Oakley - Women, peace and welfare: a suppressed history of social reform, 1880-1920

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

Policy Press University of Bristol 1-9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK Tel +44 (0)117 954 5940 e-mail

North American office: Policy Press c/o The University of Chicago Press 1427 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637, USA t: +1 773 702 7700 f: +1 773-702-9756 e:

Policy Press 2018

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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A catalog record for this book has been requested.

ISBN 978-1-4473-3256-5 hardcover
ISBN 978-1-4473-3260-2 ePub
ISBN 978-1-4473-3261-9 Mobi
ISBN 978-1-4473-3259-6 ePdf

The right of Ann Oakley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press.

The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication.

Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality.

Cover design by River Design
Front cover image: The Hague Womens Peace Congress, 1915, courtesy of London School of Economics Library
Readers Guide
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I do not desire so greatly a world in which we shall all, somehow or other, checkmate one anothers desires to make war as I desire a world in which we stand shoulder to shoulder, all peoples working for those great ends which interest all people alike, and to which the native differences of different peoples are the greatest possible contribution.

Emily Greene Balch (1917) The war in relation to democracy and world order, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , 72 (2831): 30

We move through a world filled with labels, and we are most of us content to accept the mere name on the label for that which it represents, without seeking to know anything further Commerce, Prosperity, Industry, the Iron Trade, War, Peace what do all these mean? I confess that as I try to grasp them I can represent them to myself, always and ever, in terms only of human beings.

Florence Bell (1907) At the works: A study of a manufacturing town , London: Edward Arnold, pp viiiix

Note: other illustrations used in the book are in the public domain. Dates, where available, are given for images where they appear in the text. The sizing of some individual images has been constrained by their resolution and other technical considerations.

The research for this book involved many libraries and archives, and I am indebted to the help of many staff who diligently searched for the treasures I was after. The list includes: the British Library; Carlisle Archive Centre, Cumbria; Collection IAV at Atria, Institute on Gender Equality and Womens History, Amsterdam; Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library; ETZ Zurich University Archives; the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library; Imperial War Museum; The Keep, Brighton, Sussex; Kings College, London; Library of Congress; Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; MIT Museum; London Metropolitan University Archives; Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick; Museum of London; Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University; Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago; Somerville College, Oxford; Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College; the Truman Library; the Womens Library at the London School of Economics.

A number of people read the manuscript of Women, peace and welfare for me, and I am enormously grateful to them for the trouble they took to do this and to provide me with detailed and thoughtful comments. Many, many thanks to: Cynthia Cockburn, Graham Crow, Sue Fyvel, Anne Ingold, Robin Oakley, Penrose Robertson, Joy Schaverien and John Stewart. The book has benefitted hugely from their input, but I, of course, am solely responsible for the final version. Thanks also to Tom Rivers, who helped me to understand the complexities of copyright law; to Penrose Robertson, who provided help with technical aspects of the illustrations; and to Robin Oakley and Cynthia Cockburn, whose invaluable work on the list of women reformers in the Appendix made order out of chaos. As always, I am grateful to the dedicated team at Policy Press, who approached with unwavering commitment, persistence and respect the mammoth task of turning the manuscript of Women, peace and welfare into a book.

My first and last thanks must go to my family, for (yet again) understanding the importance of the fascination with research and writing that has dogged me all my life, and for forgiving the derelictions of duty that inevitably go with this. Without their support and love none of this would have been accomplished.

Ann Oakley

July 2017