Women Carrying Peace Banner

Photographa

By: Anonymous

Date: 1915

Source: © Bettmann/Corbis.

About the Photographer: This photograph is part of the Bettman Archives, held by the Corbis Corporation, a digital imaging and photography company with headquarters in Seattle and offices worldwide.

INTRODUCTION

The photograph depicts members of the Women's Peace Party (WPP) demonstrating in Manhattan, New York in 1915. The WPP had been formed in January of that year in protest at the outbreak the previous summer of war in Europe. By 1915, the war was rapidly becoming a worldwide conflict, although the United States remained neutral at this time. The first major demonstration against the war by women in America had been held within a month of its outbreak, when 1,500 women marched along Fifth Avenue in New York, dressed in black mourning clothes, to the sound of muffled drumbeat. The August 1914 peace parade contributed to the formation of a number of influential American peace organizations, including the WPP and the nationwide American Union against Militarism.

The WPP, which was not a party in the political sense, owed its origins to two important social movements of the time: the international peace movement and the women's suffrage movement. The two main leaders of the WPP at the time of its formation, Jane Addams and Carrie Chapman Catt, were central figures in these two social movements respectively.

The peace movement had been growing in importance since the late nineteenth century, when the first international official Peace Conference took place in The Hague in 1898. In America there were reportedly some forty-five separate peace organizations established between 1900 and 1914. Jane Addams was prominent in the peace movement and was an active member of the Anti-Imperialist League.

The American women's suffrage movement had been actively campaigning for the political enfranchisement of women for more than half a century, and had organized as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). This organization had formed strong linkages with women's groups in Europe, through the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) and the International Council of Women (ICW). The outbreak of war was seen initially by the suffragists as a threat to the cause of women's enfranchisement, as well as a threat to the lives of their many friends and comrades in Europe.

More than 3,000 women attended the WPP's first convention in 1915 and its membership reached a peak of 40,000 in early 1916, by which time there were numerous branches across the country, and many prominent American women had joined the Party. In April 1915, the WPP sent a delegation to the convention of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in The Hague, Holland. At home, they pressured President Woodrow Wilson to continue his attempts to persuade the warring nations to negotiate a peace settlement, and through the international women's peace movement they attempted to influence the statements of the warring nations to cease the hostilities, but met with little success. The Party became divided internally by different political objectives, and in 1916 Catt and her NAWSA colleagues broke away, concerned by issues of national security and becoming increasingly aware that involvement in war might bring greater opportunities for the emancipation of women.

PRIMARY SOURCE

WOMEN CARRYING PEACE BANNER

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

In 1916, President Wilson embarked on a preparedness campaign in the expectation that America might have to enter the war, which included the use of physical education classes in schools for the purpose of military training. The WPP were strongly opposed to the school program and held mass demonstrations in protest.

In 1917, America entered the war in response to Germany's renewed submarine campaign in which many U.S. vessels had been sunk with the loss of American lives. The involvement of the United States was the decisive factor in the Allied nations' victory against Germany and the other Central Powers.

Soon after the end of the war, suffrage was granted to many American women through the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was approved by Congress in June 1919 and ratified by thirty-six states during the following year.

The women's peace movement was one of the earliest manifestations of the politicization of women in the western world. This can be largely attributed to the major social, economic and technological changes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which were transforming women's lives and ways of thinking.

Social and political systems were changing with the extension of suffrage to all male adults in many western countries, while rapid capitalization and the creation of jobs to support the war effort were increasing the numbers of women who were in paid employment outside the home. In the family sphere, improved domestic technology was freeing many women from the drudgery of household chores that had previously taken up much of their time, while the introduction of efficient contraceptive techniques meant that they no longer spent most of their lives rearing children. Smaller family sizes also meant that more women were able to receive an education. Under these circumstances, women started to question many of the social and political norms of their time, and began to organize themselves to fight for political objectives, even though their lack of suffrage in many countries excluded them from doing so through established mechanisms.

Within the peace movement, women put forward a female perspective on the cost of war, claiming that women suffered not only as a result of the violence against them as citizens of a society at war, but in terms of their emotional and financial loss when male partners or close relatives were killed. However, once war started, many women turned away from the movement as nationalist loyalties took precedence in their emotions.

The impact of the women's peace movement is difficult to measure. Its main objective of bringing about an end to the First World War was not achieved, and while its efforts and the increased visibility of women in the political sphere may have helped to bring about the enfranchisement of American women after the War, this achievement was probably due in at least equal measure to the contributions that American women had made to the war effort.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Alonso, Harriet Hyman. Peace as a Women's Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women's Rights. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1993.

Degen, Marie Louise. The History of the Women's Peace Party. The John Hopkins Press, 1939.

Wynn, Neil A. From Progressivism to Prosperity: World War I and American Society. Holmes & Meier, 1986.