White feathers, red light districts, and the rise of the military edging complex. How governments weaponized horniness to win WWI, and began to reimagine what women represent to a nation at war.
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A production of BRINK
Website: thisispropaganda.show
Instagram: instagram.com/thisispropagandashow
Email: propaganda@brink.com
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CREDITS
Written, Produced, and Hosted by Malcolm Critcher and Joshua Belhumeur
Co-Producer: Reed Chandler
Additional Voice Acting: Rhiannon Lane
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DISCLOSURE
Some dialogue and quotations have been condensed, paraphrased, or reconstructed based on contemporaneous accounts, interviews, and other source material.
AI Disclosure: We use AI to create custom filters for our voices, but the original performances are our own. We also used AI for a custom composition using our own lyrics for “The Girl Behind The Man Behind The Gun”. All used under commercial license.
This is a new frontier for all of us, and we are finding our footing when it comes to AI usage and transparency. We welcome any and all feedback.
REFERENCES
Rogers, E. W. (2022). Sex and motivation in the American morale campaigns of the First World War. University of Cambridge.
Hart, P. (2010). The white feather campaign: A struggle with masculinity during World War I. Inquiries Journal, 2.
Gullace, N. F. (1997). White feathers and wounded men: Female patriotism and the memory of the Great War. Journal of British Studies
Caris, E. M. (2015). British masculinity and propaganda during the First World War [Master's thesis, Louisiana State University]. LSU Scholarly Repository.
May, Z. (2015). The government's moral crusade: America's campaign against venereal diseases at home during World War I. Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History, 1(1), Article 6.
Fosdick, R. B. (1918). The War and Navy Departments Commissions on Training Camp Activities. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 79(1), 130–142.
Seymour, H. (1995). The Drive for Prohibition in San Antonio During the First World War. University of the Incarnate Word.
Keire, Mara L. For business and pleasure: Red-light districts and the regulation of vice in the United States, 1890-1933. ResearchGate, 2010.
May, Z. (2015). The government's moral crusade: America's campaign against venereal diseases at home during World War I. Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History, 1(1), Article 6.
http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/151/the-white-feather-campaign-a-struggle-with-masculinity-during-world-war-ihttps://www.coursehero.com/file/198164990/UNITED-STATES-HISTORY-Document-1docx/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44779771?mag=the-us-propaganda-machine-of-world-war-i&seq=1https://georgiahistorytps.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/writing-is-fighting.pdfhttps://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/usa-sexually-teased-troops-in-first-world-war-to-make-them-fight-harderhttps://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/red-light-districts-united-statesHistory.com Editors. (n.d.). America's forgotten mass imprisonment of women. HISTORY.
Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas, New York, 1966 p. 182
https://web.archive.org/web/20090507211238/
http://www.sss.gov/induct.htmlhttps://iro.uiowa.edu/view/pdfCoverPage?instCode=01IOWA_INST&filePid=13789162740002771&download=true
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3193&context=etd
https://commons.und.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4129&context=theses
https://www.bibleblender.com/2017/biblical-lessons/biblical-history/historical-sermons/booze-or-get-on-the-water-wagon-billy-sunday-1862-1935
https://www.military.com/history/womens-history-month/first-women-join-military
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/fall/yeoman-f.html
BOOKS
Critics At Large. (2013, July 14). The Four Feathers: The Novel and the Films.
R.W. Farrow, “Recollections”
Kernahan, Coulson. A Dead Man's Diary. Ward, Lock & Co. Limited, 1899.
Rizzi, J. N. (1983). Joe's war: Memoirs of a doughboy (R. A. Baumgartner, Ed.). Huntington, WV: Der Angriff Publications.
Brown, “Our Social Morality Work,” 272; 274.
Kernahan Coulson, The Experiences of a Recruitment Officer (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1915): 69.
Michael MacDonagh, In London During the Great War (London, 1935) pp. 79
ARCHIVAL
The Price of Beer Yesterday, Weekly Dispatch, April 8th 1917
The Baroness Orczy to Miss Conway of the Imperial War Museum, [1918], in IWM, WW, BO/6/6/2i
Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Germany (1917)
The Baroness Orczy to Miss Conway of the Imperial War Museum, [1918], in IWM, WW, BO/6/6/2i
To The Young Women of London, IWM 4903, reproduced in Maurice Rickards, Posters of the First World War (New York, 1968), no. 23
Women and Patriotism Girls Own Paper, vol. 1914-1915, p. 36
The Mother’s Union, To British Mothers: How They Can Help Enlistment, By One of Them (London, n.d.), p. 1
PCS Vince to BBC, May 18, 1964, IWM, BBC/GW, vol. UDA-VOS fol. 199.
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003663090/
https://prohibition.osu.edu/gallery/posters
https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss46029.mss46029-228_0600_1133/?sp=30&r=-0.979,0,2.958,1.27,0
https://www.loc.gov/collections/woodrow-wilson-papers/articles-and-essays/letters-from-ordinary-americans/prohibition/
https://westervillelibrary.org/antisaloon-charged/
https://westervillelibrary.org/antisaloon-bessies/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1368880042000254838
https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.40824
MUSIC ATTRIBUTIONS
A CUP OF COFFEE, A SANDWICH AND YOU (00:20)
Performed by Ben Selvin And His Orchestra
Recorded in 1925
Courtesy of The Popular Jazz Archive
VALS TRISTE (01:21)
Performed by Ohad Ben Ari and Jean Sibelius
Licensed from Artlist
HORNPIPE (02:13)
Performed by Victor Military Band
Licensed from Artlist
WHOLE TONY (02:37)
Performed by Southside Aces
Licensed from Artlist
DANNY BOY (03:16)
Written by Frederic Weatherly (1910)
MIDI performance transcribed from sheet music.
MAKE A MAN OUT OF YOU (03:40)
Performed by Maggie Smith
From the film Oh! What A Lovely War (1969)
Director Richard Attenborough
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Used for educational purposes only.
SAMIZDAT (04:36)
Written and Performed by Joshua Belhumeur
GNOSSIENNE NO. 3 (05:13)
Performed by Romi Kopelman
Written by Erik Satie
Licensed from Artlist
MELANCHOLIA (06:15)
Performed by Franscico DeAndrea
Licensed from Artlist
A PROPAGANDIST WALKS INTO A PIANO BAR (07:39)
Written and Performed by Joshua Belhumeur
BACKWARDS (08:24)
Performed by Jane & The Boy
Licensed from Artlist
FORWARD JOE SOAPS ARMY (09:34)
Performed by Fitzrovia Chorus & John Mealing
Used for educational purposes only.
WILL HER EYES SHINE IN GREEN OR IN BLUE (10:25)
Performed by Ziv Grinberg
Licensed from Artlist
BLUE GUM (11:19)
Performed by Shahar Haziza
Licensed from Artlist
BATTLE OF THE NATIONS (12:19)
Performed by Conways Band
Licensed from Artlist
SALT OF THE SOUND (12:56)
Performed by Coventry Carol
Licensed from Artlist
TENNESSEE I HEAR YOUR NAME CALLING (13:21)
Performed by American Quartet
Licensed from Artlist
LOW END (14:21)
Performed by Magnetic Buzz
Licensed from Artlist
MY GAL SAL (16:06)
Performed by Danny Altier Orchestra
Recorded in 1928
ACRYLIC DREAMS (16:54)
Performed by Magnetic Buzz
Licensed from Artlist
NO MAN’S LAND (18:14)
Written and Performed by Joshua Belhumeur
THE ALCOHOLIC BLUES (20:40)
Performed by Irving Kaufman
Written by Edw. Laska & H. Von Tilzer
Recorded in 1920
Used for educational purposes only.
BEYOND THE ZERO (21:08)
Written and Performed by Joshua Belhumeur
THE GIRL BEHIND THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN (21:54)
Written by Joshua Belhumeur
Composed and licensed with SUNO AI
