A fascinating and frightening account of a little-discussed episode
in American history. The mothers' movement, as its members referred
to it, was a grassroots movement of women opposed to American
involvement in WW II. Most of the women who joined had draft-age
sons or husbands. They were also predominantly white, Christian,
politically conservative, and opposed to the New Deal. But the
shocking truth about these mothers, which Jeansonne (History/Univ.
of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Gerald L.K. Smith, 1988, etc.) reveals
here, was far less benign than it would seem on the surface. The
movement was not merely isolationist, it was also racist,
anti-Semitic, xenophobic, and anticommunist. Many of the women
involved were even avowedly pro-Nazi, using the movement as a way
to spread Nazi propaganda. Jeansonne discusses these women,
especially the movement's leaders, and through them analyzes
prejudice in general, concluding that extreme bigotry is mostly the
result of anxiety and social stress, which produce the need for a
scapegoat. But what stands out are Jeansonne's portraits of leaders
such as Elizabeth Dilling, Cathrine Curtis, and others. These women
were as far from the ideal of motherhood they touted as Hitler was
from the Aryan one: Dilling's 25-year marriage was a complete
disaster, although she claimed to have had a happy home until
"organized Jewry" sent a "bleached gold digger" to seduce her
husband; Bessie Burchett was nicknamed "Two Gun" because of the
permits she held to carry two guns, one in a holster under her
skirt. Working with limited source material and unwilling
informants - relatives of the women involved were often unaware or
ashamed of their participation in the mothers' movement - Jeansonne
still manages to assemble a surprisingly full and informative book.
A small gem - compelling and wonderfully written. (Kirkus Reviews)
The majority of American women supported the Allied cause during
World War II and made sacrifices on the home-front to benefit the
war effort. But US intervention was opposed by a movement led by
ultra-right women whose professed desire to keep their sons out of
combat was mixed with militant Christianity, anticommunism and
anti-Semitism. This book is a history of the self-styled "mothers'
movement", so called because among its component groups were the
National Legion of Mothers of America, the Mothers of Sons Forum
and the National Blue Star Mothers. Unlike leftist antiwar
movements, the mothers' movement was not pacifist; its members
opposed the war on Germany because they regarded Hitler as an ally
against the spread of atheistic communism. They also differed from
leftist women in their endorsement of patriarchy and nationalism.
God, they believed, wanted them to fight the New Deal liberalism
that imperiled their values and the internationalists, communists
and Jews, whom they saw as subjugating Christian America. Drawing
on files kept by the FBI and other confidential documents,
Jeansonne examines the motivations of these women, the political
and social impact of their movement, and their collaborations with
men of the Far Right and also with mainstream isolationists such as
Charles Lindbergh. Glen Jeansonne's books include "Transformation
and Reaction: America, 1921-45" and biographies of Huey P. Long,
Gerald L.K. Smith and Leander Perez.
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