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This research analyzes how bourgeois Frenchwomen thought about,
practiced, and performed their identity as mothers in the 1920s and 30s. Mothers,
as those who bore and raised children, were deeply implicated in the government's
schemes to raise the birthrate in preparation for a future conflict with Germany.
This study looks at their experience of motherhood in a time when fear of the next
... read morewar combined with a push to have more children. It relies on women's
correspondence in fashion magazines for a microhistorical view of their
lives—invisible from a government standpoint—and considers how they acted as
mothers within this sociopolitical climate. These women grappled with the ideal of
motherhood as a joy while facing personal struggles to care for their children.
They also tried to distinguish their practice of motherhood from that of
working-class women. Ultimately, for bourgeois Frenchwomen, motherhood was not a
way to serve the state but a way to claim identity and uphold class
consciousness.
Thesis (M.A.)--Tufts University, 2019.
Submitted to the Dept. of History.
Advisor: Elizabeth Foster.
Committee: Virginia Drachman, and Claire Schub.
Keywords: Women's studies, and European history.read less
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