Deakin University
Browse

File(s) under permanent embargo

"They seem to understand all about the War": Australian children and the First World War

journal contribution
posted on 2018-06-22, 00:00 authored by Bart ZiinoBart Ziino
This article examines the nexus between children's experiences of the First World War in Australia and adults' attempts to shape their understanding of the conflict. Utilizing children's wartime correspondence and postwar reflections, it argues that in the effort to make total war, children found the war entering into all facets of their lives, from school to play and intimate family relations. But while adults attempted to mobilize children as symbols and as patriotic labor, children were also obliged to make sense of the war through their own encounters with it. Absences of loved ones, shifts in family roles, access to alternate channels of information, and the pain of loss and grief all beguiled the process of internalizing total war for children. It also meant that their efforts to make sense of their experiences could last entire lifetimes.

History

Journal

Journal of the history of childhood and youth

Volume

11

Issue

2

Season

Spring

Pagination

227 - 247

Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press

Location

Baltimore, Md.

ISSN

1939-6724

eISSN

1941-3599

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2018, by Johns Hopkins University Press

Usage metrics

    Research Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports