Patriotic Humanitarianism: Toward an Emotional and Experiential History of Children’s Actions During the First World War

Abstract Children throughout the British Empire were encouraged by schools, organisations and communities to participate in the First World War as future citizens and humanitarians. Their emotions, and their experiences, were cultivated collectively. This broad understanding of humanitarianism was sometimes tied to peace activism, but was more often tied to militarism for the majority of children in the British Empire. Children raised money by holding events and selling handmade things. They visited soldiers in hospital and brought them presents. They collected for the Red Cross, the Belgian and Serbian Relief funds and other causes. In Star City, Saskatchewan, and Mitta Mitta, Victoria, and in villages, towns and cities in between, children wrote essays, drew pictures, and composed letters to officials detailing their thoughts and efforts. Children, through their numerous everyday humanitarian actions (often non- material and leaving no trace), contributed to the enormous emotional effort of the war. This essay examines these child-directed humanitarian efforts. Why were so many children motivated to contribute in such substantial ways to the war effort? What sort of emotional and experience formation was required in order to stir children to action? And from where was the impetus – social, school, community, family, peer and/or individual?