Nationalising Hundreds and Thousands of Women': a Domestic Response to a National Problem

The wartime evacuee has become a symbol of the home front in World War Two. However, behind the iconic image lie more complex histories. The government evacuation scheme both encouraged and enforced many homeowners to share their private domestic space with strangers. The preparation, organisation and monitoring of this scheme led to unparalleled public interference into the private space of the home. The enforced domestic intimacy this led to resulted in the voluntary and governmental agencies becoming increasingly entangled in a complex, shifting understanding of ideas of the family, domestic labour, motherhood and the home during wartime.