Susan R. Grayzel, "The Age of the Gas Mask: How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
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The Gas Mask: A History of the Civil Defense of Britain
I think of myself as a historian of gender and women, but this is about an object in some ways that is explaining what it means when men can't protect the kind of feminized civilian population. And so what does it mean to come to terms with that? Then these assumptions about women and children, you know, be able to use a gas mask. There's this kind of rhetoric about gas discipline and how hard it is to train people to face the terrifying prospect of,. you know, a cloud of poisoned air rolling towards you.
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