‘Allowed to Serve, Not to Speak’? The Role of Women in International Peace Activism, 1880-1920

ABSTRACT

As the twentieth century dawned, fledgling transnational networks of peace activists, including the International Peace Bureau and the Interparliamentary Union, grew in prominence, not least in Europe. Impetus came from the United States, notably via the Lake Mohonk conferences and emergent organisations like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the World Peace Foundation. Each group purported to speak on behalf of an inclusive and ‘international’ public opinion, yet men dominated them all. This analysis considers the challenge and sustainment to this male dominance in the period from 1880 to 1920, exploring the intersection between existing peace groups and an emergent feminist pacifism. Peace activists of all stripes believed that public opinion’s influence was growing, and most positioned themselves as representatives of an enlightened public sentiment; but the composition of this public sphere, and the space afforded within it for women, remained a site of contestation.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Dagmar Wernitznig, “Living Peace, Thinking Equality: Rosika Schwimmer’s (1877-1948) War on War,” in Living War, Thinking Peace (1914-1924): Women’s Experiences, Feminist Thought, and International Relations, ed. Bruna Bianchi and Geraldine Ludbrook (Newcastle, 2016), 128.

² Sandi E. Cooper, “The Work of Women in Nineteenth Century Peace Movements,” Peace & Change, 9/4 (1983): 12-3.

³ W.H. van der Linden, The International Peace Movement, 1815-1874 (Amsterdam, 1987), 171.

⁴ Jill Liddington, The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820 (London, 1989), 16.

⁵ Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement (Princeton, NJ, 1997), 14.

⁶ Cited in Bonnie S. Anderson, Joyous Greetings: The First International Women’s Movement, 1830-1860 (Oxford, 2000), 134.

⁷ Van der Linden, International Peace Movement, 361.

⁸ Sandi E. Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism: Waging War on War in Europe, 1815-1914 (Oxford, 1991), 22.

⁹ Anderson, Joyous Greetings, 134. Martin Ceadel, Semi-Detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1854-1945 (Oxford, 2000), 30; Liddington, Long Road to Greenham, 14 discuss the ‘Olive Leaf Circles’.

¹⁰ Rupp, Worlds of Women, 14.

¹¹ Liddington, Long Road to Greenham, 35.

¹² Cooper, “Work of Women,” 16. As Cooper notes, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War soon cut short the life of this group.

¹³ Liddington, Long Road to Greenham, 24.

¹⁴ Cooper, “Work of Women,” 17-8.

¹⁵ Glenda Sluga, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism (Philadelphia: PAZ, 2013), 12.

¹⁶ Inter-Parliamentary Union: http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/meeting.htm.

¹⁷ “Proceedings of the Universal Peace Congress, London, July 14-19, 1890 – opening address by Hodgson Pratt,” SCPC [International Peace Bureau Papers, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Swarthmore, PA] Box 3a.

¹⁸ International Peace Bureau, “Appel aux Associations des Dames,” May 12, 1892, IPB [Papers of the International Peace Bureau, United Nations Office, Geneva] First period, 144/1.

¹⁹ Resolution proposed by Mme Maria Martin, IPB First period, 58/6, Berne Congress, 1892.

²⁰ Third Annual Report of the IAPA and report of their Annual Meeting, London, 23 July 1883, SCPC Papers of the International Arbitration and Peace Association.

²¹ Société française pour l’arbitrage entre nations, “Appel aux Femmes!” [circa 1892], IPB First period, 117/1.

²² IPB, “Appel aux peoples pour un pétionnement universel en faveur de la Paix,” 26 août 1892, [original emphasis], IPB First period, 117/2.

²³ “Projet de Conférence Internationale et Annuelle entre les Membres des Diverses Universités: Mémoire présentée au Congrès International de la Paix tenu à Rome en novembre, 1891,” [Hodgson Pratt], IPB First period, 8/7.

²⁴ Smiley to Emmott [Baltimore], November 16, 1895, SCPC Lake Mohonk Papers Box A1.

²⁵ “Les femmes d’Angleterre à leurs sœurs de France,” April 28, 1895, IPB First period, 144/2. Robinson sent this appeal to Élie Ducommun at the Berne Bureau, who assisted her in getting it published across France. This initiative seemingly paved the way for the formation of the Union internationale des femmes pour la paix, a “Paris-London axis” led by Robinson and Eugénie Pontonié-Pierre, although dominated by the former. See Sandi E. Cooper, “French Feminists and Pacifism, 1889-1914: The Evolution of New Visions,” Peace & Change, 36/1 (2011): 11.

²⁶ Eliza Riedi, ‘The Women Pro-Boers: Gender, Peace and the Critique of Empire in the South African War,’ Historical Research, 86/231 (2012): 110.

²⁷ Paris Congress, 1900, Message transmitted by Miss Ellen Robinson, IPB First period, 8/7.

²⁸ Sewall to Ducommun, January 15, 1904, IPB First period, 144/5.

²⁹ Wilson to Ducommun, April 22, 1899, IPB First period, 144/5; “Procès-verbal des Séances de la Commission des 5 et 6 mai 1899 à Berne,” IPB First period, 8/1.

³⁰ Sewall to Gobat, April 4, 1911, IPB First period, 144/5.

³¹ IPB, “Rapport sur l’exécution des résolutions des Congrès de la Paix relatives à la propagande,” 30 août 1903, IPB First period, 58/6.

³² “Discours de la président provisoire du Comité de la Ligue Internationale de la Paix et de la Liberté, Section d’Isére, au 4ème Congrès National de la Paix, Grenoble, 18 août 1906,” IPB First period, 118/10.

³³ IPB, “Circular to the Peace Societies,” February 7, 1907, IPB First period, 103/1.

³⁴ See Laurie R. Cohen, “‘Fighting for Peace Amid Paralyzed Popular Opinion’: Bertha von Suttner’s and Rosa Mayreder’s Pacifist-Feminist Insights on Gender, War and Peace,” in Living War, Thinking Peace, ed. Bianchi and Ludbrook, 108-22, for more on von Suttner’s gravitation towards the organised feminist movement.

³⁵ “Report of Proceedings at the Seventeenth Universal Congress of Peace, London, 26 July-1 August 1908,” Von Suttner speech, 28 July 1908, IPB First period, 106/8.

³⁶ Sandi E. Cooper, “Women’s Participation in European Peace Movements: The Struggle to Prevent World War I,” in Women and Peace: Theoretical, Historical and Practical Perspectives, ed. Ruth Roach Pierson (London, 1987), 66.

³⁷ “Report of Proceedings at the Seventeenth Universal Congress of Peace, London, 26 July-1 August 1908,” Mackenty speech, July 29, 1908, IPB First period, 106/8.

³⁸ Countess of Aberdeen speech, July 31, 1908, Ibid.

³⁹ “XVIIIme Congrès Universel de la Paix à Stockholm (1910): Résumé d’un discours de Ellen Key, ‘La femme et la question de la paix’,” IPB First period, 112/1.

⁴⁰ See Phillips to Novicow, January 8, 1903, Phillips to Carnegie, January 24, 1903, both SCPC Lake Mohonk Papers Box A2.

⁴¹ Phillips to Mead, February 8, 1906, Phillips to Maynard, February 9, 1906, both SCPC Lake Mohonk Papers Box A6.

⁴² Phillips to Smiley, February 9, 1906, Ibid.

⁴³ Sewall to Smiley, July 20, 1903, SCPC Lake Mohonk Papers, Series III, Box 20.

⁴⁴ Phillips to Murray Butler, September 24, 1909, SCPC, Lake Mohonk Papers, Series III, Box 117.

⁴⁵ Phillips to Murray Butler, February 14, 1913, Ibid.

⁴⁶ Christian Lange, “Coordination et Coopération dans le domaine du mouvement international de la Paix,” extract from La Vie Internationale (March, 1912), SCPC Inter-Parliamentary Union Papers Box 2.

⁴⁷ Lockwood to Fredrik and Matilda Bajer, August 19, 1912, IPB First period, 14/3.

⁴⁸ Le Mouvement Pacifiste (July 1913); Resolutions passed by the Peace Section of the International Women’s Congress (Budapest, 1913), IPB First period, 112/1.

⁴⁹ “Protestation” [leaflet issued by the Alliance Belge des Femmes pour la Paix par l’Education, circa 1913], IPB Second period, 275/6.

⁵⁰ This became abundantly clear in one of the first WPF publications outlining its central objects. Edwin Ginn, “World Peace Foundation: Formerly Known as The International School for Peace,” February 1911, WPF [Papers of the World Peace Foundation, Tufts University, Medford, MA] Box 001.

⁵¹ Ibid.

⁵² William H. Taft, “The Dawn of World Peace,” published by the WPF, circa 1911 WPF Box 001. The WPF distributed this article to numerous Women’s Clubs across America. See letter sent by Anna Sturges Duryea, December 11, 1911, Ibid.

⁵³ World Peace Foundation, Pamphlet Series, “The World Peace Foundation: Its Present Activities,” April 1912, WPF MS076/011.

⁵⁴ Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 13, 1913, CEIP [Papers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Columbia University, New York], Series I, Box 13, Folder 1.

⁵⁵ “Report of the Acting Director of the Division of Intercourse and Education,” February 21, 1914, CEIP Series III, Box 393, Folder 2.

⁵⁶ Rainer Santi, 100 Years of Peace Making: A History of the International Peace Bureau and Other International Peace Movement Organisations and Networks (Geneva, 1991), 24.

⁵⁷ Golay to van Beek en Donk, November 30, 1914, IPB Second period, 262/2; Green to Golay, August 22, 1914, IPB Second period, 290/2.

⁵⁸ IPB circular, “To Intellectual Leaders in all Nations,” January 5-6, 1915 [original emphasis], IPB Second period, 405/1.

⁵⁹ Moch to La Fontaine, January 1, 1915, IPB Second period, 400/2.

⁶⁰ “Notes of a conference with Murray Butler,” September 29, 1914, CEIP Series I, Box 40, Folder 4.

⁶¹ Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 13, 1914, CEIP Series I, Box 13, Folder 2.

⁶² Addams to Catt, December 21, 1914, SCPC Papers of the Women’s Peace Party, Reel 12.1.

⁶³ Lange to Murray Butler, September 24, 1914, CEIP Series III, Box 553, Folder 2.

⁶⁴ Ibid.

⁶⁵ Lange to Murray Butler, February 18, 1915, Ibid.

⁶⁶ Murray Butler to Perris, February 9, 1915, CEIP Series III, Box 485.

⁶⁷ Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 15, 1915, CEIP Series I, Box 13, Folder 2.

⁶⁸ Lange to Murray Butler, May 29, 1915, CEIP Series III, Box 553, Folder 2.

⁶⁹ “Report of the International Congress of Women, The Hague, 28 April-1 May 1915,” “Foreword” by Emily Hobhouse, SCPC WILPF Papers, Reel 141.1.

⁷⁰ “Conference with Nicholas Murray Butler,” October 7, 1915, CEIP Series I, Box 40, Folder 5.

⁷¹ Van Lanschot Hubrecht [International Council of Women for Permanent Peace] to Golay, September 25, 1915, enclosing Press Notice, IPB Second period, 302/4.

⁷² D’Estournelles de Constant to Butler, August 1916 [exact date unspecified], CEIP Series III, Box 474, Volume 130, Folder 1.

⁷³ Huntsman to Montandon, May 4, 1915, IPB Second period, 297/6.

Huntsman to Montandon, May 4, 1915, IPB Second period, 297/6.

⁷⁴ Hobhouse to Golay, July 4, 1915, IPB Second period, 299/2.

⁷⁵ Huntsman to the editor, Le Mouvement Pacifiste, July 7, 1915, IPB Second period, 299/3.

⁷⁶ “First Annual Convention of the Woman’s Peace Party, Washington D.C., 9-10-11 January 1916,” Jane Addams, SCPC Papers of the Woman’s Peace Party, Reel 12.1.

⁷⁷ LaFontaine note, July 1916 [my emphasis], IPB Second period, 264/1.

⁷⁸ “Report of the International Congress of Women, The Hague, 28 April-1 May 1915,” Louise Keilhau [Norway], April 28, 1915, SCPC WILPF Papers, Reel 141.1.

⁷⁹ D’Estournelles de Constant to Murray Butler, June 18, 1916, CEIP Series III, Box 474, Volume 130, Folder 1.

⁸⁰ Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 21, 1916, CEIP Series I, Box 13, Folder 3.

⁸¹ D’Estournelles de Constant to Murray Butler, 10 November 1916, CEIP Series III, Box 474, Volume 130, Folder 2.

⁸² Lange to Murray Butler, November 22, 1918, CEIP Series III, Box 553, Folder 8.

⁸³ Lange to Murray Butler, December 19, 1918, Ibid.

⁸⁴ Rankin to White, November 30, 1918, White [Henry White Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC] Box 23.

⁸⁵ D’Estournelles de Constant to Murray Butler, January 21, 1919, CEIP Series III, Box 476.

⁸⁶ D’Estournelles de Constant to Wilson, January 20, 1919, Wilson [Woodrow Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, Washington, DC] Reel 390.

⁸⁷ De Witt Schlumberger to White, January 15, 1919, White to De Witt Schlumberger, January 15, 1919, White Papers Box 38.

⁸⁸ Union Française pour le Suffrage des Femmes to Wilson, February 13, 1919: Wilson Papers Reel 393.

⁸⁹ Helena Swanwick, “The Reproach of Hecuba,” Women’s International League Monthly News Sheet [copy] III, no. II (February 1919), IPB Second period, 306/1.

⁹⁰ WIL leaflet, “Food and Justice,” circa 1919, Ibid.

⁹¹ Christian Lange, “Rapport du Secrétaire Général du Conseil Interparlementaire pour l’année 1918 suivi du programme du Bureau pour 1919,” SCPC Papers of the Interparliamentary Union, Box 2.

⁹² Heath to the IPB, March 31, 1919, IPB Second period, IPB 263, Dossier 1.

⁹³ Golay to Heath, June 3, 1919, IPB Second period, 263/1.

⁹⁴ Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915-1938: A Venture in Internationalism (Geneva, July 1938), LSE [London School of Economics, Women’s Library, London] WILPF/20/5.

⁹⁵ “Presidential Address delivered by Jane Addams,” “Report of the International Congress of Women, Zurich, May 12 to 17, 1919,” SCPC WILPF Papers, Reel 141.1.

⁹⁶ Sarah Hellawell, “Antimilitarism, Citizenship and Motherhood: the formation and early years of the Women’s International League (WIL), 1915-1919,” Women’s History Review, 27/4 (2018): 559.

⁹⁷ For recent efforts to emphasise women’s contribution to international relations scholarship in the interwar period, see January Stöckmann, “Women, Wars, and World Affairs: Recovering Feminist International Relations, 1915-39,” Review of International Studies, 44/2 (2017): 215-35; Lucian M. Ashworth, “Feminism, War and the Prospects for International Government: Helena Swanwick (1864-1939) and the Lost Feminists of Interwar International Relations,” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 13/1 (2011): 24-42.

⁹⁸ Wernitznig, “Living Peace, Thinking Equality,” 130.

Wernitznig, “Living Peace, Thinking Equality,” 130.

⁹⁹ Emily Balch, Tuesday morning session (July 11, 1921), in “Report of the Third International Congress of Women, Vienna, July 10-17, 1921,” LSE WILPF/20/5.

¹⁰⁰ Marie-Michèle Doucet, “Prise de parole au féminin: la paix et les relations internationales dans les revendications du mouvement de femmes pour la paix en France (1919-1934)” (PhD dissertation, Université de Montréal, 2015), 264.

¹⁰¹ Emily Balch, July 11, 1921, in “Report of the Third International Congress of Women, Vienna, July 10-17, 1921,” LSE WILPF/20/5.

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Daniel Hucker

Daniel Hucker is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of numerous articles on aspects of international and diplomatic history, as well as two monographs, Public Opinion and the End of Appeasement in Britain and France (Ashgate, 2011) and, most recently, Public Opinion and Twentieth-Century Diplomacy: A Global Perspective (Bloomsbury, 2020).