Food in War Time
Food in War Time by Graham Lusk
Food in War Time reveals the transformation in women’s roles as a mother and wife into a patriotic citizen during World War I. 1
While the government did not commission this book directly, the author includes nationalistic undertones that the government would have approved. For example, the book emphasizes that “the simplest elements of patriotism demand[ed]” families conserve food, an idea the government also stressed through propaganda.2 These pro-American sentiments motivated women to change the way they fed their families on a daily basis.
Food in War Time brings up some interesting questions concerning how the promotion of nationalism changed women’s gender roles. From its inception, white men had access to the privileges of nationalism and citizenship.3 Women, on the other hand, operated in a separate system of legislation and ideology.4 However, during wartime, women’s active participation in national efforts empowered them politically and socially.5 Women’s visible and successful participation in the food conservation movement and other national movements gave women a platform to demand access to citizenship. It is not a coincidence that in 1920, two years after the end of World War I, women gained the right to vote. Therefore, women’s participation in national war efforts elevated their role in the home from wife and mother to active citizen.
1 Graham Lusk, Food in War Time (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1918).
2 Ibid, 10.
3 Nira Yuval-Davis, “Gender and Nation,” in Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism 2004 ed. Robert E. Miller and Rick Wilford (Florence: Routledge, 1998), 26.
4 Ibid, 27.
5 Ibid, 28.