LE3 .A278 2016

2016

Doerr, Paul

Acadia University

Bachelor of Arts

Honours

History

History & Classics

We often hear about how censorship is enacted during war in order to protect the morale of a country’s citizens while preventing valuable information from being intercepted by the enemy. However, we never hear about the morale of the censors nor do we see written historical texts relating to the topic. Using the diaries and letters written by Captain Robbins Elliott who was a field press censor for the Canadian military during the Second World War, we can determine the state of his morale. Since this is an archival thesis, the first section contains a description of the documents belonging to Robbins Elliott beginning from his journey to Holland and ending with his research on various people and places. There is also an archival sketch of Elliott’s life along with other access points that the reader may find of interest. The way that this finding aid is structured is consistent with The Rules for Archival Description (RAD). The second part discusses the historiography of Canadian censorship during the Second World War as well as both the press and military censorship systems. The archival records along with secondary research highlight what Elliott and other military censors thought about their duties and how some reacted to criticism of censorship. This section concludes that Elliott’s morale remained intact as a censor throughout the war.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:1408