘Wounded German’ was an individual deserving moderate sympathy, the ‘Wounded Turk’ was essentially invisible. While the descriptions of wounded enemy soldiers were subdued, wounded allies were described in emotive terms of bravery, cheerfulness, and stoic handlings of suffering. While the English-speaking troops were commended for their gallantry, it was “panache” or swagger that distinguished the wounded Frenchman. Colonial troops could also gain praise, with one wounded Indian prince being commemorated for his valour. A crude cheerfulness united the British and ANZAC troops. One New Zealander described the wounded as “...wonderful, cheerful, and full of information and profanity.” Meanwhile, the Bishop of Birmingham witnessed the dark comedy of British soldiers, which he chalked up to a way of managing suffering. Amongst these cases, descriptions of wounded allied servicemen were more similar than different, although more focus was placed on the characters of English-speaking men. When it came to hospitals, those in Germany were not heavily criticised. One reporter found British prisoners to be treated more coldly than German troops, yet with the same level of medical care. Instead it was hospitals of Britain's own ally, Serbia, that earned the most negative descriptions. Nurses lamented the poor comforts of their workplaces, largely due to their limited access to supplies and the rising crisis of being overwhelmed. This may help explain the greater emphasis on the suffering and distressed reactions of Balkan patients. One article recounted a Croatian at a state of nervous collapse complaining to a Serbia, who brushes him off angerly. This and similar descriptions of distress are interesting when compared to the stoic, cheerful British servicemen newspapers typically portrayed. So what can we learn by dividing portrayals of wounded men by nationality? Well first, the brave and cheerful wounded man are not uniquely ‘British’ archetypes, although British and English-speaking examples were more commonly reported. By applying similar ideals of wounding to allies, The Times may have intended (consciously or not) to highlight what unified Britain and its allies. Second, allegiance determined the extent a wounded man was described, not whether this description was positive or negative.
Three months in, my primary research is finally wrapping up. Over this last month I have read through the Manchester Courier, a regional paper for Northwest England and Northern Wales. Despite folding only two years into the war (by late 1915), the paper managed to cover Manchester's transformation into what it called a 'hospital city'. Unlike the other papers in this study, the Manchester Courier regularly used photographs to illustrate this trend. In just over a year of reporting, the Manchester Courier portrays WWI hospital life in more detail than any other newspaper I have written about. Published in the industrial region of Northwest England and Northern Wales, the Manchester Courier may have had a large working class readership. Social class had a major impact in early 20th century British culture, distinguishing different ideals of family and home for different income groups. These ideals trickled down into the design and running of rest homes and hospitals, argues Historian Jeffrey Reznick in Healing the Nation. Rest homes designed by the YMCA emphasised middle-class ideals of self-help, providing leisure activities to repair the men's outer selves. Meanwhile, the Church Army and Salvation Army built rest homes according to working class ideals, using military rhetoric and regular religious sermons to protect the inner self. Women employed by the Salvation Army were portrayed like working class mothers, as both disciplinarians and comforters. Taking Reznick's account as a guide to class ideals, it appears that the Manchester Courier's writing was more focused on middle-class ideals than working class ones. The articles do not strongly emphasise faith nor strong military rhetoric. Further, one article commented on the “...usual cheap heroics” of the Labour Party demanding high pensions for widows and wounded men; “very characteristic of the friends of the workers”. While these sarcastic comments are not enough to establish the papers social or political stance, they don't appear to favour the working class. The Manchester Courier’s depictions of hospitals tend to favour middle class ideals. In the photo titled ‘Home-like Hospital for the Wounded British’, four soldiers sit in beds and chairs reading papers. This constructed “home-like atmosphere”, with flowers, picture frames and portraits on mantelpieces follow what Reznick calls “middle-class domesticity”. Leisure is a common theme of the photographs, shown here in the educational pursuit of reading. Other photos show men enjoying open-air play, such as in ‘Happy hour for the treatment of the wounded’. Here men play golf and move around the park, by foot, crutch or bath chair. Golf was a sport wounded men were commonly associated with, both for leisure and to employ some disabled men as caddies. It is likely the sport’s prestige as a 'classy' (i.e. middle to upper-class) British activity made it all the more appealing for hospital excursions. These themes also share the common ideal of comfort. Reznick explains that hospitals put a great amount of effort into appearing comfortable. Various onlookers criticised this project, noting the wards did not meet their claims on closer inspection. Yet newspapers like the Manchester Courier rarely displayed these complaints. Only one article from the Times (‘Care of Convalescent Soldiers’) in early 1915 criticised hospitals for lacking “home comforts”.
Most articles associated comfort with soft beds, nourishing food, and small luxuries, alongside the sympathetic treatment of nurses and words of visitors. Aid requests called for gifts like bedclothes, tobacco, and writing paper. The Incorporated Soldier’s and Sailor’s Help Society requested volunteer “friends” to comfort the men and assist them in finding employment after discharge. All four newspapers covered the visit of the King and Queen to London Hospital, saying words of “comfort, sympathy, or cheer” to each patient. Comfort is framed in both social and material terms. In the Manchester Courier in particular, these activities are tied to middle-class ideals including middle-class domesticity and consumerism. However, very rarely were wounded men asked about whether they felt comfortable. The merits of apparent leisure through rest, outdoor activity and consumption are taken for granted. Last time I discussed the magazine Answers and how it commented on wounded men's relationships with women, particularly their wives. This post will take a different perspective. First, it examines how servicemen used newspapers like the Dundee Courier to reassure family at home. Next, it turns to the perspective of women reading the newspapers, and why, despite knowing the news was often false, did they continue to read? The Dundee Courier is a local paper in the Scottish town of Dundee, founded in 1801. Dundee was by then a relatively large city of 167,000; yet still far smaller than London (7,158,000) or Manchester (710,000). As such, the paper had a much smaller, local focus. It generally discussed Scottish stories in a local context; particularly the famous Scottish ‘Black Watch’ that enlisted many Dundee men. With fewer stories than the larger papers, the Dundee Courier could write articles and print photos of individual wounded men, as well as publishing their letters home. While Answers focused on men as husbands, the Dundee Courier also depicted them as brothers and sons. Wounding reports often noted the location of the men’s relations. Letters to families were published, in which men reassure their loved ones back home. One soldier wrote; “...all the time we think of our fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers.” Other stories reinforced the role of family in the men's lives. In one mother's account on visiting her dying son in France, she recalls seeing men calling for their families when arriving at the hospital. The Dundee Courier also spoke to women directly, with calls for donations of money, small gifts (especially jam), and voluntary service hospitals. Very few other newspapers mention mothers, fathers, or sisters of wounded servicemen. Given this difference in Scottish and English news, I plan to explore the differences in masculinity and domesticity between the two countries. On the topic of how women were spoken to by newspapers, I recently read an interesting journal article on how women knew newspapers lied to them. In “Roast Seagull and other Quaint Bird Dishes”, Sarah Londsdale examines the different types of articles in British WWI papers. Londsdale notes that although many readers despised news articles as unreliable (due to propaganda and censorship), they gained a keen interest in lifestyle journalism. This journalism (long ignored by historians as “soft” and “unserious”) appealed to the largely female domestic and working readership. It provided practical rationing advice, while painting working women in equal terms to men, actively getting their hands dirty. With its useful insights into the demographics and attitudes of readers, the article explains why newspapers made so many appeals to women in particular.
A major issue of disability in WWI was how it affected men's domestic roles. These roles were defined in relation to women, who were expected to be dependent wives to the male husband and breadwinner. Yet the crippling nature of an impairment often left disabled men often dependent on their wives to work and care for them, overturning the social order. Anne Borsay notes that this role reversal was a key part of why men were so anxious around their disability, leading to some resenting women. This domestic tension soon found its way into two British papers: Answers and the Dundee Courier. This Answers was a London magazine first published on 2 June 1888. It is notable for being the first paper of media mogul Lord Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, who’s popular entertainment style revolutionized modern journalism. By WWI Answers was familiar with writing gossip columns and giving domestic advice, with writers wearing their opinions on their ink-stained sleeves. Answers wrote empathetically about wounded servicemen, reflecting the men's speech, humour, and interests. This approach led the paper to comment on the pain and anxiety of wounded men behind their jokes and cheerful appearance. This anxiety included that of readjusting to domestic life after being disabled, and the challenges of connecting with women. The paper explains that many men despised being constantly observed and asked questions by women. (I found this rather ironic, given these articles were also a form of observation.) Answers also acknowledges anxieties over finding a wife while being wounded, with some men fearing asking a women to 'tie herself to a cripple'. Answers criticized government controlled newspapers for their blind reassurance, spooning readers a “soothing syrup” about how after the war life would go back to how it was before. Yet it was still optimistic of the future, particularly with its commentary on women. It praised the ability of some women to be both wives and “mothers” to men, taking active roles in both dating and running the household while pretending that the men were in charge to maintain their egos. For Answers, women were the solution to how to reintegrate wounded men into society. What have I gotten myself into? This was my first thought after gathering over two hundred newspaper articles. I've chosen to focus on newspapers for my research project, to find out what the British Media had to say about wounded men. I've found four newspapers from across Britain, with a wide range of readerships: The Times, Answers, the Manchester Courier, and the Dundee Courier. The largest newspaper is The Times, a prestigious, national paper based in London. The Times writes in a very factual (although not always unemotional) style with short articles. Next is the illustrated magazine Answers, which besides also being published in London has little in common with The Times. Answers often publishes full-page editorials, reports, and interviews, mixed in with fictional stories and jokes. Moving north we come to the Manchester Courier, a morning paper published in the industrial region of Northwest England and Northern Wales. Unfortunately the paper folded in 1915, early in the war. However, as it is one of very few digitised papers in the region published at this time, I decided to include it anyway. Lastly we have the Dundee Courier, a local paper for Dundee, Scotland. Unlike the regional or national papers, this may provide a more local view from the perspective of a relatively small town. These papers cover a range of readerships: English, Welsh, and Scottish; Northern and Southern; ‘high’ and ‘low brow’. The main exception is Ireland, which I may research later if I have the time. I selected these papers from The Times Digital Archive, British Library Newpapers, and British Periodicals, restricting myself to digital sources mostly because I live in New Zealand, far from most archives of British Newspapers. As a result, I have had to ignore un-digitised small town papers. When selecting these articles I searched for the terms “Disabled” and “Wounded”, which I paired with the terms: “Convalescent”, “Invalid”, “Rehabilitation”, “Useful”, “Battle-Stained”, “Cheery”, “Malingering”, “Eugenics”, “Independent”, “Wife”, “Maimed”, “Crippled”, and “Disfigured”. Some of these terms describe the bodies and characters of wounded men, while others describe the people and institutions surrounding and discussing them. “Disfigured” is especially interesting for its lack of search results. It usually only appears alongside references to German war crimes. This adds another layer to Historian Suzannah Biernoff’s observation that in Britain, facial injuries were almost never represented visually, as they were associated with revulsion and lost identity. The fact newspapers rarely even used the term 'disfigured' implies it had a similar taboo. I chose “Crippled” to determine if the articles associated wounded men with “crippled children”, as Historian Seth Koven claims they were. Also with domesticity in mind I chose “Wife”, to observe if the roles of husbands and wives are described in relation to disability. My selection covers twelve years, from the start of WWI (28 June 1914) up to 1925, six years after the war ended on 11 November 1918. As papers during WWI were censored by officials and editors, their statements may tend to be more positive and patriotic than after the war. I spent most of March reading my articles from The Times, searching for trends. I also tracked these papers on a timeline, which I intend to use to track all my newspapers. Most articles are written during the war or shortly after; unsurprising, as this was when they were being wounded.
So what are some of these trends? Early Times articles focused on how wounded soldiers being treated in London, tending to portray the men as “Cheerful”. Later, in 1916, the rehabilitation of disabled men became a growing concern. I am still studying trends in descriptions after the war. The Times rarely published images. Charity advertisements occasionally provide images, mostly showing bandaged men in beds or with crutches. One workshop program published photographs of unbandaged, empty-sleeved men working machines. This contrast of resting, bandaged men in medical scenes, and working, unbandaged men in rehabilitation scenes, matches how charities depicted wounded men in the USA, according to Historian John M Kinder. The Time's hospital descriptions emphasised care and comfort. Comfort is especially interesting as it had multiple meanings. There was the comfort of beds and wards, words of comfort, luxuries like jam and cigarettes, and the work of nurses and volunteers (especially women) to improve the men's comfort. When people wrote in to the editor criticising hospitals, they often focused on the lack of comfort certain hospitals afforded. My classes have given me several new ideas for research. One is sensory history, an approach to examining how people understood sensations in the context of their place and time. Hospital descriptions frequently refer to soft beds, the appetites of men for tea and jam, and the presence of flowers and cigarettes in wards. These suggest a common language of touch, taste and smell in convalescence. Touch had other implications for wounded men. Suzannah Biernoff argues that visual censorship of war made descriptions of touch, including mud, pain and sickness, important in war poetry. Further, she claims literature and journalism perpetuated the belief that feminine gaze and touch could ‘temper’ the stigma of disfigurement. Looking ahead, I have a few ideas of new approaches. First, I might research the “Tommy” ideal as a model of masculinity. I might also look into the rhetoric of “fighting” disability (inspired by this modern critique of how it is still used today). Between April-May, while reading Answers and the Dundee Courier, I also plan on seeking out histories of newspapers, popular media, and 1910’s Scottish ideals of masculinity. Hello, and welcome to this introduction to my blog. I will post monthly about my ongoing 489 research project: ‘Representations of Disabled British Soldiers in WWI’. This blog has two main purposes. First, it shall chronicle my research process and key findings. I will document what sources I am reading and what new approaches I am considering, including ideas from University classes or readings from my other essays. Second, it will include short sections of my work, including drafts of topics in my final essay. The blog will be semi-formal, written like a polished version of how I talk in class. I aim to avoid being too stuffy and boring, while also not oversimplifying what I am discussing. Inspired by the practices of Greg Denning and Donna Merwick, as described in Tom Griffiths The Art of Time Travel, I will also use this blog to test out creative writing techniques. I’m aiming for short paragraphs, altogether having 500-800 words a post. Each post will include images and hyperlinks to the material I discuss. My research project is based on an essay I wrote in 2021: ‘Representations of Wounded Soldiers in Post-WWI Britain and America’. These representations referred to how the ‘character’ of the wounded and disabled soldier was portrayed particularly in visual media, in body (aesthetics), mind (morals), and spirit (willpower). I discovered several conflicting approaches; sympathy, empowerment, and concealment, to name a few. These approaches were put in service partially to inspire charity and support for medical organisations. They also worked to reinforce ideals of masculinity, duty, suffering, and the ideal soldier. I found that American histories often examined the early disability movement, in particular its struggles with the state (such as Ana Carden-Coyne's Ungrateful Bodies). In contrast, British sources show far less organised resistance by disabled ex-servicemen to the state (as explored by Debora Cohen). This is not to say disabled men were passive; Fiona Reid demonstrates that disabled soldiers played a role in constructing ‘disabled soldier ideals’. Building on my previous work, I decided to narrow down on Britain (at the advice of my proposal reviewers), focusing on differences in representations within the nation. I’ve decided to expand my scope to 1914-1925. This includes all of WWI and a majority of the post-war rehabilitation programs, to explore how these reminders of the past war interacted with the shifting social norms of the “Roaring 20s”. Within Britain, I decided to explore media (especially newspapers) broadly across the nation; from London to Manchester (England) to Dundee (Scotland).
One last point: be refer to wounded men as ‘servicemen’ or ‘ex-service men’, unless they are specifically from the army. WWI literature (and often war literature in general) often mixes sailors and other personnel with soldiers; a mistake I intend to avoid. |
About the Author:Thomas Arnold is a postgraduate (Honours) student of Victoria University of Wellington, as of 2022. Archives
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