This dissertation examines Britain's art musical culture within the context of the Second World War. Art music received attention and prominence through the musical work and growth of two wartime institutions—the National Gallery lunchtime concerts and the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA). The Gallery concerts and CEMA helped provide work for musicians and also contributed to the perceived growth of art musical culture's importance to the larger nation-at-war. In "Give Us More Music", I argue that analyzing the work of musicians on the home front helps explain how and why cultural elites advocated that musical culture was an important segment worthy of attention. Central to my project is analyzing how women musicians benefited from the beliefs that educational and amateur musical activities fostered morale on the wartime home front.

In particular, I analyze how women's musical work proved instrumental in placing women in roles of influence seldom held prior to the wartime period. This includes an analysis of women musicians such as Myra Hess at the National Gallery and other professional musicians known as the Music Travellers. These Travellers, a group of largely women musicians employed by CEMA, served in performing and administrative roles in spreading art music to various regions of Britain during the conflict. Additionally, I discuss and compare the work of female musicians at the National Gallery with those of leisured middle and upper-class women staffing the concerts' canteen during the course of the series.

My approach provides insights into debates about women's roles on the wartime home front and establishes that though women musicians did make inroads, these gains did not permanently alter the largely male world of arts administration and performance. My dissertation investigates also how various women negotiated their own identities, both personal and professional, as they attempted to understand how their own work contributed to the larger wartime effort. Adding to debates about women's work, gender, and national identity, I suggest music and musical culture are areas that resonated on a larger level in public discourse and discussion beyond the small numbers of Britons, particularly women, who were involved in such work during the war.