Women united against war: American female peace activists' work during the First World War, 1914-1917

This dissertation examines the women’s peace movement from 1914 through 1917. I traced the actions of three American actors within the peace movement: Jane Addams, Emily Green Balch, and Fannie Fern Andrews. Though all three women joined the movement around the same time they followed different trajectories as international and national events forced them to react.

Using these three women as representatives of larger factions that formed within the peace movement I traced the creation of the American and international women’s peace movement through its failure in April 1917. I argue that the lack of a unified argument prevented the women’s peace movement from stopping the United States from entering World War I. The factions within the overall women’s peace movement were all motivated differently, despite having similar hopes of world peace. Despite their differences all women combined ideas of internationalism, Kantian ideals for peace, and American exceptionalism in creating their work.

At the center of my story sits Addams, the moderate, who hoped for a negotiated settlement where no country could claim victory. To her right was the conservative Andrews who, over the course of the war, came to believe that only through Germany’s defeat could the world be at peace. Fighting to end the war through any means necessary radical Balch believed that the world had to address the key components of why wars began. Understanding these factions allows us to better understand the women’s peace movement and its failure to prevent American entry into World War I.