"She Is Lost to Time and Place": Women, War Trauma, and the First World War

“She is Lost to Time and Place”: Women, War Trauma, and the First World War A dissertation presented by Bridget E. Keown to The Department of History In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the field of History Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts April 2019 1 “She is Lost to Time and Place”: Women, War Trauma, and the First World War A dissertation presented by Bridget E. Keown Abstract of Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities of Northeastern University April 2019 2 Abstract This work investigates the gendered construction of war trauma during the First World War, and seeks to reclaim the experiences of those whose suffering was not included in established diagnoses and definitions. Specifically, I analyze British and Irish women’s testimonies and expressions of trauma as a result of their experiences during the First World War, and the manner in which their suffering was interpreted and treated by medical and military professionals. I conclude by discussing how women’s individual emotional suffering has been marginalized and forgotten in the history of the First World War. In my Introduction, I discuss the lack of data into women’s lived experiences and emotions during the First World War and up to the present day. This lack of awareness continues to harm women physically and psychologically. My first chapter looks at the origins of the modern study of trauma during the outbreak of the First World War. I argue doctors and military officials were forced to redefine trauma due to the enormous number of soldiers exhibiting symptoms as a result of their combat experiences. However, because these definitions were constructed to reflect the experiences of men, they implicitly excluded the experiences, suffering, and symptoms of women. Instead, military and medical officials often fell back on older conceptions of women’s emotionality and mental instability, rather than to their lived experiences. This prevented women from accessing care and treatment for their symptoms, and also resulted in their experiences being excluded from the historiography of war trauma up until the present. Chapter Two turns to women’s lives on the home front. I examine case notes of female patients treated in London asylums and public hospitals who related their trauma to the war, such as air raids and grief over the death of male relatives in war. These case notes reveal the fault 3 lines between the gendered expectations of women in wartime and the realities of their lived experiences. In Chapter Three, I review the case notes from the Richmond Asylum in Dublin, where women who experienced trauma during the Easter Rising of 1916 were treated. This research not only emphasizes that Dublin was both a home front and a war zone during this period, but reconceptualizes the Easter Rising as a period of traumatic wartime violence that had physical and psychological repercussions for all those forced to endure it. In addition to discussing the testimony of women on the English and Irish home front, I also use these chapters to focus on doctors’ resistance to recognizing women as psychological victims of war, and the consequences this had for women’s care in asylums and hospitals. In Chapter Four, I study the private papers of professional and volunteer nurses to understand how they incorporated experiences of trauma into a subjective narrative, as well as the sources of emotional resilience they identified during their service. This analysis offers the potential to scrutinize women’s emotional subjectivity, as well as their linguistic depictions of their unique war experiences, overcoming the authority and tension of doctors’ interpretations found in case notes. In Chapter Five, I study at nurses’ pension files to see how these narratives of trauma were read and interpreted by medical and military officials in the postwar period. Because women were not allowed to apply for disability pensions until after the war had ended, they were forced to navigate a stubborn bureaucratic maze that was not designed to recognize their service or their suffering. Though some women were successful in demonstrating and describing their trauma for medical boards, many more were rejected, severely affecting their ability to return to civilian life. This chapter concludes with consideration of the potential for care and healing available to female veterans from private institutions and charities. I look specifically at the Nations’ Fund for Nurses, which funded the Cowdray Club, an all-women 4 nurses’ and veterans’ organization that provided personal care, professional assistance, and pensions to women veterans. The Epilogue considers how the study of trauma has influenced the narrative history of the First World War in the west, and continues to influence the understanding and treatment of people in war to this day. My research is theoretically informed by feminist critiques of psychology, the history of emotions, and feminist memory studies. It is driven by my determination to illuminate historically gendered assumptions of trauma and to reclaim women’s subjective emotional narratives. By focusing on women’s descriptions of their own pain, fears, and traumatic memories, I intervene in a robust historiography to insist on women’s individual emotional experiences and reactions to their personal war experiences. I also contribute to a feminist history of the First World War by identifying the sources of resiliency, especially the friendships with other women, that sustained women during and after the war. In addition, my work specifically addresses the struggles of female veterans for pensions and social recognition in a way that has not yet been attempted. In my work, their testimony and trauma moves from a position of subjugated memory to the forefront, enriching and complicating the historic narratives of the First World War as a whole. This work has far-reaching implications, calling into question the gendered diagnostic criteria for war trauma today, and the stigmatization of women’s emotions that continue to affect the ways in which their testimony of emotional suffering and trauma is heard in our present moment. 5 Acknowledgements The process of writing a dissertation, especially in the humanities, can often feel downright Sisyphean and lonely. But there are people who help to clear the path, to ease the burdens, and who make the journey easier, and it is an honor to mention them here, and to celebrate all they did to bring this process to a successful conclusion. First and foremost, my thanks to my parents. My mother believed in this work even before I knew the shape it would take, and that belief sustained me when my own began to waver. My father proof-read every word of this dissertation, more than once, in every one of its forms and permutations, and his patience, diligence, humor will never be forgotten. Moreover, whenever I doubted this work or its message, he was there to remind me why it was important. This work is his, in its own way, too. To John Donovan, my grandfather, who showed me the power of listening to others, and to my grandmother, Mary Josephine Petra, who showed me that ladies don’t take guff from anyone. Thank you both for helping to make me who I am. To George and Charlie Donovan, of the American Expeditionary Force, and John Magee, of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, thank you for the inspiration. I hope I made you proud. To my extended family on Wahtera Road, especially Albeta Gately and her incredible family. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for letting me be me. And to Eileen, I know you’re here, because you promised you would be. My thanks also to the many mentors and colleagues who showed me the way during this labyrinthine journey. My committee members at Northeastern, Heather Streets-Salter and Laura Frader provided honesty, insight and their time during many difficult semesters. Peter Leese, at 6 the University of Copenhagen, was the first person to give this work a vote of confidence during an unforgettable (for several reasons) conference in Helsinki, and continued to offer advice, clarification, and opportunities for presenting my research to scholars around the globe. In addition, Jason Crouthamel, Susan Grayzel, and Jason Knirk all offered commentary and advice on this work that improved it enormously. My research and conference travel was funded through the generous support of the Larkin Graduate Fellowship in Irish Studies from the American Conference of Irish Studies, the Zanghi-Dow Grant, and funding from the Northeastern History Department. I sincerely hope that this work justifies your generosity and faith in me. Looking further back, to those teachers at the Pingree School who fed my initial curiosity in the First World War, and taught me to fight for my own dreams: to Ms. P, Ms. Dolan, and Zach Lyman, I am honored to be part of your legacy. And to those who didn’t buy my research, thank you, too. Your resentment told me I was on the right path. Your dismissal was all the impetus I needed to keep working. To the many archivists and librarians whose dedication and enthusiasm made the research for this project possible, especially Anthony Richards, Sabrina Offord, and Simon Offord, who welcomed me to the Imperial War Museum, and whom I am honored to call friends. Also, my thanks to Roderick Suddaby, Keeper of the Department of Documents when I worked at the Imperial War Museum, and a true gentleman. Thank you for letting me sit at your desk, and thank you for believing in me. Every day was an honor.

Load more