The Second Line of Defense
This book was published with the assistance of the Greensboro Womens Fund of the University of North Carolina Press.
Founding Contributors: Linda Arnold Carlisle, Sally Schindel Cone, Anne Faircloth, Bonnie McElveen Hunter, Linda Bullard Jennings, Janice J. Kerley (in honor of Margaret Supplee Smith), Nancy Rouzer May, and Betty Hughes Nichols.
2017 Lynn Dumenil
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Jamison Cockerham
Set in Arno by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Cover illustration: Red Cross worker, 1917. Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress.
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Dumenil, Lynn, 1950 author.
Title: The second line of defense : American women and World War I / Lynn Dumenil.
Other titles: American women and World War I
Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016027779| ISBN 9781469631219 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469631226 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH : World War, 19141918WomenUnited States. | World War, 19141918Social aspectsUnited States. | WomenUnited StatesSocial conditions20th century.
Classification: LCC D 639. W 7 D 86 2017 | DDC 940.3082/0973dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016027779
Portions of this work appeared earlier in somewhat different form in Lynn Dumenil, The New Woman and the Politics of the 1920s, Magazine of History 21 (July 2007): 2226. Used by permission of Oxford University Press; and Womens Reform Organizations and Wartime Mobilization in World War IEra Los Angeles, Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 10 (April 2011): 21345. 2011 Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Reprinted by permission.
Contents
Figures
1 Emma Goldman, New York City, 1917
2 Picketing the White House
3 Maid in America, an African American Lady Liberty
4 Registration drive: women answer the call of Columbia
5 Sunday at the YWCA Hostess House
6 Los Angeles Japanese Womens Red Cross Auxiliary
7 Frances Gulick, YMCA canteen worker
8 Addie Hunton, YMCA canteen worker in France
9 Reporter Bessie Beatty with Russian soldiers
10 Madeleine Z. Doty on the Siberian Express
11 African American women weighing wire coils
12 Women employed in Liberty Motors munition factory, Detroit
13 Crew of women track walkers and cleaners on the Erie Railroad
14 Tell That to the Marines! Marine Corps women pasting recruitment posters
15 The woman he leaves behind
16 Remember Belgium poster
17 Its Up to You: Protect the Nations Honor poster
18 Destroy This Mad Brute poster
19 Munitions workers, New Jersey, 1918
20 Hollywood Women Fill the War Breaches
21 For Every Fighter a Woman Worker: The Second Line of Defense poster
22 A Signal Corps operator in France
23 Motor Corps of America women take aim
24 YWCA women on parade, October 1918
25 The Daughters of Jael, from the film The Fall of a Nation
26 A depraved enemy attacks women and children, from the film The Battle Cry of Peace
27 A fate worse than death, from the film Hearts of the World
28 A mother lies to protect her son, from the film Her Boy
29 The modern young woman and the former slacker, from the film Her Boy
30 Irene Castle as Patria
31 Napoleon Looked Like Me, from the film Her Country First
32 Mary Pickford in Johanna Enlists
33 Mary Pickford as The Little American
34 Silent Sufferers, from the film The Little American
Acknowledgments
One of the many pleasures of the final stages of publishing a book is the opportunity to thank the people and institutions who have facilitated the process of turning ideas, reading, and research into a finished project. I am grateful for the funding provided by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty at Occidental College, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Haynes Foundation. The staff at the National Archives, College Park, the Library of Congress, the Huntington Library, the Schlesinger Library, the Sophia Smith Special Collections at Smith College, the Museum of Modern Art, the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, California State University, Northridge, Special Collections, the Seaver Center for Western History Research, and the University of Minnesota Libraries have been unfailingly helpful. A number of people helped in the sometimes daunting task of tracking down images. I appreciate the efforts of Joan Cohen, Rob Brooks, Sloan DeForest at the Mary Pickford Foundation, Alice Mott at the Victor Herbert Archives, John Powell at the Newberry Library, Lynsey Sczechowicz at the Hagley Museum, and Eric Stedman at Serial Squadron. I particularly want to thank librarians at Occidental CollegeRyan Brubacher, Dale Stieber, Hoda Abdelghani, and John De La Fontainefor their great patience and efficiency in helping me get the materials I needed.
Other individuals have made significant contributions. Sharon Park and John Ulrich offered timely and excellent research assistance. It has been a pleasure working with my editor at the University of North Carolina Press, Mark Simpson-Vos, whose insights improved the book significantly. I also appreciate the efficiency and skill of the staff at the pressDorothea Anderson, Mary Carley Caviness, Lucas Church, Jessica Newmanwho have managed the process of converting manuscript to book so beautifully. Jamison Cockerham provided an excellent design. Finally, Im grateful to Jim OBrien for his fine work in creating the index.
I am immensely appreciative of the insights provided by friends and colleagues. Ellen Carol DuBois, Nina R. Gelbart, Susan A. Glenn, Michael Kazin, Amy Lyford, Elaine Tyler May, Lary May, and Lisa Sousa read portions of the manuscript and offered keen assessments. Elinor Accampo found time in a busy schedule to read the entire book, and she gave me superb suggestions informed by her expertise in early twentieth-century French history. Elliott J. Gorn identified ideas that needed more development with surgical precision and offered encouragement at every step of the project. Daniel Horowitz read much of the manuscript more than once. Besides his uniformly excellent comments, he, as well as Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, have been warmly supportive for the manyI wont admit just how manyyears this book was in preparation. Two anonymous reviewers made valuable suggestions that substantially strengthened the book. My debt to all these generous readers is simply enormous.
