“In Relation to the Pact”: Radical Pacifists and the Kellogg‐Briand Pact, 1928–1939

Abstract

This paper argues that radical and pacifist peace activists made the Kellogg‐Briand Pact their own for the decade after its creation. While recognizing the treaty's flaws, they co‐opted and adapted its meaning, and it influenced many of the goals activists pursued in the 1930s. The pact aided cooperation between peace activists, and both the treaty and Frank B. Kellogg himself played a larger role in the peace movement for a longer period than previously recognized. This argument draws primarily from sources at the Minnesota Historical Society, the WILPF International records at the University of Colorado‐Boulder, the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, and the WILPF records in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.