‘Formal qualifications for full masculine status’? Challenging the fragmentation of the male life cycle through the First World War pension archives

Jessica Meyer’s ground-breaking work on the Ministry of Pensions files of disabled Great War veterans challenges the idea that the war was a turning point in histories of masculinity. Confronting the tendency to define ex-servicemen entirely through short-lived military experience Meyer argues for a biographical approach that follows individual men over the life cycle, rather than isolating one fragment of a life. In so doing, she argues, we can more fully appreciate how the interplay between historical and biographical change shaped men’s lives. Often stretching over decades, pension files provided fragmented life stories through which to explore experiences of disability, work, and family and the negotiations between individuals, families, the state, and employers.