Women of Empire - by Verity McInnis (Hardcover)

About the Book

Women of Empire adds a previously unexplored dimension to our understanding of the connections between gender and imperialism in the nineteenth century. McInnis examines the intersections of class, race, and gender to reveal social spaces where female identity and power were both contested and constructed.

Book Synopsis

In his Rules for Wife Behavior, Colonel Joseph Whistler summed up his expectations for his new bride: "You will remember you are not in command of anything except the cook." Although their roles were circumscribed, the wives of army officers stationed in British India and the U.S. West commanded considerable influence, as Verity McInnis reveals in this comparative study of two female populations in two global locations. Women of Empire adds a previously unexplored dimension to our understanding of the connections between gender and imperialism in the nineteenth century. McInnis examines the intersections of class, race, and gender to reveal social spaces where female identity and power were both contested and constructed.

Officers' wives often possessed the authority to direct and maintain the social, cultural, and political ambitions of empire. By transferring and adapting white middle-class cultural values and customs to military installations, they created a new social reality--one that restructured traditional boundaries. In both the British and American territorial holdings, McInnis shows, military wives held pivotal roles, creating and controlling the processes that upheld national aims. In so doing, these women feminized formal and informal military practices in ways that strengthened their own status and identities. Despite the differences between rigid British social practices and their less formal American counterparts, military women in India and the U.S. West followed similar trajectories as they designed and maintained their imperial identity.

Redefining the officer's wife as a power holder and an active contributor to national prestige, Women of Empire opens a new, nuanced perspective on the colonial experience--and on the complex nexus of gender, race, and imperial practice.

Review Quotes

Women of Empire does provide an interesting study on how military wives lived their lives in both India and the American West, an existence that one American spouse described as "glittering misery." The book offers much to enjoy for those readers interested in the distaff side of military history during the Victorian Age.-- The Journal of America's Military Past

"Comparing army officers' wives' experiences in two different parts of the world, Women of Empire tracks the ways that women in 'frontier' settings carved out roles that increased their social and cultural power while reifying their nation's imperial goals. Verity McInnis matches command of the U.S. West's and India's history with theoretical sophistication and clear, crisp story-telling. This is comparative history at its best." -- Sherry L. Smith author of Reimagining Indians: Native Americans through Anglo Eyes, 1880-1940 and The View from Officers' Row: Army Perceptions of Western Indians