Little soldiers and orphans: musical childhoods lived and constructed in World War I

Broadly speaking, my thesis will investigate children's music in the World War I era (1914-1918). The aim of my thesis is to answer, at least partially, the questions of how children experienced WWI musically, and how adults approached children in music media during the war years. My research will focus on war-related materials produced for children by adults and ways that children may possibly have responded to the war through music. After an introduction, chapter two first discusses constructions of children by adults found in children's song collections as well as other print materials, such as child-rearing manuals. Secondly, this chapter looks into the ways that children were exposed to war culture, via militaristic children's songs, war-themed fiction, and children's magazines. Chapter three investigates constructions of children and child-rearing in popular Tin Pan Alley songs, namely those of soldier boys and prayerful girls, as well as propagandistic depictions of pacifist and militarist mothers. Finally, chapter four looks into war contrafacta published in the monthly magazine of the Girl Scouts of the USA, The Rally, contextualizing these findings in propaganda posters that targeted children, as well as war work by both the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Through these case studies, I hope to construct a picture of how children from infancy to early adulthood were constructed and depicted in popular culture, how they were approached by adults, and how children were used as part of the nation's narrative.