Author: Wild, Jonathan

Source: Cultural and Social History, Volume 4, Number 1, January 2007 , pp. 73-94(22)

Publisher: Berg Publishers

Abstract:

This article traces the profound social repercussions that resulted from the mass enlistment of British office workers into the armed forces during the First World War. Drawing heavily upon fictionalized autobiographies of the period, my study examines the various stages of the clerk's experience of the conflict and argues that the confidence gained during warfare by surviving office workers fundamentally shaped a more democratic postwar society. This change is evidenced, I argue, in the profile of the fictional clerk that emerges in British literature after 1918.

Keywords: OFFICE CLERK(S); WORLD WAR ONE; POPULAR LITERATURE AND HISTORY; TEMPORARY GENTLEMEN

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Department of English Literature, University of Edinburgh

Publication date: 2007-01-01

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