Related Projects of Interest

There are many others working on, or have already completed, theses that are also of interest to me as a researcher in this topic, and therefore may also be of interest to others.

• Boon, T., ‘Film and contestation of public health in interwar Britain ‘, PhD, 1999
• Chapman, J., ‘Official British Film Propaganda during the Second World War’, PhD, 1995
• Carruthers, S.L., ‘Propaganda, publicity and political violence: the presentation of terrorism in Britain, 1944-60′, PhD, 1994
• Davies, S.R., ‘Propaganda and popular opinion in Soviet Russia, 1934-41′, D.Phil, 1994
• Efstathiadou, A., ‘The Art of Seeing: visual representation of women during WWII in Greece and UK’, PhD, in progress
• Fisher, S. J. ‘The Blitz and the Bomber Offensive: A Case Study in British Home Propaganda, 1939-45′, PhD, 1993
• Griange, P., ‘Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in 1990s America’, PhD, date?
• Howling, I.R.C. ”Our Soviet Friends’: the presentation of the Soviet Union in the British Media 1941-45′, M.A., 1988
• Kertesz, M.A. ‘The Enemy – British Images of the German people during the Second World War’, D.Phil, 1992
• McCarty, E.A. ‘Attitudes to women and domesticity in England, c.1939-1955′, D.Phil, 1994
• McPherson, E., ‘The impact of the Second World War on local authorities in South Lancashire 1935-45′, PhD, 1995
• Noakes, L. ‘Gender and British national identity in wartime: a study of the links between gender and national identity in Britain in the Second World War, the Falklands War and the Gulf War.’, D.Phil, 1996
• Parker, K.L. ‘Women MPs, Feminism and Domestic Policy in the Second World War’, D.Phil, 1994
• Rennie, P., ‘An investigation into the design, production and display contexts of industrial safety posters produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents during WW2′, PhD, 2004
• Royall, K., ‘Posters of the Second World War: The Fourth Arm of Defence?’, M.A., 1991
• Ryan, S.F., ‘British perceptions of the meaning of the war: the government, the public and the fate of France: 1939-42′, M.Phil, 1993
• Sinclair, G., ‘Propaganda and Churchill in the Second World War: the Making of an Icon’, PhD, in progress
• Spears, L.W., An Enquiry into the use of propaganda on the Home Front during World War Two with special reference to the role and effectiveness of the poster as a means of conveying Government policy MA, 1998
• Taylor, P.H., ‘The role of local government during the second world war, with special reference to Lancashire.’, PhD, 1992
• Taylor, P.M., ‘The projection of Britain: British overseas publicity and propaganda, 1914-1939, with particular reference to the work of the news department of the Foreign Office.’, PhD, 1978

Please contact me with your details if you are also working upon a topic of interest, at any level, and wish to be added to the list. Please provide a link to a webpage if you have one, otherwise a synopsis of your project would be good.

See theses completed and in progress for more history theses. If your university is a registered user, you can access abstracts of theses online. Mine was completed in 2004.

Min.

Leslie William Spears: An Enquiry into the use of propaganda on the Home Front during World War Two with special reference to the role and effectiveness of the poster as a means of conveying Government policy

Original typescript, 1998.

Dissertation (M.A.) – University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art, Division of History of Art and Design, 1998.

No abstract.

I attended some sessions at Winchester School of Art, with Brandon Taylor, re: Art & Propaganda, and Leslie was inspired to write this MA. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never had a chance to read it, maybe now I’m back in the area, I might find time!

S.F.Ryan: ‘British Perceptions of the Meaning of the War: The Government, the Public and the Fate of France: 1939-42′

S.F.Ryan: ‘British Perceptions of the Meaning of the War: The Government, the Public and the Fate of France: 1939-42′Ryan, S.F., ‘British perceptions of the meaning of the war: the government, the public and the fate of France: 1939-42′
M.Phil completed 1993. Salford University

No abstract available.

Katrina Royall: ‘Posters of the Second World War: The Fourth Arm of Defence?’

Royall, K., ‘Posters of the Second World War: The Fourth Arm of Defence?’
MA Thesis, completed 1991. Westminster University

Poster campaigns from the Second World War are a part of people’s collective memories. Frustrated by the lack of published information on the subject, this project investigates the British posters of the Second World War produced by the Ministry of Information and the response to them.

In 2004 Royall was Course Administrator at the V&A.

P.H. Taylor: ‘The Role of Local Government during the Second World War, with special reference to Lancashire’

Taylor, P.H., ‘The role of local government during the second world war, with special reference to Lancashire.’
Ph.D. completed 1992. Lancaster University

Abstract: This is a thesis concerning the effects of war on society and in particular that of World War Two on Local Government. It employs the idea of `test-dissolution-transformation’, brought about by the conflict, on the workings of the local authorities in a wide field of endeavour. These range from Civil Defence, evacuation and economic mobilisation, through the provision of a range of social services in general and those of education and housing in particular, down to aspects of post-war planning in a variety of areas. There is an emphasis on the geographical area of Lancashire and the differing administrative structure it contained in order to see how authorities in one of the largest areas of the country coped with the impact of war and the nature of their relationships with the central government. What emerges as a result of the war is a pattern of central government desiring to use local authorities as agents for the implementation of their own plans when they felt it necessary, but also a continuation of the semi-autonomous status for local governments as a reult of the essentially practical and useful nature of the local authorities exhibited during the war, and their expected functions in future administration. The thesis is not just one of central-local clashes of interest and power but rather a more complex story of changing inter-relationships not only between the centre and the localities but also within the local authority structures. The thesis raises the whole question of the extent of centripetal and centrifugal forces operating on structures with their own historical underpinnings, perceived roles and expected future developments. In an age with many questions on the issues of democratic accountability, devolved powers and financial responsibility and constraint the role of local government during a period of undoubted stress and uncertainty can give some insights into the factors at play.

G.Sinclair: ‘Propaganda and Churchill in the Second World War: The Making of an Icon’

Wonder if this thesis has been finished yet?

Sinclair, G., ‘Propaganda and Churchill in the Second World War: the Making of an Icon’
PhD Thesis, in progress. University of Kent at Canterbury

Looking at how Churchill was presented to the public in the media and how this image was controlled by party political interests, the government and commercial concerns. Also reassess the public’s opinion of Churchill during the war and how public opinion is used by historians.

Paul Rennie: ‘An Investigation into the Design, Production and Display Contexts of Industrial Safety Posters Produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents During WW2′

Rennie, P., ‘An investigation into the design, production and display contexts of industrial safety posters produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents during WW2′
PhD thesis, completed January 2004. London College of Printing.

This thesis examines a group of posters produced by the Industrial Service of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) during WW2 (1939-45). The posters were commissioned to reduce factory accidents and raise awareness amongst workers of the potentially fatal dangers of workshop and factory. The posters were designed by a varied but distinct group of designers including Tom Eckersley, who was later closely associated with the London College of Printing. The thesis is supported by reference to the RoSPA archive at the University of Liverpool and other sources.

The circumstances of WW2 are presented as demanding a more urgent response in the production of propaganda than had previously been required of poster communications. The requirements of increased speed and economy in production could only be met by an engagement, on behalf of printers and commissioning agencies, with the processes of mechanical reproduction. This is described, in Part One, by reference to the administrative structure of RoSPA and the personalities that informed its Industrial Safety campaign. Chief amongst these characters are Ernest Bevin, Ashley Havinden, Francis Meynell and Tom Eckersley. The technologies of mechanical reproduction are described in relation to the production of the RoSPA campaign by reference to RoSPA’s printers, Loxley Brothers of Sheffield.

Part Two of the thesis examines the RoSPA campaign within a wider cultural context. The style and content of the RoSPA posters is used as evidence of communication and political engagement with audiences previously ignored by Government communications or propaganda.

The posters are proposed as evidence contributing to a programme of socially progressive reform that George Orwell recognised as both identifiably English and politically revolutionary and as a necessary, but in itself insufficient, condition for victory in “total war” (a war involving military combatants and civilian populations). The posters therefore make manifest a change in relations between capital and labour in Britain. This is presented as part of a transformation that accounts, in part, for the election of Attlee’s reforming Government in 1946 and for the subsequent policies of welfare reform and reconstruction.

The posters are presented as part of an evolving visual language that is effectively propagandistic and socialist. This visual language is presented as both radical and as drawing on diverse strands of existing imagery, such as the visual language of Surrealism and of Left politics, to address its new audiences of women and industrial workers. An unexpected alignment between Modernist design and Nonconfomist values is revealed to be at the heart of RoSPA’s project and is identified as significant in the configuration of English Modernism. This evolution is then suggested to have contributed to a change in the nature and significance of graphic authorship in Britain.

The RoSPA posters correspond to the hopes, expressed by Walter Benjamin in The Author as Producer (1934), for a socially progressive, politically engaged and mass-produced form of communication as a consequence of the emancipatory potential of Modernism. The Modernist credentials of the RoSPA campaign disabuse two powerful orthodoxies – that Modernism was resisted and rejected in England and that war propaganda marked a retreat to the banal and literal in terms of visual communications.

A catalogue of RoSPA posters is appended to the thesis. (Not a catalogue raisonné.)

web: www.rennart.co.uk
e-mail: p@rennart.co.uk

K.L.Parker: ‘Women MPs, Feminism and Domestic Policy in the Second World War’

Parker, K.L. ‘Women MPs, Feminism and Domestic Policy in the Second World War’
D.Phil completed, 1994. Oxford University

Abstract: This thesis examines the role of women MPs in framing domestic policy, perceptions of gender roles, and feminism during the Second World War. Revising questions posed by previous studies, it explores how the women MPs defined ‘emancipation’ for women, the terms under which they were willing to advance gender-based claims, and the forces which affected their efforts. It aims to demonstrate that the women MPs helped to shape a feminist political programme which moved beyond a simple claim for equal legal rights. ‘Total war’ provided them with an opportunity to put aside political differences to unite in demanding both that women be included fully in the war effort and that women’s traditional roles be recognised as socially and economically valuable. After an introduction which elaborates these points, Chapter 2 introduces the fourteen women MPs. Chapter 3 traces the formation of the Woman Power Committee and its arguments for women’s full participation in the war effort and for recognition of the rights of mothers and housewives. Chapter 4 investigates the women MP’s role in framing the British welfare state, including their support for family allowances and Beveridge’s ‘housewives’ charter’. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on the position of women MPs and gender-based political claims within the context of the Labour and Conservative parties. Drawing upon parliamentary speeches, government records, party archives and private papers, this study supports the claim advanced by several recent historians that the Second World War did not initiate widespread changes in the status of women.

Lucy Noakes: ‘Gender and British National Identity in Wartime: A Study of the Links between Gender and National Identity in Britain in the Second World War, the Falklands War and the Gulf War’

Noakes, L. ‘Gender and British national identity in wartime: a study of the links between gender and national identity in Britain in the Second World War, the Falklands War and the Gulf War.’
D.Phil. thesis completed 1996, Sussex University

Particular use is made of Mass-Observation. This focuses on the representation of men and women as wartime citizens on the public stage. Considers how ideas from the Second World War were re-appropriated for later wars. The thesis concludes that images and memories of the Second World War, which are central to ideas of British national identity, often appear to be clearly shaped by gender.

Abstract: In each case, the thesis examines the links between gender and national identity in wartime, focusing on the representation of women and men as wartime citizens on the public stage, and the ways in which Mass-Observation correspondents’ wartime writing may have been shaped by their gender. The Second World War is identified as a key moment in dominant, contemporary ideas of British national identity, and the creation of a widely shared definition of national identity during the war itself, and its re-appropriation during the Falklands War and the Gulf War, is examined. The introductory Chapter explores relevant work on national identity, gender and wartime, and sets out the theories and viewpoints which have informed the arguments used here. The Second Chapter examines the role of the Second World War in British national identity in more depth, focusing on representations of the war in contemporary museum displays as a means of illustrating its importance. Chapters Three and Four return to the Second World War itself: Chapter Three examining the gendering of citizenship in the war through a study of army education material and women’s magazines, whilst Chapter Four looks at the wartime writings of Mass-Observation correspondents, considering ways in which the writing points towards gendered concepts of national identity. Chapter Five examines the shaping and gendering of national identity during the Falklands War through a study of daily newspaper and the writing of Mass-Observation correspondents. Chapter Six analyses newspaper coverage and Mass-Observation material from the Gulf War in the same way. The thesis concludes that images and memories of the Second World War, which are central to ideas of British national identity, often appear to be clearly shaped by gender.

Published Works:

• Mass-Observation, Gender and Nationhood
• War and the British

E. McPherson: ‘The Impact of the Second World War on Local Authorities in South Lancashire 1935-45′

McPherson, E., ‘The impact of the Second World War on local authorities in South Lancashire 1935-45′
Ph.D thesis, 1995. Manchester University

Abstract: This thesis is an attempt to ascertain the war’s effects on local government and its work using evidence contained in thousands of documents from the archives of some fifty local authorities in south Lancashire during the period 1935-46. It details the impact on the major traditional functions such as education, transport and fire services, in addition to the new duties which central government was happy to be able to pass on to local authorities for implementation. These included ARP, shelters, nurseries, salvage, emergency feeding, fire prevention and the responsibility for evacuees and refugees. Consideration is also given to broader issues such as finance, staffing and the work of the councils – including (for the first time) the effect of the banning of elections for the duration of the war, and the changes which took place in the balance of power both within the local authority and between central and local government. The local authority had that unique combination of features which no other organisation could boast. It had the local structures in place, the contacts, the local knowledge and the roots within the communities. It was well-experienced and well-equipped with the organisational ability to cope with most problems, and it was an apposite choice in the early 1930s to be the agency charged with providing ARP. Consequently, whenever the Government had a messy, unpopular, cumbersome and essentially local service to administer and organise, it deposited the problem immediately and firmly into the convenient lap of the local authority. This study shows that in spite of the enormous pressures which local authorities were called upon to bear; the unexpected and unfamiliar duties they were required to carry out and the depressing shortages in staff and resources with which they had to cope, they performed magnificently during the war.