Peace as a Women's Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women's Rights / Edition 1

by Harriet Alonso

Overview

Peace as a Women's Issue is a comprehensive history of the feminist peace movement in the United States during the last two centuries. This absorbing history traces the development of the women's campaign for peace from its roots in nineteenth-century abolitionist and suffrage movements to its expression during the recent war in the Middle East.

The development of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) takes center stage, but many other groups, ranging from the Women's Peace Union of the 1920s to later movements such as Women Strike for Peace, Women for Racial and Economic Equality, and the peace encampments of the 1980s arc all examined. Here too one will read about the many prominent figures who have had major roles in this history: Jane Addams and Carrie Chapman Catt of the Woman's Peace Party; Fanny Garrison Villard, daughter of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison; Nobel Peace Prize winner Emily Greene Balch; Dorothy Detzer of the WILPF; and Mary Church Terrell, the first president of the National Association of Colored Women.

This much-needed history of the feminist peace movement in the United States makes possible a fuller, better nuanced, and more balanced treatment of the history of the entire US peace movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815602699
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	02/01/1993
Series:	Peace and Conflict Resolution Series
Edition description:	1st ed
Pages:	340
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.74(d)
Lexile:	1490L (what's this?)

About the Author

Harriet Hyman Alonso is associate professor of history at Fitchburg State College in Massachusetts. She is the author of Tire Women 's Peace Union and the Outlawry of War, 1921-1942.

Editorial Reviews

Ranging from the abolitionist movement of the 19th century to the peace encampments of the 1980s, this broad, detailed history tracks the relationship between the movements for peace and for women's rights, noting how certain themes--``motherhood, the connections between militarism and violence against women, responsible citizenship, and independence from male control''--persist through the years. Alonso ( The Women's Peace Union and the Outlawry of War ) writes in style and detail that will appeal mainly to specialists, but she has dug up some interesting information: how Jewish women were at the forefront of activism in New York as fascism grew in Europe; how members of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom debated about neutrality during World War II; how the activists of the 1980s, working outside the political mainstream, were influenced by radical feminism. Enlivening the book are examples of peace literature over the years, such as a dialogue from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in the late 1890s and an anti-Vietnam War flier from Women Strike for Peace. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This important book fills a gap in the history of American women. Using archival and secondary sources, Alonso (Fitchburg State Coll.) traces the growth of the feminist peace movement from its 19th-century roots to the present. The first comprehensive history of this topic, the book analyzes and discusses the numerous organizations through which women have worked for peace, most prominently the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Alonso also focuses on local organizations like the New York branch of the Woman's Peace Party and highlights the leadership roles of women like Emily Balch, Carrie Catt, and Jane Addams. Uniting the narrative with key themes such as the connection between militarism and violence against women, Alonso concludes with an illuminating discussion of contemporary developments, e.g., the 1980s peace encampments and the role of the United Nations in fostering global feminist consciousness on this issue. For academic and large public libraries.-- Marie Marmo Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., N.J.

Library Journal