Department of History– Dr.Carolyn Kay

2 Minutes and 14 seconds

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CAROLYN KAY: My name is Carolyn Kay. I'm a full professor of history at Trent University.

I am researching German children during World War one and specifically I'mlooking at how children on the home front during the warwe're in encouraged and taught to support the war.I started doing this research because I wanted to know more about how childrenwere influenced by wartime Germany and there's been quite a lot written onWorld War two, but not as much written on world war one and I was interested todiscover what sort of ideas about the warchildren had, what were they taught, how was the war presented to them,why were they encouraged to support the war, what part of the war effortdid they play, and I also wanted to try to understand more about why so manyGermans later supported the Nazi movement.These children in world war one became very passionate defenders of the Germannation and it's disturbing to see how the propaganda influences Germanchildren. Other nations did the same thingCanada did this, Britain did this, France did this, Russia did this.The children throughout the world in nations that were involved in World War Onewe're encouraged to support the war.What I'm trying to do with this project is write a book about children inimperial Germany but I’m also now of course looking at World War one and I want towrite a book that will address the lives of children during the period from 1871- 1918, with a large section of the above on childrenin the war years.

The scholars in the history program here, they're going into archivesthere looking at the documents, they're doing the hard work of finding out thefacts of what occurred, and that's so significant and when a student comes totrend they're being taught by experts in their fields and who are passionateabout their topics and want to share what they've discoveredthat's what makes the University unique.

I'm Carolyn Kay and Trent research matters

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