7 The Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimages: Patriotic Maternalists and Their Critics in Interwar America

Abstract

CHAPTER 7 T HE G OLD S TAR M OTHER P ILGRIMAGES : P ATRIOTIC M ATERNALISTS AND T HEIR C RITICS IN I NTERWAR A MERICA Rebecca Jo Plant Scholars typically view the late 1920s as marking the decline of maternal- ist politics in the United States, but this interpretation obscures both the persistence of maternalism in the interwar period and the various reasons why different groups of Americans came to revile it. 1 In fact, maternal- ism – loosely defined as the belief that motherhood represented a civic role that entitled women to make claims upon the state – remained a powerful force in American political culture, but one that was increasingly appropriated by patriotic and right-wing women’s groups. As progressive women struggled to reposition themselves within a post-suffrage con- text and politically conservative climate, many moderated or abandoned sentimental appeals to motherhood and female moral superiority. At the same time, a growing number of conservative and patriotic women un- hesitatingly employed such rhetoric, even as they adopted overtly political lobbying tactics and strategies. 2 In part because of these women’s highly visible and often controversial activities, a growing number of Ameri- cans began to view maternalist appeals as an illegitimate form of political discourse that masked anti-democratic attitudes. By the time the nation entered World War II, maternalism had been significantly discredited as a basis for women’s political activism. This essay attempts to demonstrate the continued viability of mater- nalism in the late 1920s and to enumerate the reasons for its subsequent decline by analysing a largely forgotten episode in American history: