Abstract
The process of mobilizing Catholic women for war service compelled all Catholics to imagine new ways that laywomen could be part of their Church and nation. This process began in the spring and summer of 1918 when the National Catholic War Council (NCWC) sent out thousands of surveys to Catholic women's groups around the nation to document the Catholic contribution to the war effort. As Catholic laywomen answered the questionnaires, they revealed the ways they took advantage of new opportunities offered by war work while also confronting the challenge of being members of an ethnically diverse, patriarchal Church in a Protestant-dominant country. They realized they wanted recognition from their Protestant neighbors and more responsibility from their fellow Catholics. Ultimately, the act of surveying Catholic women's organizations led both laywomen and Church leaders to create national institutions for Catholic women that would endure beyond the World War I era.
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