The Great Elevator: Military Service and Social Mobility, 1900–1980
Principal Investigator: Robin Adams
Funder: Early Career Fellowship, The Leverhulme Trust (awarded 2022)
Funder: Early Career Fellowship, The Leverhulme Trust (awarded 2022)
Project Description:
This research project, running from 2022 to 2025, investigates the effect of distinguished military service in the Great War on the social mobility of British veterans after the war. Combining quantitative analysis and prosopography, it explores the extent to which war was a turbocharger for meritocracy, resulting in increased social mobility with effects that lasted long into peacetime. It pays particular attention to the effect of having received a temporary commission in the military on the careers and wealth of working- and middle-class veterans. It contributes to the historiographies of social mobility, business elites, the First World War, and interwar Britain.
Project Website: click here.
This research project, running from 2022 to 2025, investigates the effect of distinguished military service in the Great War on the social mobility of British veterans after the war. Combining quantitative analysis and prosopography, it explores the extent to which war was a turbocharger for meritocracy, resulting in increased social mobility with effects that lasted long into peacetime. It pays particular attention to the effect of having received a temporary commission in the military on the careers and wealth of working- and middle-class veterans. It contributes to the historiographies of social mobility, business elites, the First World War, and interwar Britain.
Project Website: click here.