Catherine Lee’s article in Women’s History Review

Catherine Lee, Honorary Associate, has recently published an article entitled ‘“Giddy Girls”, “Scandalous Statements” and a “Burst Bubble”: the war babies panic of 1914–1915’ in a special themed issue of Women’s History Review on ‘Representing, Remembering and Rewriting Women’s Histories of the First World War’ (online, print issue forthcoming early 2018). The article investigates the moral panic surrounding the alleged impending birth of ‘war babies’ to thousands of unmarried young women and girls, said to have been fathered by men recently departed for the Western Front in late 1914. The rumour ultimately proved to be largely unfounded – but not before it had attracted widespread press and public attention.