Thread by @SocHistoryWar

#NVHOW20 Introducing Dr Joel Morley @JoelMMorley ‘Young men’s encounters with the Great War in interwar Britain’ - what they encountered, what left an impression, and how those impressions impact our understanding of the cultural legacy of the #GreatWar #FirstWorldWar #FWW

#NVHOW20 conference presenter @JoelMMorley is the author of the forthcoming @ManchesterUP Joining Up in the Second World War: Enlistment, Masculinity and the Memory of the Great War, 2022. #GreatWar #FirstWorldWar #FWW #Memory ##SWW #WWII #SecondWorldWar

1 #NVHOW20 I'm using #oralhistory & @massobservation to explore how print representations of WW1 were experienced by men growing up in interwar Britain. Looking at what they read & what left an impression, rather than at texts, complicates understandings of WW1s cultural legacy.

2 #NVHOW20 All Quiet on the Western Front was prob. the most read war book but numerous popular novels depicted war as heroic & worthwhile sacrifice. A 'pleasure culture' of war as romantic adventure persisted in juvenile fiction. Reading was popular but what did young men read?

3 #NVHOW20 In 1932 an East Ham librarian said WW1 was ‘distressingly’ popular. It plausibly featured in 4 of 5 fav. topics: Adventure; War; Sea & Ships; History; & School Life. Non-fiction was unexpectedly important source by which my interviewees gained impressions of WW1.

4 #NVHOW20 1 read ‘every book in the library’ about air warfare because he ‘found them quite exciting.’ More had read about air aces than any other aspect, but Trench warfare was often encountered in multi-vol. sets like The Children’s Story of the Great War or War Illustrated.

5 #NVHOW20 Often given as gifts, they offered traditional representations of WW1: 1 interviewee remembered ‘pictures of the Boche bayoneting babies’; ‘myths of the Hun were perpetuated’. Victoria Cross winners’ actions were celebrated. BUT for some the pictures spoke 1000 words.

6 #NVHOW20 Readers found ‘Pleasure Culture’ in fiction: in 1926 Westerman, Strang or Henty were the favourite authors of 80% of boys in Croydon libraries. 1m+ Boys Story Papers were sold weekly & shared around. These were also remembered as representing WW1 as romantic adventure.

7 #NVHOW20 What about the “disenchanted” highbrow canon? 1 middle-class Mass Observation respondent said war poems were influential, but most felt they didn’t understand them or never saw them. The “anti-war” novels of the War Books Boom were often ambivalent, not anti-war.

8 #NVHOW20 @JanetSKWatson found All Quiet resonated with those who ‘came of age just after’ WW1, who felt they could ‘know what really happened’. AQ was the novel most mentioned by my (younger) men, whose recollections suggest they saw war novels as impressions of reality:

9 #NVHOW20 ‘the basic principles of ‘em were true’. Still, ‘They were thrilling to a certain extent but at the same time you thought they was really horrendous you know’. The FWW remained captivating. IF AQ shaped my men's understandings it was more often the film (1930&esp 1939)

10 #NVHOW20 1 told MO he ‘was petrified with horror & disgust as I was later when I read the novel’. 1 interviewee ‘truly never thought of it as fiction’ & was ‘very much impressed’. Another saw the film showed the ‘futility of war’ but he had seen AQ ‘as entertainment’.

11 #NVHOW20 As entertainment it could be dismissed, esp since the same men saw an ‘exciting and wonderful […] war’ in Hells Angels & Dawn Patrol. Conclusion: Popular (esp illustrated) histories & BSPs were seen by young men & often provided their key impressions of WW1.

12 #NVHOW20 These were often part of the pleasure culture of war. Young men rarely encountered disenchanted lit & if they did it often didn’t displace their romantic imaginings. This should inform the weight we give it when assessing the cultural legacy of WW1 in interwar Britain

13 #NVHOW20 Ask me questions at @JoelMMorley