Different and Unequal? Breadwinning,Dependency Deferments,and the Gendered Origins of the U.S. Selective Service System

Abstract

With establishment of the U.S. Selective Service System in 1917, selective draft rules placed consideration of registrants’ economic obligations to their dependents front and center. By observing the Canadian and British recruitment experiences, American policy makers opted against universal conscription since they believed it would be costly because of the need to offer family allowances and opted against a voluntary system since they believed that too many bachelors would fail to volunteer. Dependency deferments were designed to minimize the social and economic costs of war. Local board members determined whether a man was a genuine breadwinner or not, and individual discretion on this matter contributed to the higher rates of African American draftees during WWI compared to white draftees, since African American men were less likely to be recognized as genuine breadwinners. Selective Service rules thus resulted in reproducing female citizens as economic dependents and yielded durable inequalities among registrants.