Charles Wolfe, “The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna”

Heart Beats ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Robson
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Napoleonic Wars ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
World War ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Hearts And Minds ◽  
John Moore

This chapter resurrects “The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna.” Charles Wolfe's poem, a reimagining of the hasty interment of a fallen general after one of the land battles in the Napoleonic wars, was repeatedly quoted by soldiers and other individuals during the American Civil War when they found themselves having to organize, or witness, the burials of dead comrades. In recent years, cultural historians of Great Britain have tried to account for the massive shift in burial and memorial practices for the common soldier that occurred between 1815 and 1915. The chapter argues that the presence of Wolfe's poem in the hearts and minds of ordinary people played its part in creating the social expectations that led to the establishment of the National Cemeteries in the United States, and thus, in due course, the mass memorialization of World War I.

scholarly journals "Memorization and Memorialization: 'The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna' "

2009 ◽  
pp. 0 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Robson
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Test Case ◽  
World War ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Social ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Good Proportion ◽  
John Moore

Abstract This article addresses the rubric of "memory and materiality" by considering how works of literature held within individual minds might have contributed to material changes in the world at large. For a good proportion of both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the most important relationship between literature and millions of English-speaking people was created by one particular pedagogical regimen: the memorization and recitation of short poetic pieces. I take as my test case a single work from the schoolroom canon—Charles Wolfe's 1817 poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna"—and examine the various ways in which lines and phrases from these verses were explicitly or implicitly cited by people caught up in the bloody turmoil of the American Civil War, the conflict which first witnessed the widespread development of state-sponsored practices to commemorate the corpses of common soldiers. I argue here that the presence of Wolfe's poem in the minds of ordinary individuals played its part in creating the social expectations that led to the establishment of the National Cemeteries in the United States, and thus, in due course, the mass memorialization of World War I.

Rulers of the Ruhr: Leadership and Authority in German Big Business Before 1914

1979 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Glovka Spencer
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Steel Industry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Constraints ◽  
Iron And Steel Industry ◽  
World War ◽  
German Empire ◽  
Iron And Steel ◽  
Professional Management ◽  
The Social

The rise of heavy industry and its managerial elite in the German Empire and in the United States provides stimuhting parallels and contrasts. Professor Spencer discusses the social constraints under which a professional management class developed in the German coal, iron, and steel industry during the generation before World War I. Ranking distinctly below the landed aristocracy and the governmental bureaucracy (both of which they would gladly have emulated), and preoccupied with the maintenance of order in the midst of rapid economic and social change, German managers used their power and influence to sustain and manipulate existing systems of authority, and came to play no broader role in the development of their commonwealth than did their American counterparts.

Welfare State and Labor Mobility: The Impact of Bismarck's Social Legislation on German Emigration before World War I

2008 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID KHOUDOUR-CASTÉRAS
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
World War ◽  
Emigration Rate ◽  
Labor Earnings ◽  
Wage Rates ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

The rapid decline of German emigration before World War I constitutes a puzzle that traditional explanations have difficulty in solving. The article shows that the social legislation implemented by Bismarck during the 1880s—the most developed at the time—played a key role in this process. Indeed, candidates for migration considered not only the gap between “direct wages” (labor earnings) in the United States and Germany, but also the differential in “indirect wages,” that is, social benefits. In that way, Bismarck's insurance system partly offset low wage rates in Germany and furthered the fall of the emigration rate.O sprecht! warum zogt ihr von dannen?Das Neckartal hat Wein und Korn;Der Schwarzwald steht voll finstrer Tannen,Im Spessart klingt des Ålplers Horn.Wie wird es in den fremden WäldernEuch nach der Heimatberge Grün,Nach Deutschlands gelben Weizenfeldern,Nach seinen Rebenhügeln ziehn!Ferdinand Freiligrath1

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael K. Rosenow
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Dead Body ◽  
World War ◽  
Common People ◽  
Attitudes Toward Death ◽  
The Social ◽  
Work Accidents

This book examines the rituals of dying and the politics of death among the working class during the period 1865–1920. It considers how wageworkers and their families experienced death in the United States between the Civil War and the end of World War I by focusing on John Henry—one of the hundreds of thousands of workers who died in service to industrialization—and the lack of surviving accounts about what happened to his dead body. The book draws on case studies to investigate how workers used the rituals of death to interpret, accommodate, and resist their living and working conditions; the ways social class shaped Americans' attitudes toward death; and the social and cultural contexts that shaped interpretations of workers' deaths resulting from work accidents. The book shows how rituals of death reflected the ways that working communities articulated beliefs about family, community, and class and negotiated social relationships—how common people interpreted their roles in the industrial republic.

Rise of American Growth in Brazil: Decade of the 1870's

1976 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman T. Strauss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
South American ◽  
World War ◽  
Economic Role ◽  
American Interest ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Principal Supplier

The erosion of Great Britain's economic and political foothold in Brazil reached critical proportions during the 1870's, at which time England sustained dual commercial assaults by German and American interest groups. In his study of British Preëminence in Brazil, Alan K. Manchester says that the first rival to seriously threaten Britain's role in Brazil was Germany and he goes on to cite examples of this threat during 1873. While Manchester alludes to the United States as another economic rival of Great Britain during the nineteenth century, he suggests that the United States figured only as a minor competitor until World War I, when it would supplant Great Britain as the principal supplier of the South American nation. A closer examination of the sources, however, indicates that the United States was anything but a minor competitor and actually a very real threat to Great Britain during the 1870's. The study undertaken by Richard Graham discloses that the British investment in Brazil slowed down during the years 1873-1879. During this period the United States took advantage of the opportunity to increase its economic role and its political prestige in Brazil at the expense of the British.

“The Relation of the Nurse to the Working World”: Professionalization, Citizenship, and Class in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States before World War I

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aeleah Soine
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Status ◽  
World War ◽  
Nursing Leaders ◽  
Professional Recognition ◽  
Nation States ◽  
International Nursing

Campaigns for state nursing registration in the United States and Great Britain have a prominent place in the historical scholarship on nursing professionalization; the closely related German campaign has received less scholarly attention. Applying a transnational perspective to these three national movements highlights the collaborative and interrelated nature of nursing reform prior to World War I and recognizes the important contribution of German nurses to this dialogue and agenda. Focusing particularly on the years 1909–12, this article depicts a generation of German, American, and British nurses who organized national and international nursing associations to realize state registration as a stepping stone to other markers of professional recognition, such as collegiate education, full political citizenship, social welfare, and labor legislation. However, the consequent reliance of these strategies on nation-states as arbiters of citizenship and professional status undermined the shared ideological foundation of international and national nursing leaders. This article contributes to a more multinational understanding of how these international nursing leaders transcended and were confined by the limits of their nation-states in the years leading up to World War I.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Atul Kohli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
World War I ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
World War ◽  
Informal Empire ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Intervention

WHEN THE UNITED States invaded Iraq in 2003, American decision-makers expected to depose Saddam Hussein quickly, install a friendly regime, and leave. The Iraq War did not follow that script. Instead, the United States confronted Iraqi nationalism. A prolonged occupation followed. Although most of the US troops left in 2011, American efforts to shape Iraq continue. During the occupation, American critics of US intervention in Iraq compared it to Vietnam. Senator Edward Kennedy suggested that Iraq was another “quagmire,” a term often used during the American war in Vietnam. While these were serious comparisons, they ignored deeper historical parallels. Great Britain created Iraq after World War I by piecing together the outlying provinces of the former Ottoman Empire. British efforts to turn Iraq into an India-style colony then met swift resistance from Arab nationalists, nearly a century ago. London had to order the bombing of Iraq in 1920 to defeat this indigenous opposition. Instead of turning Iraq into a formal colony, Britain installed a pliable Arab monarch, who allowed British troops and advisers to stay and who pursued pro-British policies. Britain’s informal empire in Iraq lasted well into the 1950s. The parallels between the US and British experiences in Iraq run even deeper: both expected to be welcomed as liberators to Iraq, but were not; both denied that they had any interest in Iraqi oil, but that was a lie; and, while promising to bring progress, both wreaked havoc on Iraq....

Personal Wealth in South Australia

2001 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin P. Shanahan
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
World War I ◽  
South Australia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
World War ◽  
Material Wealth ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Personal Assets ◽  
Source Of Information

Probate and succession-duty records are a rich source of information about the living standards and material wealth of past communities. According to these records, the small, mainly rural, and comparatively egalitarian population of South Australia held a diverse array of personal assets at the beginning of the twentieth century. Despite the strong British influence on the former colony's culture, however, South Australia's distribution of wealth before World War I was more similar to that of the United States fifty years earlier than to that of contemporary Great Britain.

One Step

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan C. Cook
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
American Composer ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
One Step ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

In the years before the entry of the United States into World War I, the One Step replaced the Two Step as the common popular dance. As the name suggests, it signaled a new relationship between dance step and musical meter. Whereas the Two Step, popular since the 1890s, consisted of a skipping step to music in 6/8 meter, the One Step featured a step, glide, or trot on each beat of duple-meter music marked by the syncopated and dotted rhythms long associated with African American musical practices. African American composer and bandleader James Reese Europe similarly proclaimed the One Step "the national dance of the negro."

Recruitment of Britain’s Legion in the United States: The Case of Minneapolis, Minnesota

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-43
Author(s):  
Deborah Y Bachrach
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Short Period ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
Organizational Mechanisms

During World War I, Great Britain attempted to recruit troops not subject to British jurisdiction to participate in the imperial war effort. The most successful of these efforts was the enlistment of thousands of Jewish immigrants from the United States in several battalions, known collectively as the Jewish Legion, which fought along the Jordan River in Palestine in 1918. This paper is a case study (Minneapolis, Minnesota) illustrating the organizational mechanisms by which this recruitment campaign was executed successfully and in a remarkably short period of time.

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