1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910460977103321

Autore

Kuhlman Erika A. <1961->

Titolo

Of little comfort [[electronic resource] ] : war widows, fallen soldiers, and the remaking of nation after the Great War / / Erika Kuhlman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : New York University Press, c2012

ISBN

0-8147-4840-6

0-8147-4905-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (236 p.)

Disciplina

940.3/1

Soggetti

World War, 1914-1918 - Women

War widows - Government policy - United States - History - 20th century

War widows - Government policy - Germany - History - 20th century

War widows - Government policy - Western countries - History - 20th century

World War, 1914-1918 - Social aspects - United States

World War, 1914-1918 - Social aspects - Germany

Nationalism - History - 20th century

Transnationalism - History - 20th century

Electronic books.

United States Social conditions 1918-1932

Germany Social conditions 1918-1933

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

An Army of Widows -- Trostlose Stunden : German War Widows -- The War Widows' Romance : Victory and Loss in the United States -- The Transnationalization of Soldiers, Widows, and War Relief -- "The Other Trench" : Remarriage, Pronatalism, and the Rebirthing of the Nation -- Epilogue.

Sommario/riassunto

During and especially after World War I, the millions of black-clad widows on the streets of Europe’s cities were a constant reminder that war caused carnage on a vast scale. But widows were far more than just a reminder of the war’s fallen soldiers; they were literal and figurative



actresses in how nations crafted their identities in the interwar era. In this extremely original study, Erika Kuhlman compares the ways in which German and American widows experienced their postwar status, and how that played into the cultures of mourning in their two nations: one defeated, the other victorious. Each nation used widows and war dead as symbols to either uphold their victory or disengage from their defeat, but Kuhlman, parsing both German and U.S. primary sources, compares widows’ lived experiences to public memory. For some widows, government compensation in the form of military-style awards sufficed. For others, their own deprivations, combined with those suffered by widows living in other nations, became the touchstone of a transnational awareness of the absurdity of war and the need to prevent it.