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The bureaucratization of death: the First World War, families, and the state.

Foster, Ann-Marie

Authors



Abstract

After the First World War the British state tried to show the families of the dead their thanks, and memorialize the dead, through the two-minute silence and the creation of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. However, before families of deceased servicepeople encountered the state through national commemorations they encountered it through the administrative paperwork of death. Other than brief mentions in wider works, the bureaucracy of death is remarkably absent from discussions of death, yet the paperwork associated with death was a significant part of family experiences of bereavement, particularly in wartime. This article argues that state bureaucracy played a key role in defining people's experience of wartime bereavement, both practically, through the paperwork sent, but also temporally, by controlling when and how families could carry out grave-related elements of mourning, such as choosing an epitaph. Over the course of the early inter-war period, the bureaucracy of death encountered by the families of the war dead could profoundly shape their experience of loss.

Citation

FOSTER, A.-M. 2022. The bureaucratization of death: the First World War, families, and the state. Twentieth century British history [online], 33(4), pages 475-497. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwac001

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 17, 2022
Online Publication Date Feb 17, 2022
Publication Date Dec 31, 2022
Deposit Date Feb 23, 2024
Publicly Available Date Feb 23, 2024
Journal Twentieth century British history
Print ISSN 0955-2359
Electronic ISSN 1477-4674
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 33
Issue 4
Pages 475-497
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwac001
Keywords First World war; Bureaucracy; Death; Wartime; Bereavement
Public URL https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/2193574

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Publisher Licence URL
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.





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