‘THE MAN WITH THE POWDER PUFF’ IN INTERWAR LONDON

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
MATT HOULBROOK
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Beauty Culture ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Operational Practices ◽  
Illicit Sexuality ◽  
British Culture ◽  
First World

This article explores the historically specific use of cosmetic commodities as evidence in prosecutions for importuning in interwar London. Taking as its point of departure the story of ‘the man with the powder puff’ told in the journal John Bull in 1925, it moves to consider the discrete but intersecting histories within which cosmetics came to function as a material sign of deviant masculinity, illicit sexuality, and de facto criminality. The process through which a powder puff could be deployed as evidence in court depended upon a particular understanding of sexual difference. It was embedded in the emergence of a vibrant consumer beauty culture in the 1920s. It took shape within the operational practices of the Metropolitan Police, particularly the explosive politics of law enforcement after the First World War. It emerged, finally, in response to profound anxieties about the war's disruptive impact on British culture. In understanding the story of ‘the man with the powder puff’, I argue, we might more fully understand the cultural landscape of post-First World War Britain.

Fluid Gender, Rigid Sexuality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Leng
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
First World War ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

Revised gender roles, strained heterosexual relations, and ongoing biopolitical concerns regarding the “regeneration” of German populations followed the First World War. Simultaneously, sexology turned towards a greater consideration of the influence of social, cultural, and psychological factors on sexuality. Focusing on groundbreaking texts by Mathilde Vaerting and individual psychologist Sofie Lazarsfeld, this chapter demonstrates how the unique conditions of the 1920s enabled these women to make strikingly new and original contributions to sexology and especially to discussions of sexual difference. Specifically, these women separated sex as a conceptual unit into discreet categories of gender and sexuality and devoted greater attention to power as a factor shaping gender roles. However, both Vaerting and Lazarsfeld retreated to essentialism when it came to sexuality, raising important questions about the historical-social conditions in which gender and sexuality can become open to new forms of scrutiny and analysis.

More Beautiful Than Necessary

Vulcan ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
David Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
British Culture ◽  
First World

What was it about the First World War that brought on Modernism? Like the simplified poppy form and the sword-within-a-cross which both came to memorialize the First World War in British culture, materiel from that era—shells, rifle stocks, helmets, bullets, bunkers— have a thoroughly modern, almost Bauhaus aesthetic. This was not entirely new in the history of weapons; the common soldier had often fought with unadorned weapons. In this war, however, there was nothing else to see; soldiers could safely regard only the sky, their comrades, their weapons and—viewed through a periscope’s framing—a landscape stripped of nature’s adornments. The inference is that this limited vision and consequent focus on unadorned form were key to the modern aesthetic taking hold.

Theatre, Masculinity, and Class in the First World War: Vivian Gilbert Performs the Last Crusade

2014 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-71
Author(s):  
Eitan Bar-Yosef
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Culture ◽  
First World

Having fought in Palestine in WWI, the British actor Vivian Gilbert went on to narrate his wartime experiences—first in a series of lectures, then in a best-selling book. Rooted in his thespian career, Gilbert's self-fashioning as an officer/crusader builds on an array of performances—on and off the stage—which reflect gender and class anxieties, typical of WWI British culture.

The First World War and the Lake District

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-180
Author(s):  
Saeko Yoshikawa
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
First World War ◽  
Great War ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Lake District ◽  
World War ◽  
War Memorials ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Great War ◽  
First World

Chapter 5 reveals how the Great War of 1914–1918 produced a remarkable upturn in Wordsworth’s reputation, and how it had an inescapable impact on the cultural landscape of the Lake District. For obvious reasons, Wordsworth’s sonnets on liberty and independence had strong public appeal, and his sense of crisis during the war with Napoleonic France was shared by many who stood against Germany. Equally, Wordsworth’s poetry and the Lake scenery offered consolation and relief at a time of widespread tension, anxiety, and horror. When hostilities ended, Wordsworth’s association with the Lake scenery, combined with his patriotic revival during the war, produced the idea of the Lakeland mountains as a stronghold of national liberty. Twelve mountains were donated to the National Trust to be preserved as war memorials, and public free access to them were also secured.

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