Women's International League For Peace And Freedom Research Articles

Vote and Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy, 1915–1930 (review)

Reviewed by: Vote and Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy, 1915–1930 Cindy Koenig Richards Vote and Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy, 1915–1930. By Wendy B. Sharer. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004; pp xiv + 218. $30.00. Throughout the history of the United States, women have pursued full citizenship in the political sphere. Contrary to popular perceptions that advocacy for U.S. women’s rights can be accounted for in terms of two waves—a first wave of suffrage activism that culminated in the Nineteenth Amendment, and a second wave of feminist advocacy that crashed with the defeat of an Equal Rights Amendment—scholars are finding that women’s participation in reform discourse spans historical eras and rhetorical situations. In Vote and Voice: Women’s Organizations and Political Literacy, 1915–1930, Wendy B. Sharer reveals that in the decade following the achievement of the Nineteenth Amendment—an era too often characterized as a period of still water between two “waves” of activism—large groups of women used extensive communicative practices to create pressure for public change. Focusing on the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the League of Women Voters (LWV), Sharer illuminates rhetorical tactics through which U.S. women, after they achieved official recognition as voters, entered into and challenged existing structures of political discourse. This contribution alone is an important one, but for readers of Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Sharer’s work offers more than a historical corrective. Vote and Voice provides insight into persuasive practices that sustain movements in [End Page 164] unfavorable times, that gradually cultivate the positive reception of reform arguments, and that promote civic engagement. By analyzing forms of “political literacy” employed by members of the WILPF and the LWV as they sought to alter restrictive practices of political communication in the United States and abroad, Sharer develops a framework for “understanding how groups of people collaborate in order to challenge configurations of power perpetuated through existing traditions of reading, writing, and speaking” (162). Conceptualizing literacy not merely as the ability to read and write, but as “the rhetorical savvy to participate actively in larger, more complex processes of information access and use,” Vote and Voice illuminates the faculty to observe in any case the available means of persuasion (9). Sharer’s work explicates political literacy as a compelling rhetorical practice; her study achieves this in part because it looks beyond the kind of symbolic act upon which rhetorical critics traditionally focus—that is, a singular text produced by an individual author—to examine a myriad of collective productions. To understand the goals and discursive practices of the WILPF and the LWV, Vote and Voice analyzes objects that include but are not limited to theatrical productions, study kits and curricula, alternative classrooms, and organizational publications. Drawing on a manifold collection of artifacts, Sharer begins by outlining a broad history of politically literate practices among U.S. women’s organizations—from benevolent societies to suffrage associations—prior to 1920. As chapter 1 outlines the discursive characteristics of these antecedent organizations, it links their rhetorical traditions to the practices of the WILPF and the LWV. Chapters 2 and 4 discuss the goals of the WILPF and the LWV, which were broadly similar: to make women citizens and their concerns heard in the public realm, and to transform restrictive conventions of political communication. Both groups were significant for their challenges to the traditional functioning of politics, and for the collaborative persuasive activities they enacted to mobilize support for their reforms. “To correct what they saw as fundamental flaws in the traditional methods of political communication—flaws that led to militant nationalism, antagonistic display, and violence,” members of the WILPF worked to engage citizens, from elementary schoolchildren to high-level diplomats, in the study and discussion of international matters (36). Chapter 3 analyzes a variety of politically literate practices—such as educational initiatives, artistic productions, and the strategic deployment of messengers and texts—through which the WILPF involved citizens in discussions of pacifism. As these rhetorical tactics incorporated women’s voices into public discourse about diplomatic issues, they also imparted a model of new internationalism that valorized collaboration and negotiation...

The Movies and the Antiwar Debate in America, 1930-1941

Despite recent work on interventionists, the film industry, and U.S. foreign policy in the interwar period, the relationship of antiwar groups to motion pictures has been largely ignored.1 Such neglect is unwarranted since surveys indicated that the overwhelming majority of Americans opposed U.S. intervention in another war throughout the 1930s, and, as late as July 1941, the final Gallup poll on the question revealed 79 percent still advocated U.S. neutrality (Gallup 290). Exploration of the relationship between antiwar groups and the film industry produces new insights into the foreign policy debate and into the place of movies in American public life. It indicates how some interest groups sought to filter and interpret motion pictures to their membership. It demonstrates how, for most of the 1930s, pacifists and isolationists sought to use films in a positive manner and to build a working relationship with the motion picture industry. It was only in 1941, with the advent of a new, more extreme anti-interventionist organization, that a vituperative campaign was launched against the Hollywood studios. Those who opposed U.S. military intervention abroad have been often linked together as isolationists, but they are more accurately analyzed as three separate entities. The peace movement was composed of a variety of pacifist and peace advocacy groups. Internationalist not isolationist, they opposed military force and collective security and advocated non-violent methods to address the causes or consequences of war. In contrast, the isolationist movement was neither pacifist nor internationalist. Its member groups opposed U.S. political as well as military intervention overseas but would support military defense of the Western Hemisphere. In 1940, a new anti-interventionist movement emerged. This ad hoc coalition, ranging from the political left to the right, was formed to prevent U.S. military intervention in World War II. Archival research in the records of groups from these three different antiwar movements2 can disclose much more than merely how they sought to increase membership and political influence-the standard use of such records.3 In this case, it reveals how such groups tried to shape members' attitudes and actions toward motion pictures, the film industry, and U.S. foreign policy. Both the pacifist Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the peace-oriented, isolationist influenced National Council for the Prevention of War (NCPW) existed throughout the period. The anti-interventionist America First Committee (AFC) was a temporary coalition organization, existing only from 1940 to 1941. The U.S. section of the WILPF, founded by Jane Addams and other women pacifists in 1919 to work for peace and women's rights, was one of the most important pacifist pressure groups. It consisted of more than 13,000 women, most of them from middle or upper classes, in branches across the country. Mildred Scott Olmstead headed the influential Pennsylvania Branch, and, in 1934, she became chief administrator of the entire U.S. Section of the WILPF. (Alonso; Bacon; Foster; Pois). The most influential umbrella organization that included an isolation coalition was the National Council for the Prevention of War, headed by its founder Frederick J. Libby. A large, assertive lobbying coalition made up of a wide spectrum of groups from the American Federation of Teachers to the Grange and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the NCPW mailed out nearly two million pieces of literature a year to a large audience ranging from farmers and blue-collar workers to educators and editors (Kuusisto; Libby). The anti-interventionist America First Committee was headed by Robert Wood, chairman of Sears Roebuck and Company, and counted a membership of some 850,000 persons, the majority in the isolationist Middle West (Cole; Doenecke; Moser). During American intervention in World War I, pacifists had been appalled by Hollywood's Hate the Hun silent films. …

Feminine Virtue and Feminist Fervor

Because of the success of woman suffrage and concerns about World War I, women activists became involved in promoting peace. The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was a prominent organization in this movement, taking an active part in both national and international political processes. Issues of interest to the WILPF during the 1930s included international disarmament, investigation of the munitions industry, and racial justice. Red-baiting, along with the unpopularity of pacifism prior to World War II, lessened the influence of the WILPF. However, today's socialworkers can learn much from the WILPF's efforts of 70 years ago.

From Rosie the Riveter to the global Assembly Line: American Women on the World Stage

In 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war in Europe, American pacifist and feminist Emily Greene Balch wrote from Geneva to colleagues in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) about their plight. Ringed around by a wall of violence, we draw closer together (i). It was a hopeful statement about organizational and gen der solidarity in the face of impending doom, but it can perhaps also serve as a foreshadowing of the ways that, in the more than half century since the end of World War II, women across the conti nents have at times been able to make connections across national differences to confront common problems, includ ing gendered violence. From a twenty first century vantage point, we can look back over the decades and see how inti mately connected the changes in Ameri can women's lives have been with events

`Women's Unarmed Uprising Against War': A Swedish Peace Protest in 1935

During the summer of 1935, approximately 20,000 Swedish women mobilized in a peaceful action - the Women's Unarmed Uprising Against War. The manifestation was a protest against rearmament and, in particular, against a militarization of everyday life that might result from a civil defense buildup. Thus, in a spirit of solidarity, women were encouraged to refuse to use gas masks or evacuate into cellars and air-raid shelters in the event of an air raid. Only then would men realize their responsibility, lay down their weapons, and solve the conflict at the negotiating table. The action was connected to a radical pacifistic tradition in which male conscientious objectors, among others, and the example of Gandhi were prominent. Liberal and Social Democrat women and members of the Swedish section of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) carried out the action. The action was formulated in such a manner that women across the country were asked to vote for those who could serve in a women's parliament. The goal was to create an international uprising among women by influencing the League of Nations' delegates and the women's organizations in Geneva. In the same year, the central body of WILPF had decided to support an international peace plan, the People's Mandate to End War. The mandate's aim was to present demands for disarmament to governments in different countries. This article examines why the Swedish women assumed a more radical position than that stated in the people's mandate; what kinds of peace efforts in Sweden made such a radical, pacifistic women's action possible; and what went on when the initiators attempted to influence WILPF, on an international level, into incorporating the radical protest into the people's mandate campaign.

Globalization, Militarism, and Women's Collective Action

Feminists and women's groups have long been involved in peace work, and their analyses and action have contributed much to our understanding of the roots of conflict and the conditions for conflict resolution. The activities of groups such as Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), Women Strike for Peace, and the Women of Greenham Common are legendary, and their legacy lies in ongoing efforts to feminize peace, anti-militarism, human rights, and development. At the Nairobi International Women's Conference in 1985, women decided that not only equality and development, but also peace, with its dark side of war, were their affairs (Pietila and Vickers 1994). As the Development Alternatives with Women in a New Era (DAWN) statement expressed it, Where is the rationality, not to mention humanity, in a situation where nuclear missiles can go from Western Europe to Moscow in six minutes, while the average woman in Africa must walk several hours to fetch water for her family? (Sen and Grown 1987). Since at least the 1980s, feminists have recognized the connections among development, equality, peace, and human rights. The Nairobi International Women's Conference took place in the midst of the crisis of Third World indebtedness and the implementation of austerity policies policed by the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund). Feminists were quick to see the links between economic distress, political instability, and violence against women. As Lucille Mair (U.N. Secretary General for the 1980 Copenhagen Conference) noted after Nairobi:

African American Activists in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 1920s–1950s

When the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) decided to open its membership to African American women in 1915, it entered a new era. Just as women changed the agenda and direction of the peace movement when they became increasingly involved in what had been an all‐male club, so too did African American women alter the path of a cause that had previously lacked racial diversity. Black women brought to the movement historical experiences shaped by multidimensional pressures and societal racism. Their experiences influenced their definition of peace and freedom, which sometimes led to intense debate between them and their white colleagues over related issues. Nevertheless, the two groups of women were able to put aside their differences long enough to move forward on certain goals. Along the way, black and white dissidents had a tremendous impact upon each other. This study examines one side of that process: specifically, how African American women's increased presence in WILPF, coupled with their heightened desire to eradicate racial injustice, compelled the white leadership to revisit its own conceptions of peace and freedom.

The Women's Interwar Peace Movement

Rachel Waltner Goossen. Women Against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and. Gender on the American Home Front, 1941-1947. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. xiii + 180 and biblio- graphy and illustrations. Linda K. Schott. Reconstructing Women's Thoughts: The Womett's Inter- national League for Peace and Freedom Before World War II. Stanford: Stan- ford University Press, 1997. Pp. ix + 211 and illustrations. Linked together by similar subjects—women pacifists in the United States during or prior to World War II—both of these books are useful for an understanding of the interwar peace movement. Schott's study of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) should be read in conjunction with Carrie Foster's 1995 work on that group, The Women and the Warriors, and the 1993 biography of long-time WILPF leader Mildred Scott Olmsted by Margaret Bacon entitled One Woman's Passion for Peace and Freedom, both published by Syracuse University Press, as well as Harriet Hyman Alsono's two seminal works, The Women's Peace Union and the Outlawry of War, 1921-1942 (Knoxville, 1989) and Peace as a Women's Issue (Syracuse, 1993). Goossen's study of women in Civilian Public Service (CPS) nicely complements earlier works on conscientious objectors (CO's) like Cynthia Eller's conscientious Objectors and the Second World War (Praeger, 1991) with its religious and moral emphasis.

Dissension in the ranks

Historical accounts of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and other women's peace organizations generally emphasize national leaders. These women tended to be educated, white, Protestant, and monied. The local branch histories—the stories of average women from all backgrounds—are only recently emerging. Perhaps the following account of WILPF's New York City branch can make a small contribution to reconstructing a more complete history of the women's peace movement—one that recognizes dissension as well as consensus.

Nobel Peace Laureates, Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch: Two Women of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

Nobel Peace Laureates, Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch: Two Women of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Harriet Hyman Alonso In November, 1895, Alfred Nobel, wealthy inventor and entrepreneur, signed his last will and testament. In it, he stipulated that the major part of his estate be converted into a fund and invested, the interest to be used for prizes in five areas he wished to promote, one of which was peace.1 Nobel's interest in the peace cause centered around his passionate friendship with Baroness Bertha von Suttner, the founder of the Austrian Peace Society.2 Nobel envisioned the prize as a tribute to the woman or man who did the most for obtaining peace in Europe. Little did he imagine that it would become one of the most pretigious and lucrative awards in the world.3 In the spring of 1992, eighteen peace historians gathered at the Nobel Institute in Norway to probe the question, "How has the Nobel Peace Prize been accepted in the laureates' own nations?" My assignment was to enlighten the group on the two women from the United States who won the prize: Jane Addams (1931) and Emily Greene Balch (1946).4 Each received the honor for her work with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Addams was already a well-known Progressive Era reformer when she was named a Nobel laureate and is well placed in U.S. history. Emily Greene Balch, however, was and still is virtually unknown in the land of her birth. Why, I wondered, was this so? Both women came from similar backgrounds, lived through the same eras, and embraced many of the same causes. They worked together in WILPF and other organizations to ward off U.S. participation in World War I, faced similar harassment during the Red Scare of the 1920s, and worked together in the international search for world peace during the interwar years. After Addams died in 1935, Balch continued working with WILPF until her death in 1961. Three factors may explain the inconsistency in the two women's reputations: 1) Addams is best known for her work in the settlement house movement, an extension of the domestic sphere and traditionally occupied by women, whereas Balch chose peace activism as a career, thereby entering the world of international affairs, a sphere traditionally closed to women. Addams's social work, in other words, did not generally threaten © 1995 Journal of Women's History, Vol. 7 No. 2 (Summer) 1995 Harriet Hyman Alonso 7 the status quo, whereas Batch's peace work did. 2) Addams did not criticize the nation's capitalist ideology while Balch openly declared herself a socialist, allying with political groups which U.S. policy makers disfavored. Throughout her career, Balch challenged the basic economic principles of capitalism. 3) Addams received the prize during a time of relative peace while Balch received it during the early Cold War years. The public's view at the time was that Addams's work mirrored government policy, whereas Balch's reflected clearcut opposition. A comparison of these women's lives and careers offers more insight into the matter. The Early Years Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch had much in common during their early years. Their upbringing and education led to a similar desire to end poverty and war. The two women were born just six years apart to upper middle-class parents—Addams on September 6,1860, and Balch on January 8,1867.5 Both women had industrious, politically Uberal fathers and traditional Victorian-era mothers. Addams's father, John Huy Addams, a prosperous Illinois miller and banker, was heavily involved in community affairs. An opponent of slavery, he met and befriended many influential figures, among them, Abraham Lincoln. Balch's father, Francis Vergnies Balch, a graduate of Harvard University, volunteered to fight in the Civil War, and served as secretary to the abolitionist U.S. senator, Charles Sumner. Returning to Boston, he devoted the remainder of his life to practicing law. Addams's mother, Sarah Weber Addams, concentrated on her role as wife and mother, and died when Jane was only two years old. Five years...

One woman's passion for peace and freedom: the life of Mildred Scott Olmsted

This is a biography of Mildred Scott Olmsted, who travelled the world, drawing women into the struggle for peace. A protege of Jane Addams, she devoted her long life to building the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

A place for pacifism and transnationalism in feminist theory: the early work of the women's international league for peace and freedom

Abstract The work of pacifist and internationalist women is seen as having been sidelined, even feared or disowned by some feminists, as irrelevant or disempowering. It is argued here that this rejection stems from misconceptions caused by rhetoric or by semantic confusion, both originating in patriarchal discourse. The reality of the early work of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is described, and underlying principles are outlined. The perceived relationship between women and peace is re-examined, serving to break down the ‘motherhood-and-apple- pie’ mythology of women's role in peacemaking. The motivation of early WILPF leaders is shown to have been strongly feminist and their actions consciously political; while they supported traditional feminist causes, they also claimed for women a part in world affairs, both as a right and because social justice and equality for women were, in their view, unobtainable in a militaristic world.

World Campaign for Peace

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) organized on March 8, 1982, under the slogan "STAR» (Stop The Arms Race), a campaign for peace led by women delegates from all parts of the United States.

STAR (Stop The Arms Race)

Star is the abbreviation of the slogan, " Stop the Arms Race". It is also the emblem of the peace campaign organized by WILPF (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom), which aims to register one million women who wish to stop the arms race.