From Reform to Rights: The American Culture of the Citizen Soldier and the Transformation of the Crusading Metaphor, 1917–1945

Abstract

The “crusading” imagery attached to American soldiers in the 1917–1945 period performed an important function in assigning meaning to the wars of the United States. This was the result of a complex interplay between “official” and “vernacular” culture. The doughboys of the First World War at times fought a romantic “crusade” to reform the nation, world and themselves from a morally privileged position. In the post-war era, the romantic “crusade” survived but was more in tune with the conservative corporatism of Republican administrations. By the Second World War, gi s had become the agents of a very different “crusade”. Americans now embraced statist common effort in a realist prospective vision for human rights. This fundamental change in the meaning of “crusade” attached to the experiences of American soldiers suggests a protean nature to the metaphor and problematises notions of an ideologically cohesive American “crusade” in the world during the 20th century.