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Related Projects of Interest

April 30, 2010 By drbexl 1 Comment

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.

Filed Under PhD thesis Tagged With PhD Theses, poster, propaganda

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

April 26, 2010 By drbexl Leave a Comment

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!

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With Government Policy, PhD Theses, Second World War Posters, War Posters

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

April 18, 2010 By drbexl Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With Local History, P.H.Taylor, PhD Theses, second world war

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

April 17, 2010 By drbexl 1 Comment

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.

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With G. Sinclair, PhD Theses, second world war, Winston Churchill

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'

April 17, 2010 By drbexl Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With Paul Rennie, PhD Theses, Printing, ROSPA, Vintage Posters

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

April 16, 2010 By drbexl 1 Comment

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.

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With Domesticity, Gender, K.L.Parker, PhD Theses, second world war

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'

April 15, 2010 By drbexl Leave a Comment

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:

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With Gender, Lucy Noakes, mass-observation, PhD Theses

I.R.C. Howling, '"Our Soviet Friends": The Presentation of the Soviet Union in the British Media 1941-45'

April 10, 2010 By drbexl Leave a Comment

Howling, I.R.C. ”Our Soviet Friends’: the presentation of the Soviet Union in the British Media 1941-45′
M.A. completed, 1988. Leeds University

Abstract: Presenting the Soviet Union to the British public – whether as an adversary during the period of the Nazi-Soviet Pact or as an ally in the Anglo-Soviet Alliance – posed great problems to British wartime propagandists. This thesis is an examination of the methods employed by the British government, armed as it was (theoretically) with the wartime power to control every film, newspaper or radio broadcast, to influence the portrayal of the Soviet Union in the British media between 1941 and 1945. The official propaganda campaign launched in the wake of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 can best be understood in the light of the image of the Soviet Union to which the British had been exposed during the years of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and before. Chapter One therefore provides an analysis of propaganda about the Soviet Union during this period, together with a discussion of those problems encountered by the propagandists which were to persist in the period of the Anglo-Soviet Alliance. Chapter Two examines the propagandists’ response to their new Soviet Ally in the immediate aftermath of Operation Barbarossa. It provides a detailed analysis of policy-making at the Ministry of Information and Foreign Office during the summer of 1941 which led to the creation of the Soviet Relations Division at the Ministry of Information in October of that year. Once it became clear that the Soviet Union was not to be easily defeated, the greatest problem facing the propagandists was the fact that their new ally was a Communist state. Chapter Three therefore examines the measures taken throughout the war by the government to prevent the Soviet Union’s popularity being converted into votes for the Communist Party of Great Britain. Citing examples from broadcasts on the BBC Home Service, and from films and newsreels shown in British cinemas, the chapter analyses the effectiveness of the policies adopted to counter the Communist electoral `threat’. Chapter Four examines the presentation of the Soviet attitude to religion as a case study. This chapter aims to illustrate that, succumbing to the pressures of both domestic and foreign audiences, the British government abandoned its avowed intentions of maintaining an accurate and objective presentation of the Soviets. As War became Cold War, the way in which the Soviet Union was presented to the British people became even more important. Relations between the Allies were deteriorating; attitudes in government circles were changing. Yet, on paper at least, the Anglo-Soviet Pact remained and was scheduled to last until 1962. Chapter Five is an analysis of how far changing attitudes on the part of the government and its propagandists were reflected in the British media.

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With British, I.R.C. Howling, PhD Theses, second world war, Soviet

Paul Grainge: 'Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in 1990s America'

April 8, 2010 By drbexl Leave a Comment

Grainge, P., ‘Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in 1990s America’
PhD thesis completed, [date]. Nottingham University.

The thesis has two main objectives: to theorize nostalgia as a mode, a cultural style that has become divorced from a necessary concept of loss or longing, and to consider (visual) modes of nostalgia in mass cultural production during the 1990s.

Publications

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With Nostalgia, Paul Griange, PhD Theses

Sarah Davies: 'Propaganda and Popular Opinion in Soviet Russia, 1934-41'

April 5, 2010 By drbexl 1 Comment

Davies, S.R., ‘Propaganda and popular opinion in Soviet Russia, 1934-41′
D.Phil completed 1994. Oxford University

Abstract: This thesis brings to light hitherto highly classified material from Russian party and state archives, and addresses several of the many new questions this material raises. It is hoped that the result of this endeavour is an original perspective on Soviet society and on some of the workings of the Soviet system in this period. In particular, Soviet society is shown to be less passive and atomised than some earlier accounts have suggested. From the time of the XVII party congress in 1934, the Soviet regime devoted increasing attention to agitation and propaganda with the aim of moulding the opinions of ordinary people. All forms of public communication acquired a uniformity of both style and content. Although there were fluctuations in the methods, intensity and direction of the propaganda, the essential messages did not change. These messages revolved around the ideas of the cult of Stalin and other leaders and the unity and well-being of the people. It was claimed that the whole Soviet people were unanimous in their support for the vozhd’ and his policies, an image reinforced by mass meetings and parades. This representation of unity reached its apogee in November 1937, when Molotov spoke of the “unity of the Soviet people embodied in the vozhd’, comrade Stalin”. The central question addressed by the thesis was provoked by the apparent disparity between on the one side, this official imagery and, on the other, the everyday life of most ordinary people, one of poverty and, to a certain extent, of oppression.

Publications:

Filed Under Other Theses Tagged With PhD Theses, propaganda, Sarah Davies, Soviet
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