AUTHORS ON THE RECORD

Women’s Activism for Peace in World War I

By Benjamin Guterman

World War I brought an unprecedented degree of destruction and death. In the drawn-out stale-
mate of trench warfare, and the belligerence and intransigence of both sides, many feared the col-
lapse of the very foundations of Western civilization.
The Search for Negotiated Peace: Women’s Activism and Citizen Diplomacy in World War I explores
the international efforts for mediation of the conflict and in particular the prominent role of
David S. Patterson

women in that movement.

David S. Patterson is a former chief editor of Foreign Relations of the United States at the U.S.
State Department. He has also taught at several major universities and is the author of Toward a
Warless World: The Travail of the American Peace Movement, 1887–1914.

With your extensive research into the World War I peace move-
ment, why did you decide to explore the role of women activists
in more depth?
Actually, my focus on the women activists evolved only gradual-
ly. I first thought that my current work would be a logical sequel to
my earlier one on the movement before 1914. But the outbreak of
the Great War fundamentally transformed the prewar peace move-
ment. New people, ideas, and programs came to the fore, and it
became a transatlantic phenomenon. Among the newcomers were
women who entered the peace movement in large numbers, and
their activism had to become a central part of my story.
How did women bring greater direction and momentum to the
international peace movement after the outbreak of war in
1914? To what degree did gender make a difference?
It is safe to say that without women the international peace move-
ment would have been a tame affair, and it was energetic women
who assumed leadership of its every phase. They formed new
women’s peace groups, articulated principles for a “new diplomacy,”
and developed a strategy for involving neutral nations in possible
mediation of the war. In these ways, gender made a real difference,
and I asked myself, why was this so? Fortunately, over the last gen-
eration there has been an explosion in women’s history, so we now
better understand the relationship between feminism and various
social movements, including peace, in that era.
The feminist peace activists often talked, for example, of a
“maternal instinct”—that women who bore children were naturally
more peace-loving and less aggressive than men. Whether women
are really “wired” differently than men is still debated today, but
most women pacifists during the World War believed it, and the
“maternal instinct” appealed to women attracted to the cause.
Cultural influences were also involved. This was an era when
greater affluence allowed many more middle-class women to receive
a college education and begin to escape the home. By 1914 most of
the women I studied were already involved in the suffrage move-
ment or social work, including their transnational connections.
As the war expanded with no apparent end in sight, I also covered
the increasing involvement of male peace workers in the movement.
Very appealing in the book is your detailed picture of the peace
movement: the interweaving of colorful and forceful personali-
ties, such as Jane Addams, Rosika Schwimmer, and Henry Ford,
and their motives, with the events. Did this process take you to
some new sources?
I decided early in my research to base my study on the personal
papers of the leading activists, and I eventually consulted more than
50 collections. The most valuable repository for my purposes was
the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, which houses the papers
of Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch, and other manuscripts.
The Schwimmer-Lloyd papers at the New York Public Library were
another key source.
My research in personal papers expanded across the United States
and to the United Kingdom and Holland. The papers of Aletta H.
Jacobs in Amsterdam, for instance, were important.
I also examined many contemporary newspapers, several of which
can now be searched electronically, as well as participants’ memoirs.
What official government records were helpful?
The peace advocates had multiple interviews with heads of gov-
ernment and foreign ministers of all European governments and
the United States at which they promoted mediation of the war
and their program for postwar international reform. A subtheme of

60 Prologue Fall 2009

my book is the governmental reactions to these citizens’ pressures. international cooperation and various reform principles, including a
This involves not only discussion of what the national leaders said league of nations for the peaceful resolution of international dis-
directly to the activists, but explains what they were confidentially putes. Although belligerent governments silenced peace activity
debating about war aims within their ministries. I thus consulted during the war, their movements would rebound and become a
not only the foreign affairs records of European neutrals and the vibrant force for disarmament and peace in the 1920s and 1930s.
United States but also of belligerent Britain and Germany. For the More recently, the anti–Vietnam War movement and a worldwide
latter, I perused the microfilm copies of the German Government’s citizens’ campaign for nuclear disarmament have had important
foreign policy records at the U.S. National Archives. In this way, I impacts on governmental policies.
tried to integrate traditional diplo-
matic history with peace history. What does your study teach us
about modern peace movements
Did this study change your views in general?
of Wilson’s role before and after I think it teaches two things.
U.S. entrance into the war? First, they are inherently controver-
Not really, although I gained a sial. On one side, peace advocates
better understanding of his person- and some peace historians applaud
ality and ideas. Early in the war, these peace pioneers for their
Wilson developed two foreign poli- humane values and activism and for
cy goals: to keep out of the conflict their warnings about the disastrous
if possible, and to mediate at a effects of war and militarism. On
favorable opportunity. The peace the other side, more conservative
workers agreed and gained increas- people are likely to castigate them
ing access to Wilson; I identified 21 for their naïve beliefs in internation-
personal interviews with him during al understanding and peace and for
the period of U.S. neutrality. He their meddling in diplomacy. Even
disagreed with their joint mediation seemingly objective historians often
program, but with their enthusiastic conclude that the peace advocates’
approval, he launched his own inde- hopes for a world without war were
pendent mediation initiative in late unrealistic.
1916. Even more, he welcomed A second thought is that histo-
their program of international rians tend to downplay or ignore
reform, and his Fourteen Points in possible outside influences.
January 1918 were indebted to the Preoccupied with the study of
program the peace workers had ear- “high” politics and diplomacy, they
lier presented to him. I conclude that Wilson showed patience and have not looked much beyond the relationship between heads of
political shrewdness in his dealings with the activists during his first government and their principal advisers and the official interaction
term. But his personality included a priggish streak; and once he with other governments. Their assumption seems to be that the cit-
had decided on war in 1917, he became unyielding in his scorn for izen activists were too removed from the bases of power to have any
them. I perceive him as not a particularly original thinker, but an real impact. While the supposition of the unimportance of citizens’
extraordinary talent in forcefully articulating widely accepted liber- movements may be accurate for certain times and places, there are
al reform principles in the world arena. instances where their actions deserve a much closer look.
The peace activists’ influence on President Wilson during the
What was new about “citizen diplomacy” of that era, and how period of U.S. neutrality in the World War is a case in point. My
did it change world politics? book suggests that historians should view Wilson’s diplomacy not
World War I was a cataclysmic experience of unprecedented just from the top down, which includes his interactions with his
dimensions, and there was not surprisingly a strong reaction to the closest aides and their dealings with foreign governments, but also
killing and destruction from concerned citizens. Banding together, from the bottom up, or as the ongoing interaction between the
they promoted an alternate vision of world politics that emphasized President and various citizens and groups.

Women’s Activism for Peace in World War I Prologue 61