Keywords
knitting
military clothing
producer logistics
world war
trenchfoot
home front
women in war
voluntary organizations
handcrafts
How to Cite
Number of views: 142
Number of downloads: 111
Abstract
In both World Wars, combatant nations, including the United States, Britain, and Germany, learned that inadequate or poorly-maintained footwear produced costly and preventable casualties from trench foot and frostbite. While provision of shoes and boots to troops were major issues in earlier conflicts, no nation before World War I had fully appreciated the significance of warm, dry, well-fitting socks to the effectiveness of soldiers in the field. The large numbers of trench foot casualties in World War I, especially among the French and British, convinced policymakers that this vital commodity must receive a higher priority in military production planning, but few nations in wartime could shift production to knitting mills rapidly enough to make a difference. Thus, in Britain and the U.S, the best policy option proved to be recruiting women and children civilians to knit socks by hand for the military in the first war, and for refugees, prisoners and civilians in the second. This paper discusses the economic and military importance of this effort, including the numbers of pairs produced, and the program’s role in supplementing industrial production. The production of this low-technology but crucial item of military apparel is typical of detail-oriented tasks performed by women under conditions of full mobilization for war, in that they have a high impact on battlefield and home front performance and morale, but very low visibility as significant contributions to national defense. Often, both during and after the emergency, these efforts are ridiculed as trivial and/or wasteful. Unlike women pilots or industrial workers, handcrafters of essential supplies are regarded as performing extensions of their domestic roles as makers and caretakers of clothing and food. This was especially true in the U.S. in and after World War II, a wealthy industrialized nation that took pride in its modern - and thoroughly masculinist - military industrial complex.
References
Adams D. S. (1970). The Local Red Cross: Policies, Programs, and Problems in Disaster Relief, Office of Civil Defense, Secretary of the Army, Washington DC.
Adams G. (1941). Hand-made mercy: women volunteering to cut and roll bandages, Hygeia, 19, January, 18-20 and 43.
Adnot J., Lewis Ch. W. (1994), Chapter 4: Immersion foot syndromes, [in:] James W. D. (ed.), Military Dermatology, Textbook of military medicine Part III, Disease and the environment, Falls Church, Va..: Office of the Surgeon General, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 55-68.
Alcott L.M. (1993), Little Women. Wordsworth Classics 1869, Chapter 13, Ware, Hertfordshire.
American Red Cross in war time (1917), Survey, 37, February 10, 549.
Armstrong R. B., Caplan B. (1947), Problems in price control: changing production patterns, Office of Temporary Controls, Office of Price Administration, Washington DC.
Army Industrial Preparednes: a primer on what it takes to stay until the war is over (1979), Association of the U.S. Army, Arlington, Va.
Arnold-Forster M. (1979), The siege of Berlin, Collins, London.
Asahi I. (1939), The economic strength of Japan, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo.
Atenstaedt R. L. (2006), Trench foot: the medical response in the First World War 1914–18, Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, 17, 4, 282-289.
Axelrod A (2008), The real history of World War II: a new look at the past, Sterling, New York.
Ayling K. (1942), Calling all women. Harper & Brothers, New York and London.
Balabkins N. (1964), Germany under direct controls. Economic aspects of industrial disarmament, 1945-1948, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.
Banning M. C. (1942), Women for defense, Duell, New York.
Baruch B. M. (1941), American industry in the war; a report of the War Industries Board (March 1921), Prentice-Hall Inc., New York.
Belden D. L., Cammack E. G. (1973), Procurement, Rev. ed. Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington DC.
Benham E. D. (1939), The woman wage earner, her situation today. U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Bill Mauldin and the Dogface, Argunners (website),” https://www.argunners.com/bill-mauldin-dogface/, accessed September 19, 2019.
Blake M. (1918), Rocky Mountain knitter boys, Saint Nicholas, 45, 603-610.
Bowles C. (1946), Crisis in clothes, Colliers, 117, 14-15 and 63-64.
Brown J. C. (1940), Earnings of workers employed in the women’s and children’s apparel industry, Labor Information Bulletin, 7, 10, 10-12.
Brown W. M., Yokelson D. (1980), Postattack recovery strategies: final report, Hudson Institute for the United States, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
Carsel W. (1947). Wartime apparel price control, U.S. Office of Temporary Controls, Office of Price Administration, Washington DC.
Civil affairs information guide: the textile industry in France (1944), United States, War Department, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Clarke I. C. (1918), American women and the world war, D. Appleton and Company, New York and London.
Clem, R. E. (1942), Effect of the war on textile employment, Monthly Labor Review, 55, 446-58.
Cohen J. B. (1949), Japan’s economy in war and reconstruction, reprint 2000, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Cuff R. D. (1973), The War Industries Board; business-government relations during World War, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Dale S. S. (1919), Have we been wasting wool? Literary Digest, 62, August 23 (originally published in Textiles), 88-90.
Davis H. S. (1945), Economic issues in textiles: a challenge to research, Industrial Research Dept., Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Directions for knitting the Army mitten (1861), U.S. War Department, Washington DC.
Dunham G. C. (1938), Military preventive medicine, 3d ed. Vol. Army medical bulletin, 23, Medical Field Service School, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
Dupuy T. N., Bongard D. L., Anderson R. C. (1995), Hitler’s last gamble: the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944-January 1945, Harper Perennial, New York.
Farley M. S. (1940), Japan Experiments with Rationing, Far Eastern Survey, 9 (17), 203-204.
Galbraith J. K. (1945), Germany was badly run, Fortune, 32, 6, 173-200.
Germany. Heer. Oberkommando (1943), German winter warfare. Translation: Vol. 18, Special series, U.S. War Department, Washington DC.
Gole, H. G. (2008), General William E. Depuy: preparing the Army for modern war. University Press of Kentucky, Lexington.
Goodheart E. (1917), Comforts for our soldiers, sailors and airmen, Needlecraft, 9 (4), December, 6.
Graves C. (1948), Women in green; the story of the W.V.S (Women’s Voluntary Services), Heinemann, London.
Guillain R. (1981), I saw Tokyo burning: an eyewitness narrative from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, Doubleday, Garden City, New York.
Hancock W. K., Gowing M. (1949), British war economy, H. M. Stationery Office, London.
Handbook of labor statistics. United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics (1942), (in:) 1924/26-1931: Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Miscellaneous series, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Hargreaves E. L., Gowing M. (1952). Civil industry and trade, H. M. Stationery Off., London.
Hartley M. (1951), The old hand-knitters of the dales; with an introduction to the early history of knitting, Dalesman Pub. Co., Clapham, England.
Holden L. G., Nicholson G. (2014), Trench feet, Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 160, Suppl 1, 36-7.
Hurstfield J. (1944), The control of British raw material supplies, 1919-1939, Economic History Review, 14 (1), 1-31.
Hurstfield J. (1953), History of the second World War: Control of raw materials. HM SO and Longmans, Green & Co, London.
Huston J. A. (1966), The sinews of war: Army logistics, 1775-1953, Office of the Chief of Military History, United States Army, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Instructions for knitting sweaters, mufflers, helmets, socks, wristlets, wash-cloths, bottle-covers (1917), American Red Cross, Woman’s Bureau, Washington DC.
Investigation of the National Defense Program. Part 27. Textile Industry - Manpower and Production; Disposal of Surplus Property - Surplus Liquidators, Inc hearings before the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, Seventy-Eighth Congress, second session and Seventy-Ninth Congress, first session, on Jan. 19, 31, Feb. 1, 2, 6-8, 14, 1945 (microform) (1945), United States. Congress. Senate. Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Kaplan A. D. H. (1944), Taking war surplus in stride, Nation’s Business, 27.
Kidwell C. B. (1979), Cutting a fashionable fit: dressmakers’ drafting systems in the United States, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC.
Klein J. W. (1948), Wool during World War II, United States Bureau of Agricultural Economics, Washington DC.
Kliot Kaethe (1930-2002). Personal communication, 18 May 1982. For a biography of Kliot, see The Legacy of Kaethe Kliot, http://lacismuseum.org/kaethe/, accessed November 14, 2019.
Knitting for Soldiers, Kingston (Canada) Public Library (website), https://www.digitalkingston.ca/wwi-in-kingston-frontenac/knitting-for-soldiers, accessed September 19, 2019.
Knorr K. (1956), The war potential of nations. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Lee-Mitchell A. (1974), Diary of a Somerset housewife, (in:) Moynihan M. (ed.), People at war, 1939-1945, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 152-172.
Libby, Barbara Bancroft. Personal communication, July 1968.
Macdonald A. L. (1988), No idle hands: the social history of American knitting. Ballantine Books, New York.
Mariano, J. H. (1944), Wartime labor relations, National Public & Labor Relations Service Bureau, New York.
Mauldin B. (2003), Bill Mauldin’s army, Ballantine Books, New York.
Maycock T. J. (1943), The government and wool, 1917-20, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Economics Bureau, Washington DC.
Memorandum to: Prospective clothing, textile equipment and footwear bidders (1981), United States, Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Personnel Support Center, DPSC, Philadelphia.
Michl H. E. (1938), The textile industries; an economic analysis, Textile Foundation, Washington DC.
Military establishment appropriation bill for 1946: Hearings before the subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Seventy-ninth Congress, first session, on the Military establishment appropriation bill for 1946, Friday, May 25, 1945 (1945), United States. Congress. House Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Milward A. S. (1987), War, economy, and society, 1939-1945, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Milward A. S. (2015), The German economy at war, University of London, Athlone Press, London.
Morris E. (1973), Blockade: Berlin and the Cold War. Hamilton, London.
New work of the new Red Cross (1917), Outlook, 117, December 12, 599.
Newcomb E. (1918), A khaki kit for our soldier boy, Needlecraft, 9 (6), February, 8.
No wool famine (1918), Literary Digest, 59, October 19, 20-21.
Object Record: Eisenhower Jacket [in:] the Smithsonian Institution online exhibition The Price of Freedom: Americans at War, available at https://amhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/collection/object.asp?ID=214, accessed September 20, 2019.
O’Brien R. (1944). Textile situation on the home front, Journal of Home Economics, 36 (2), February, 83-86.
Olson M. Jr. (1963), American materials policy and the ‘Physiocratic Fallacy’, Orbis, 6 (4), Winter, 670-88.
Organization plan for knitting (1940), American National Red Cross, ANRC, Washington DC.
Patton G. S., Harkins P. D., Patton B. (1947), War as I knew it, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
People of peace at war (1943), Pepperell Manufacturing Company, Boston, Mass.
Peterson R. E. K. (1945), Japanese trade studies: raw silk. United States Tariff Commission, and United States Foreign Economic Administration, Washington DC.
Preventive medicine in World War II (1955), United States. Army Medical Service and United States. Surgeon-General’s Office. Office of the Surgeon General, Dept. of the Army, Washington DC.
Rankin J. (1917), What we women should do, Ladies’ Home Journal, 34 (8), August, 17.
Rationing of textiles and footwear in France (1943). United States, Office of Price Administration, Washington DC.
Ratner S. (1970), Inquiry into the Nazi war economy, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 12, 466-472.
Red Cross garment manual (1935), American National Red Cross, ANRC, Washington DC.
Red Cross reorganized on military-civilian lines (1915), Survey, 35, December 18, 311-312.
Red cross service record; accomplishments of seven years: July 1, 1939-June 30, 1946. (1946), American National Red Cross, ANRC, Washington DC.
Redisch W., Brandman O., Rainone S. (1951), Chronic trench foot: a survey of 100 cases, Annals of Internal Medicine, 34, 5, 1163-1168.
Reeder, Mrs. A. (1918), How to knit two socks at once, Needlecraft, 10, 12.
Regnier C. (2004), Le pied des tranchees: Controverses etiologiques [Etiological argument about trench foot], Histoire des Sciences Médicales, 38, 3, 315-32.
Reid M. G. (1943), Economics of household production. Wiley and Chapman & Hall Limited, New York and London.
Rice R. (1979), Economic mobilization in wartime Japan: business, bureaucracy, and military in conflict, Journal of Asian Studies, 38 (4), 689-706.
Riess C. (1952), The Berlin story, Dial Press, New York.
Risch E., Kieffer C. L. (1953), The Quartermaster Corps. Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, Washington DC.
Risch E., Pitkin T. (1990), Clothing the soldier of World War II, Historical Section Office of the Quartermaster General, Petersen, Springfield.
Rosen R. W. (1955). Economic trends in the woolen and worsted industry 1899-1939, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.
Ross W. F., Romanus C. F. (2004), The Quartermaster Corps: operations in the war against Germany, Center of Military History, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Rupp L. J. (1978), Mobilizing women for war: German and American propaganda, 1939-1945, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.
Ruppenthal R. G. (1953), Logistical support of the armies. Vol. 2 of United States Army in World War II: The European theater of operations, Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, Washington DC.
Ryder O. B. (1919), Prices of silk and silk products, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Sakren W. (1942), Here’s a lovely parachute I knitted for you [cartoon], Colliers, 110, 64.
Saxe M. de. (1971), Reveries, or, memoirs upon the art of war, Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn.(original publication 1757).
Scheer R., Zacchino N., Matthiessen C. (1982). With enough shovels: Reagan, Bush, and nuclear war, Random House, New York.
Seydewitz M. (1945), Civil life in wartime Germany, the story of the home front, Viking Press, New York.
Sharpe H. G. (1921), The Quartermaster corps in the year 1917 in the world war, The Century Co., New York.
Standard Surgical Dressings (1943), American National Red Cross, ANRC, Washington DC.
Textiles stretch (1943),. Business Week, August 21, 19.
The impact of the war on civilian consumption in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada: report of a special combined committee set up by the Combined Production and Resources Board (1945), U.S. Government Printing Office for the Combined Production and Resources Board, Washington DC.
The new position of women in American industry, Vol. 12, Bulletin, (1920), United States. Women’s Bureau., Young Women’s Christian Association of the U.S.A., National Board, War Work Council, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
The Woman and Her Country (1916), Ladies’ Home Journal, 33, August, 9.
The work of the American Red Cross during the war: a statement of finances and accomplishments for the period July 1, 1917 to February 28 (1919), American Red Cross, Washington DC.
Thomas M. (1938), Mary Thomas’s knitting book, Morrow & Co, New York.
Toland J. (1970), The rising sun; the decline and fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945, Random House, New York.
Waddell S. R. (1994), United States Army logistics: the Normandy Campaign, 1944, Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn.
Wage order for the textile industry (1941), Monthly Labor Review, 53, July, 170-71.
War work for willing hands (1918). Star Needlework Journal, 3, 4.
Wartime Control of Supply and Distribution in Italy (1943), D.C. U.S. Office of Price Administration, Washington DC.
Watkins P. (2000), The Forger, Faber. London.
Werth A. (1964), Russia at war, 1941-1945, Dutton, New York.
Westover J. G. (1987), Combat support in Korea, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington DC.
What next? Big new shortage of cotton goods (1943), Time, 41, May 17, 76-78.
Whayne T. F., DeBakey M. E., Coates J. B., and United States. Army Medical Dept. 1958. Cold injury, ground type. Medical Department, United States Army in World War II, Office of the Surgeon General, Washington DC.
Wiltse C. M., United States. Army Medical Service (1968), Medical supply in World War II, Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC.
Winner P. (1948), Berlin dreads the winter, New Republic, 119, October 11, 14-18.
Women during World War 1 & 2, http://www.ddoughty.com/women-at-war.html, accessed 25 September 2019.
Woolston M. B. (1941), The structure of the Nazi economy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Yamashita S. H. (2015), Daily life in wartime Japan, 1940-1945, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.
Zuckerman E. (1984), The day after World War III, Viking Press, New York.
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Rachel P. Maines
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.