Black Women and the Great War: Mobilization and Reform in the South

Historians have devoted relatively little attention to the study of grassroots America during World War I. Little is known about how national policies were implemented at the local level and how the American population in general, and American women in particular, were brought into the war effort. Practically nothing has been written concerning the attitude of black women, particularly southern black women, toward the war or about the attempt of the national administration to incorporate them into the general war effort. This paper explores some aspects of the little-known effort made by the Committee on Women's Defense Work of the Council of National Defense (also known as the Woman's Committee) to achieve this aim.