Abstract
In analysing social change, French historians tend to attach more importance to trends and developments which take place over the long term (the longue durée) than to individual ‘events’. British historians, while not insensitive to such secular trends, more readily concede that ‘events’ — especially when they are as cataclysmic as World War I — may play a determining role in their own right. It is the particular achievement of Professor Arthur Marwick to have made the relationship between total war and social change one of the key problems of contemporary historiography. My own position will be seen to be closer to that of the French historians: but I should say at the outset that I in no way dispute Professor Marwick’s central proposition, namely that World War I is a privileged vantage point from which to observe social change.1 The war gives us a precise moment on which to focus, an opportunity, as it were, to take stock and assess the relative importance of war-time innovations when set beside long-term change and continuities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
A. Marwick, War and Social Change in the Twentieth Century (London, 1974.)
cf J. Williams, The Home Fronts. Britain, France and Germany 1914–1918 (London, 1972), p. v:
S. Verdeau, L’accession des femmes aux fonctions publiques (Law thesis, Toulouse, 1942) p. 36.
S. G. Bell and K. M. Offen, Women, the Family and Freedom: the Debate in Documents, 2 vols (Stanford, 1983) is an excellent introduction to the debate on the ‘Woman question’ since the late eighteenth century.
Y. Lequin (ed.), Histoire des Français XIXe-XXe siècles, vol. II, La Société (Paris, 1983) p. 124.
M. Segalen, Love and Power in the Peasant Family (Oxford, 1983) pp. 95 and 43.
See J. F. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society 1870–1940 (Brighton, 1981), pt II, for the statistical information which follows.
See also M. Dubesset et. al.. Dubesset et. al., ‘Les munitionettes de la Seine’ in P. Fridenson (ed.), 1914–1918: L’Autre Front (Paris, 1977).
L. Gayraud, ‘L’oeuvre féminine et le féminisme’, La Revue Hebdomadaire, 22 July 1916, pp. 525–40.
J. Misme, ‘La guerre et le rôle des femmes’, La Revue de Paris, 1 November 1916.
C. Duplomb, ‘L’emploi de la femme dans les usines’, La Renaissance Politique, Littéraire et Artistique, August 1917.
M. Gabelle, ‘La place de la femme française après la guerre’, La Renaissance Politique, Littéraire et Artistique, 17 February 1917.
L. Abensour, Histoire générale du féminisme: des origines à nos jours (1921) p. 310.
J. Barthélemy, Le vote des femmes (1920) preface, p. v.
H. Robert, ‘La femme et la guerre’, La Revue, May 1917, pp. 243–57.
T. d’Ulmès, ‘Les Femmes et l’action nationale’, La Revue Hebdomadaire, 7 August 1915, pp. 73–83.
H. Spont, La femme et la guerre (Paris, 1916).
H. Joly, ‘De l’extension du travail des femmes après la guerre’, Le Correspondant, 10 January 1917, pp. 3–34.
F. Lepelletier, ‘La situation de la femme au lendemain de la guerre’, La Réforme Sociale, March 1919, pp. 180–192.
F. Masson, ‘Les femmes pendant et après la guerre’ La Revue Hebdomadaire, 3 May 1917.
Bracke, ‘Le suffrage des femmes’, L’Humanité, 23 June 1917.
Quoted by S. Grinberg, Histoire du mouvement suffragiste depuis 1848 (Paris, 1926) p. 113.
S. C. Hause and A. R. Kenney, Women’s Suffrage and Social Politics in the French Third Republic (Princeton, 1984) p. 222
M. Dubesset, F. Thébaud and C. Vincent, Quand les femmes entrent à l’usine (Maîtrise, Paris 7, 1973–4) 2 vols., p. 57.
These may be seen in J. Daric, L’activité professionnelle des femmes en France (Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques, cahier no. 5, 1947).
A. Vallentin, ‘L’emploi des femmes depuis la guerre’, Revue Internationale du Travail, April 1932, pp. 506–21.
M. Guilbert, ‘L’évolution des effectifs du travail féminin en France depuis 1866’, Revue Française du Travail, September 1947, pp. 764ff.
E. Charrier, L’évolution intellectuelle féminine (1931).
M. Guilbert, Les fonctions des femmes dans l’industrie (1966) p. 63.
cf M. Hanagan, The Logic of Solidarity: Artisans and Industrial Workers in Three French Towns 1871–1914 (Urbana, Illinois, 1980).
M. Ancel, Traité de la capacité civile de la femme mariée d’après la loi du 18 février 1938 (1938).
See G. Cross, ‘Les trois huits: Labor Movements, International Reform and the Origins of the eight Hour Day 1919–1924’, French Historical Studies, XIV, Fall 1985, pp. 240–68.
This practice generated a good deal of literary attention. See M. Prévost, Nouvelles letres à Françoise ou la jeune fille d’après-guerre (1925).
F. Boucher, A History of Costume in the West (1967).
A.-M. Sohn, ‘La Garçonne face à l’opinion publique: type littéraire ou type social des années 20’, Le Mouvement Social, no. 80, 1972, pp. 13–27.
S. de Beauvoir, Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (Paris, 1958).
Editor information
Copyright information
© 1988 James F. McMillan
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McMillan, J.F. (1988). World War I and Women in France. In: Marwick, A. (eds) Total War and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19574-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19574-9_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-45591-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-19574-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)