Contemporary Authors

PERSONAL

Born October 10, 1986.

EDUCATION:

Completed postdoctoral work at the University of Strathclyde.

ADDRESS

• Home - Middlesbrough, England.

CAREER

Cultural and social historian. Teeside University, Middlesbrough, England, research lecturer and senior lecturer in history; formerly a researcher at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland.

WRITINGS

• Men at Work: The Working Man in British Culture, 1939-1945, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2015

Contributor to journals, including Contemporary British History and the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.

SIDELIGHTS

Linsey Robb is a cultural and social historian who teaches at Teeside University in Middlesbrough, England. She has also been a researcher at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Robb’s research interests have focused on World War II, wartime propaganda, and gender constructs, particularly as they apply to concepts of masculinity. She has published articles and a book on the media representations, experiences, and memories of civilian British men during World War II.

Released in 2016, Robb’s first book, Men at Work: The Working Man in British Culture, 1939-1945, is part of Palgrave Macmillan’s series, Genders and Sexualities in History. As a starting point for her discussion, Robb states that a total war like the Second World War could not have been won only by soldiers on land, sea, and air; men were needed back on the home front as well. Robb’s analysis centers on four essential occupations during World War II: agriculture and farming, industrial labor such as manufacturing munitions, firefighting, and the mercantile marine, which was responsible for delivering cargo and supplies on the oceans.

Because many women entered the workforce during the war and took jobs formerly held by men, the home front was considered to be a feminized space. Yet, even though many men were off fighting, some men were also supporting the war effort by holding down civilian jobs. Robb claims that fighting in wars is central to British concepts of masculine identity; therefore, men who could not fight in World War II and stayed on the home front represented a threat to that masculine ideal. Using a broad spectrum of wartime media, such as film, radio, and visual representations, Robb studies the often ignored role of men on the home front. She analyzes how men’s work at home was portrayed in wartime propaganda and the mass media and how these sources point to a hierarchy of masculine identity depicted in civilian labor during the war.

In her book, Robb explains how different strands of masculinity positioned themselves in relation to one another. Through case studies, she presents men at work and explores how the media and propaganda influenced broader social attitudes toward various jobs. As R.J. Bates commented in a review in Choice, “men working in life-threatening jobs were valorized,” whereas “men who engaged in farming and industrial labor were either not represented or represented as weaker individuals.” Bates considered the book “highly dependent on visual sources,” but somewhat “limited in images” that could have given more weight to Robb’s analysis. Bates nevertheless recommended Men at Work  as “a rich study” that makes “a useful contribution to the studies of masculinity” against the backdrop of  World War II.

 

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

• CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, June, 2016, R.J. Bates, review of Men at Work: The Working Man in BritishCulture, 1939-1945, p. 1535.

ONLINE

• Palgrave Macmillan, http://www.palgrave.com/ (June 9, 2017), author profile.

• Teeside University, http://www.tees.ac.uk/ (June 9, 2017), faculty profile.

• University of North Hampton, http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk (January 12, 2017), review of Men at Work.

• University of Strathclyde, https://pure.strath.ac.uk/ (June 9, 2017), researcher profile.