A World Without War: How U.S. Feminists and Pacifists Resisted World War I

Frances H. Early traces the connection between feminist antiwar activism and the emergence of the modern civil liberties movement in World War I America. Through the lives and deeds of Frances Witherspoon and Tracy Mygatt, Early provides a detailed account of the activities of the New York Bureau of Legal Advice, a mixed-gender organization associated with the feminist-oriented, left-wing pacifist movement of the war years. A World Without War explores the role of women's political activism during an era of militarism and social repression. Early shows how a small coalition of activists struggled to expose the antidemocratic forces of the wartime state, including its brutal treatment of conscientious objectors. She presents the personal dimension to pacifist work, as women and men disrupted conventional wartime notions of femininity and masculinity with a view to fashioning nonviolent gender identities.