World War II and American Families
Category
Business, Education and Humanities
Department
History
Student Status
Undergraduate
Research Advisor
Dr. Kyle Thompson
Document Type
Event
Location
Student Center Ballroom
Start Date
10-4-2025 2:00 PM
End Date
10-4-2025 4:00 PM
Description
When people think of the home front during World War II, they likely think of it in terms of how society mobilized to support the war effort through political, military, and economic means. This is because up until the 1970s, historians confined their research to these perspectives which has in turn limited studies of social and cultural aspects on the home front such as wartime family dynamics and the myths that plague them. This paper intends to examine the way the history of the home front has changed over time. For years, historians have pointed to the absence of fathers and husbands as the cause for the degradation of family and family dynamics, suggesting that once they had returned home, families returned to normal and embodied the happy, golden nuclear family romanticized in many forms of media. However, the emergence of women and family historians in the 1970s challenges this traditional view with the inclusion of female and children's perspectives which convey that experiences greatly varied family to family.
World War II and American Families
Student Center Ballroom
When people think of the home front during World War II, they likely think of it in terms of how society mobilized to support the war effort through political, military, and economic means. This is because up until the 1970s, historians confined their research to these perspectives which has in turn limited studies of social and cultural aspects on the home front such as wartime family dynamics and the myths that plague them. This paper intends to examine the way the history of the home front has changed over time. For years, historians have pointed to the absence of fathers and husbands as the cause for the degradation of family and family dynamics, suggesting that once they had returned home, families returned to normal and embodied the happy, golden nuclear family romanticized in many forms of media. However, the emergence of women and family historians in the 1970s challenges this traditional view with the inclusion of female and children's perspectives which convey that experiences greatly varied family to family.
