Projecting Guilt and Shame in Wartime: How British State and Philanthropy Lectured on the Benefits of Retraining Schemes for Disabled Veteran Workers, 1914–1919

Abstract

AbstractThe First World War induced a fundamental change in Britain’s treatment of disabled ex-servicemen. The newly created Ministry of Pensions established legal pension rights and acknowledged accountability for the medical treatment and professional rehabilitation of disabled veterans. This chapter demonstrates that with an emotional culture of sympathy for war disabled victims growing, as a result of a close relationship between industry, charities, and the state, newspaper editors and picture-house proprietors generously placed their services at the disposal of the government to bring that suffering directly into the civilian community. Ever-larger audiences and readers became emotionally attached to the disabled ex-servicemen’s plight and felt a collective responsibility for their transition back into civil and domestic life, not just leaving philanthropy to the social leaders.