Women’s Organisations, Active Citizenship, and the Peace Movement: New Perspectives on Female Activism in Britain, 1918-1939

The history of women’s engagement in the interwar peace movement has focused primarily on feminist pacifists, individuals who participated in both the women’s suffrage movement and the peace movement. Much less attention has been given to the peace activism of voluntary women’s groups who did not self-identify as feminist but who were equally committed to the preservation of peace. This article explores the contribution of three women’s organisations, the National Council of Women, the Women’s Institutes and the Young Women’s Christian Association, to the interwar peace movement. Their involvement not only reveals the extent of their anti-war activism, but calls into question long-held assumptions about what motivated women to engage in the campaign for peace. This re-evaluation of female peace activism provides new insights into the varied reasons why women wanted peace and challenges the belief that anti-war activism weakened the women’s movement during the interwar years.