Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Cultural History Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Cultural History

'Gave His Life For The Empire': Memory, Memorials, And Identity In The British Empire After The First World War, Bryan Mcclure Mar 2023

'Gave His Life For The Empire': Memory, Memorials, And Identity In The British Empire After The First World War, Bryan Mcclure

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the construction of personal memorials after the First World War across the British Empire nations of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, to understand how individuals sought to make their own memorial to remember their loved one killed in the conflict. In comparison to other studies on the construction of national or other community memorials, this dissertation explores how individuals accepted or rejected dominant discourses in creating their own memorials that spoke to how they remembered the war. It is based on a large database of more than 2,000 private memorials to individuals that …


Canadian Prisoners Of The First World War: The Struggle For Resilience, Grace Peeters-Rosien Aug 2022

Canadian Prisoners Of The First World War: The Struggle For Resilience, Grace Peeters-Rosien

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In the First World War, 3,500 Canadian soldiers were taken prisoner. Throughout their captivity, they endured intense humiliation, dehumanization, and abuse. Despite this, the men were able to remain resilient and even found ways to fight back. By using memoirs and letters written by the prisoners, this paper will analyze how these Canadians were determined to keep fighting. This paper will be using an analogy of a bank account to explain how close the prisoners came to breakdown, and how they continuously struggled to endure. Society and war had taught these men that prisoners were weak and cowardly, but they …


Muddying The Lens: Photographs Of The Canadian Expeditionary Force, Sarah Leilani Hart Aug 2020

Muddying The Lens: Photographs Of The Canadian Expeditionary Force, Sarah Leilani Hart

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Over the course of the First World War 4, 507 photographs were produced by the Canadian War Records Office. These photographs were used as propaganda to promote victory overseas and were popularized in exhibitions, magazines, books, and other wartime ephemera. Produced simultaneously to this official record was private soldiers’ photography which is comprised of albums, scrapbooks, personal snapshots, and soldiers’ portraits and communicate a narrative that is both similar and disparate from the official record. This thesis examines the ways in which private and official photographs were formed and how they were used to communicate soldiers’ wartime experience. It argues …


Charting Continuation: Understanding Post-Traditional Six Nations Militarism, 1814-1930, Evan Joseph Habkirk Oct 2018

Charting Continuation: Understanding Post-Traditional Six Nations Militarism, 1814-1930, Evan Joseph Habkirk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Until recently, military historians failed to consider First Nations military participation beyond the settlement of a particular region, including the end War of 1812 in Ontario and Quebec, and the post-Northwest Rebellion era in the Western Provinces. Current historiography of Six Nations military between the end of the War of 1812 and the First World War has also neglected the evolution of First Nations militarism and the voice of First Nations peoples, with most military histories including First Nations participation as contributions to the larger non-First Nations narrative of Canada. By charting the military participation of one First Nation community, …


Killing, Combat And The Princess Patricia’S Canadian Light Infantry: Legendary Soldiers’ Stories Of The First World War – 1914-1918, Ryan B. Flavelle Cd Dec 2017

Killing, Combat And The Princess Patricia’S Canadian Light Infantry: Legendary Soldiers’ Stories Of The First World War – 1914-1918, Ryan B. Flavelle Cd

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study interrogates the stories and legends of six soldiers who served in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry during the First World War, and the ways in which they described their primary occupation as soldiers, killing enemy combatants. It asks a fundamentally important question; how and why do men kill at war? Soldiers tended to narrate their descriptions of killing from the perspective of an innocuous reporter, and downplay their agency in the killing act. They also, often, framed their descriptions of killing in terms of revenge for the loss of comrades, or atrocities committed by the enemy. Alternatively, …


And The Men Returned: Canadian Veterans And The Aftermath Of The Great War, Jonathan Scotland Apr 2016

And The Men Returned: Canadian Veterans And The Aftermath Of The Great War, Jonathan Scotland

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Great War was a formative event for men who came of age between 1914 and 1918. They believed the experience forged them into a distinct generation. This collective identification more than shaped a sense of self; it influenced understanding of the conflict’s meaning. Canadian historians, however, have overlooked the war’s generational impact, partly because they reject notions of a disillusioned Lost Generation. Unlike European or American youths, it is argued that Canadian veterans did not suffer postwar disillusionment. Rather, they embraced the war alongside a renewed Canadian nationalism. This generation was proud of their nation’s wartime achievements, notably those …


Embattled Communities: Voluntary Action And Identity In Australia, Canada, And New Zealand, 1914-1918, Steve Marti Aug 2015

Embattled Communities: Voluntary Action And Identity In Australia, Canada, And New Zealand, 1914-1918, Steve Marti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines voluntary mobilization during the First World War to understand why communities on the social and geographical periphery of the British Empire mobilized themselves so enthusiastically to support a distant war, fought for adistant empire. Lacking a strong state apparatus or a military-industrial complex, the governments of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand relied on voluntary contributions to sustain their war efforts. Community-based voluntary societies knitted socks, raised funds to purchase military equipment, and formed contingents of soldiers. By examining the selective mobilization of voluntary participation, this study will understand how different communities negotiated social and spatial boundaries as …