title: Government gas vans and school gas chambers: preparedness and paranoia in Britain, 1936-1941.
abstract: In 1936 the Air Raid Precautions department of the British Home Office instigated a training programme in which members of the public, including school students, were systematically exposed to tear gas. Based around fixed and mobile gas chambers, this training aimed to educate the public in the value and efficacy of their gas masks. Drawing on documentary and oral historical sources, this paper examines the discrepancies between the stated form and aims of these tests, and their practical applications, including some excessively brutal training practices. In the last part of the paper I consider these variations in the context of both the gas panic and the moral panic about children's behaviour in wartime.
authors.affiliation: UCL Institute of Archaeology, London, UK. g.moshenska@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Moshenska
mesh_terms: D002959:Civil Defense / Q000266:history* / Q000458:organization & administration; D004780:Environment, Controlled; D006076:Government / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D010258:Paranoid Behavior / Q000453:epidemiology; D012134:Respiratory Protective Devices / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom; D047789:World War II