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63 Though women for centuries cultivated gardens for both pleasure and subsistence, during the First World War cultivation took on a patriotic meaning for the women of England and the United States. Gardening in wartime transformed cultivation from an aesthetic or culinary practice to a practice symbolic of the gardener’s level of patriotism and support of the nation jChapter 3 Sowing the Seeds of Victory One of the few occupations left to mother after the disruption of her sphere at the end of the eighteenth century was the preparation of food. In the minds of men, food, from its seed sowing up to its mastication, has always been associated with woman. . . . Mention food and the average man thinks of mother. That is the Adam in him. When the world under war conditions asked to be fed, Adam, running true to his theory, pointed to mother as the source of supply, and declared . . . that the universe need want for nothing, if each woman would eliminate waste in her kitchen and become a voluntary and obedient reflector of the decisions of the state and national food authorities. . . . In the same way, when food falls short and the victualing of the world becomes a pressing duty, the governing class adopts a thesis that a politically less-favored group can, by saving in small and painful ways, accumulate the extra food necessary to keep the world from starving. The ruling class seeks cover in primitive ideas, accuses Eve of introducing sin into the world, and calls upon her to mend her wasteful ways.­ —Harriot Stanton Blatch, Mobilizing Woman-Power, 1918 Everyone who creates or cultivates a garden helps, and helps greatly, to solve the problem of feeding the nations; . . . every housewife who practices strict economy puts herself in the ranks of those who serve the nation. . . . This is the time for America to correct her unpardonable fault of wastefulness and extravagance. . . . Let every man and every woman assume the duty of careful, provident use and expenditure as a patriotic duty.­ —Woodrow Wilson, “The President to the People,” 15 April 1917 64 sowing the seeds of victory during a time of crisis. Though many urban women joined the homefront efforts at large-scale cultivation by joining the WLAs of England and America, many more urban women remained at home and supported the home front in the way they were instructed: from their kitchens and gardens. Whereas gardening and cultivation had long been associated with personal identity, during the First World War these actions and their products were symbols of political identity as well. Thus the kitchen garden yielded to the implementation of the war garden. This smaller-scale cultivation from the kitchen garden turned significant results that, upon closer examination, reveal two unique stories of identity from cultivation: one political and one personal. Though England and the United States developed similar administrations and programs to deal with food issues during the war, the two nations used food in different ways to win the war. When American president Woodrow Wilson argued that “food will win the war” in 1917, he might have been talking about American foreign policy to aid the Allies, but the campaign slogan he used and the new administration it represented reflected similar structures created by Great Britain in 1914. Both nations and their administrations urged the populace to increase the national food supply to support the effort to decrease international food shortages and win the war. Though both nations sought the help of women, what is most significant about their food administrations is that they set precedents for utilizing food as a political tool and for developing new identities for women. Though Wilson’s slogan was not gendered, the supporting idea behind it was. In wartime food was the “fruit of the land” that nations claimed, and in gendered ways the nation looked to women to continue that reproductive metaphor and represented them as mothers of the nation. This image and symbolism of women as mothers of the nation varied and often complicated policy as nations simultaneously depicted women in conflicting ways. Nations visually depicted women as the mothers of the nation, and yet the wartime programs treated them as if they were “sinners” that needed instruction on how to do the same work others glorified them for. The food agencies of both the United States and England encouraged women to make changes in the home to promote an Allied victory, and by nations doing so set precedents about gender, political...

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