Digital Commons Network^™

Is Humanitarian Aid Neutral? The American Ambulance Field Service And The American Red Cross, Laura Neis

Madison Historical Review

The United States did not outwardly join WWI until April of 1917. However, in the nearly three years in which the U.S. was neutral, they provided medical support to the suffering. This act has been dismissed as humanitarian charity work, and therefore not breaking with neutrality agreements, but it was actually a hotly contested act of foreign policy, and different propaganda campaigns were used to change the minds of American citizens.

Two different groups of medical volunteers show how humanitarian aid shapes perspectives on war. The American Ambulance Field Service drove ambulances for the French army on the front line, …

Fort Lipstick And The Making Of June Cleaver: Gender Roles In American Propaganda And Advertising, 1941-1961, Samantha L. Vandermeade

Madison Historical Review

This article discusses the ways in which government propaganda and corporate advertising during the 1940s and 1950s made a concerted effort to mitigate the increased sexual, economic, and social freedoms of women engendered by the circumstances of the war years. While Rosie the Riveter and others like her became the picture Americans often associate with women in World War II, advertising firms and the government deliberately created Rosie and her fellows to reinforce female participation in the war effort only through their pre-ascribed dichotomous roles as either socially tamed sexual objects or mothers. Then, as the war drew to a …