The Women and the Warriors

Many peace organizations were founded during the outbreak of World War I in the United States. But a league founded solely by women was nonexistent. In 1915, women from thirteen countries met in The Hague to protest the war, and this was the beginning of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).
In the 1920s and 1930s, four major women's peace groups were formed, but only the WILPF endures today. The U.S. Section of the WILPF was prominent both in terms of size and influence. Based on detailed research and primary source material, Carrie Foster analyzes the WILPF at the national level. She examines its activities, methodology, and personalities in the first thirty years. In an attempt to achieve government support for their peace policies and other programs that would lead to peace and justice both at home and abroad, the WILPF used methods of reform that combined education with persuasion and political petition. At the core of the book is the organization's role in the peace movement of that period, its reaction to U.S. foreign policy decisions, and why it ultimately did not succeed.

Carrie Foster is Associate Professor of History at Miami University, Hamilton, Ohio.