A Township at War by Jonathan F. Vance (review)

Much of the Canadian experience of the First World War, according to Jonathan Vance, has been interpreted through an urban lens. A Township at War is a refreshing deviation from that norm, examining how the fighting overseas impacted the rural historic township of East Flamborough in southern Ontario. It also happens to be the hometown of the author. Vance contends that it is at once unique and archetypical in its response to the war. This book fits into the trend looking at the war experience through regional and local studies, influenced by the centenary of the war. This includes large urban centres like Toronto, Winnipeg, and Montreal as well as smaller towns like Regina, Guelph, Lethbridge, Trois Rivières, and Thunder Bay, among others. Vance gives us an overview of the community before the war, introduces the local characters, and then takes us chronologically through home front activities and the stories of the men and women who went overseas. The intent is to have the reader encounter the events as the residents of East Flamborough did. It also allows him to effectively show changes over time, interweaving letters and diaries into the text, with good contextual information and analysis. Throughout, he carefully tries not to read too much between the lines, and he avoids trying to insert what they should have thought or must have thought important. People from East Flamborough are instead allowed to tell us those things from the archival record. Large national issues like labour unrest, women's suffrage, French-language education, and prohibition did not seem to be on the minds of many people, and more local concerns seemed to dominate like the condition of "privies" or the price of train tickets. He makes extensive use of local archives, newspapers, and the materials that long-time residents have preserved. It has been suggested that rural Canada and the war has not been studied as extensively because the source material is not readily available. Here, Vance has proven otherwise, befitting from his own first-hand knowledge of the community, grasping both the interconnectedness of the area to the rest of the province and the relationships between members of the community. This was particularly true since many were part of a kinship network of several large family groups. The people doing patriotic work, the solders enlisting, and so on all knew each other.

In the period just before the war, East Flamborough was undergoing a time of gradual transition. The railway had finally reached the area. Electricity and the automobile were modern novelties. The war seeped into the region, gradually affecting life there. People still went on farming, holding fairs, sporting events, and socials, babies were born, couples married, and people died, much as before, even if these aspects of community life increasingly had a patriotic flavour to them. Vance's findings offer new insight into the Canadian war experience. People got on with their lives, and the war was not as smothering or as omnipresent as commonly thought. Local recruitment drives were facilitated and, at times, hindered by the kinship networks. They came together to raise money for the patriotic fund, knit socks, and prepare care packages, much like every other community. Unlike larger cities where individual soldiers were one of many, in East Flamborough with a population of just over 2,600 and about 200 residents in uniform, one casualty had a ripple effect in the community. Everyone was either related to or knew the individual, and this produced profound shock and grief. The conscription debate, like elsewhere, was acrimonious, but it did not seem to have a lasting effect. There did not seem to be any stigma attached to avoiding military service. There were also clear examples of conscripts who, once they accepted the fact they had to serve, did so with pride. There was no differentiation between the volunteer and the conscript, and both were given the same positive reaction by the community.

Certainly, the community was...