CATHRINE CURTIS AND CONSERVATIVE ISOLATIONIST WOMEN, 1939-1941

CATHRINE CURTIS AND CONSERVATIVE ISOLATIONIST WOMEN, 1939-1 941

KARI FREDERICKSON

n late September 1939, after the German invasion of Poland and the onset of I World War 11, celebrated aviator Laura Ingalls heralded the formation of the Women’s National Committee to Keep the U.S. Out of War by littering the White House lawn with isolationist literature dropped from her Lockheed-Orion mono- plane. The Women’s National Committee was the brainchild of New York business- woman Cathrine Curtis, a political and economic reactionary who was labeled by one liberal journalist “the most dangerous woman in America.”’ Curtis and the committee occupied a pivotal position in an extensive network of right-wing women’s isolationist organizations seeking to prevent America’s entrance into the European war. This essay examines Cathrine Curtis’s career, from her early activities as a vocal opponent of the New Deal and the welfare state to her involvement in the isolationist movement.

Crucial to Curtis’s isolationist activism was the Mothers’ anti-war movement, a loose network of local organizations that opposed American entrance into the war from a “maternalist” standpoint. They argued that war was the antithesis of nurturant motherhood, and that as women they had a particular stake in preventing America’s involvement in the European conflict. The Mothers’ movement originated in California but ultimately developed its greatest strength in the Midwest. One group, the National Legion of Mothers of America, claimed millions of members by 1941. Together, these organizations campaigned against American involvement in World War I1 in the crucial years between 1939 and 1941.2

Despite its large membership, little is known about this wing of the isolationist movement. Existing studies of the isolationist-interventionist debate focus almost

Kari Frederickson is an assisstant professor of history at the University of Central Florida.

’Lillian Greenwald, “Fascism in America: The Distaff Side,” Contetnporary Jewish Record 4 (1941): 622; Curtis to Janet Manning, 25 September 1939, Box 3, Cathrine Curtis Papers, 1934-63, Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection, New York Public Library (hereinafter cited as CCP); John Roy Carlson, Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld ofAmerica (New York 1. P. Dutton, 1943), 22 1.

*Glen Jeansonne, “Women Against World War 11: The Mothers’ Crusade,” 1990, unpublished paper in author’s possession, 4.

826 THE H~STO~UAN

exclusively on prominent male isolationists or male-led organizations such as the America First Committee. Studies of right-wing politics and political extremism until recently have neglected the presence of women, either as movement leaders or as ideological adherents. Studies of women’s anti-war activities primarily confine women to liberal internationalist and pacifist organizations. Despite their opposition to American involvement in the war, Curtis and the women of the Mothers’ movement were not pacifists. They did not oppose all wars, merely this one, and they intertwined their maternalist arguments with appeals that were right-wing, anti-Roosevelt, anti-British, anti-communist, and anti-Semitic. Unlike their liberal anti-war predecessors and welfare state reformers, Curtis and the other Mothers’ leaders were not personally committed to maternalism. Rather, it was a convenient vehicle adopted and abandoned at will. Any genuine maternal beliefs they had were secondary to their larger anti-statist agenda and cynical quest for political power.3

Born and raised near Albany, New York, Cathrine Curtis lived a privileged life as the only child of George M. and Flora Taylor Curtis. She studied with private tutors and later at New York University. Raised in a home where playing the stock market was as commonplace as playing house, Curtis learned the benefits of property own- ership and financial independence. A staunch defender of capitalism, she neverthe- less believed that most women had failed to reap its rich fruits. Consequently, the

’On the Mothers’ movement, see Laura McEnaney, “He-Men and Christian Mothers: The America First Movement and Gendered Meanings of Patriotism and Isolationisn~,” Diplomatic History 18 (Winter 1994): 47-57; Glen Jeansonne,“Gerald L. K. Smith’s Shattered Alliances:’ Journal ofHistory and Politics 8 (1990): 41-65; idem, “Furies: Women Isolationists in the Era of FDR,” Journal of History and Politics 8 (1990): 67-96; Carlson, Under Cover; Carlson, The Plotters (New York. 1946). On the neutrality debate, see Wayne S . Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932-1945 (Lincoln, Neb., 1983); Cole, America First: “he Battle Against Intervention, 1940-41 (New York, 1973); Justus Doenecke, In Danger Undaunted: The Anti-Interventionist Movement of 1940-1941 as Revealed in the Papers of the America First Committee (Stanford, Cal., 1990); Richard M. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years. 1938-1941: America ott the Way to War (New York, 1989); Manfred Jonas, Isolationism in America: 1935-1941 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1966). On the Right in American history, see Alan Brinkley, Susan M. Yohn. and Leo Ribuffo, “AHK Forum,’’ American Historical Review 99 (April 1994): 409-52; David H. Bennett, The Party ofFear: From Nativist Movements to the New Right in American History (Chapel Hill, 1982); Geoffrey Smith, To Save a Nation: American Extremists, the New Deal, and the Coming of World War 11, rev. ed. (Chicago, 1992). For women in conservative or extremist political movements, see Kathleen Blee, Women offhe Klan: Race and Gender in the 1920s (Berkeley, 1991); Rebecca E. Klatch, Women ofthe New Right (Philadelphia, 1987). For women and peace movements generally, see Harriet Hyman Alonso, Peace as a Women’s Issue: A History ofthe U.S. Movementfor World Peace and Women’s Rights (New York, 1963); Carol Berkin and Clara M. Lovett, eds., Women, War and Revohtion (New York, 1980); Adrienne Harris and Ynestra King, eds., Hocking the Ship ofsfate: Toward a Feminist Peace Politics (Boulder, Col., 1989).

CATHNNE CURTIS AND CONSERVATIVE ISOLATIONIST WOMEN, 1939-1941 827

advocacy and protection of women’s property rights and financial autonomy became the focus of her business and political activities4

Curtis first came to national attention in 1934 as the host of “Women and Money,” a biweekly radio program broadcast from American Broadcasting affiliate WMCA in New York City. Knowledge of finance, claimed Curtis, was “as important as a knowledge of home economic^."^ In addition to explaining mundane financial terms such as “points” and “buying on margin” to American women, Curtis used the program to advocate financial independence and equality with men. As an ardent defender of property rights, Curtis used her program to lambaste the “treacheries” of the New Deal and the growth of the welfare state. Curtis’s radio career was short-lived; her program was canceled on 22 February 1935, by what she called a “Radio Gag Rule.” Curtis regarded her banishment as sexist discrimination engineered by communist sympathizers.6

Unable to broadcast, Curtis formed Women Investors in America and the Women Investors Research Institute in May 1935. Through these two organizations, she developed a unique blend of anti-New Deal conservatism and advocacy for women’s rights. Women Investors in America, incorporated as a non-profit educational organization and comfortably ensconced in a roomy Fifth Avenue office in New York, was dedicated to the belief that “American women are the greatest capi- talists in the world, whether they are stockholders, bondholders, or husband-hold-

In spite of the Depression, Women Investors boasted nearly 300,000 members in 28 states by 1939. They lobbied against legislation that they believed threatened women’s property rights and financial independence. Camouflaged as financial seminars, the national meetings of the Women Investors became forums for criti- cizing the New Deal. Curtis’s fiscal acumen and influence among conservative women gained her favorable recognition from senators and congressmen such as

4Cathrine Curtis Dossier, CCP.

5“Women and MoneyYRadio speech transcript, n.d., Ilox 4, CC1’;Y“ey Stand Out From the Crowd,” Literary Digest 118 (10 November 1934): 12.

6“Women and Money,” Radio speech transcript, 30 April 1934, Box 5; “Women and Money,” Radio speech transcript,” 11 January 1935, Box 5; “Women and Money,” Radio speech transcript, 14 January 1935, BOX 5; Open letter from Cathrine Curtis, n.d., Box 2; Radio speech transcript, n.d., Box 5, CCP.

’Cathrine Curtis’s secretary to Catharine M. Stocks, 17 April 1941, Box 1, CCP.

828 THE HISTO~UAN

Arthur H. Vandenburg, Gerald P. Nye, and Clare E. Hoffman, who later utilized her organization to oppose the Roosevelt administration’s foreign policy measures.8

Curtis’s foray into the foreign policy debate was prompted by Roosevelt’s decision to seek repeal of neutrality legislation, enacted during the 1930s, that forbade the sale of weapons or munitions to any foreign nation at war. Working closely with isolationist senators and congressmen, Curtis testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in opposition to proposed revision of the Neutrality Acts in May 1939. Privately, Curtis expressed dismay over the inability of policymakers to ward off the interventionists. “Things are looking worse and worse in Washington,” she lamented, “and I am more convinced than ever that the women are the only ones who can accomplish an~thing.”~

But Curtis’s gender consciousness was superseded by her conservative, anti-statist political leanings. She criticized the testimony of members of the liberal Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, who Curtis said “recom- mended unlimited power for the President,” and encouraged international alliances.’O Curtis remained suspicious of liberal peace groups, often accusing them of infiltrating other women’s organizations and supplying them with faulty and biased information. Although Curtis appealed to women as her main constituency, she held the majority of American women in contempt. She had a low estimation of the average American woman’s intelligence, believing women weak and particularly susceptible to internationalist propaganda.’ I

Shortly after England and France declared war on Germany in September 1939, Roosevelt summoned a special session of Congress to reconsider his proposals for lift- ing the arms embargo. Curtis immediately organized the Women’s National Committee to Keep the U.S. Out of War, and launched a petition drive to convince Congress that American women did not want the country dragged into another war. After establishing an office in Washington, D.C., Curtis cultivated her contacts with isolationist congressional members, particularly Representative Hoffman and Senator

81nternal memorandum, Women Investors in America, n.d., Box 2; Women Investors in America, pamphlet, n.d., BOX 5; Press release, 25 April 1936, Box 5; Iluktin. Women Investors in America, 29 August 1941, Box 5; Burton K. Wheeler to Curtis, telegram, 25 July 1937, Box 4, CCP; “Economiss,” American Magazine 128 (September 1939): 103.

9Jeansonne,“Women Against World War 11,” 8; Arthur K. Vandenburg to Curtis, 12 May 1939, Box 3;

”Curtis to John J. Watson, 9 May 1939, Box 3, CCP.

“Curtis to Mrr Edward B. Hulling, 9 May 1939; Curtis to Mrs. Martyn A. Bentley, 10 October 1939,

Curtis to Helen Forest, 13 May 1939, Box 3, CCP.

Box 3, CCP.


Nye, who regularly inserted her propaganda into the Congressional Record and pro- vided her with franked congressional envelopes to mail isolationist pamphlets. l 2

Almost simultaneously, the National Legion of Mothers of America was founded in Los Angeles, followed by a host of local Mothers’ groups in New York, Philadelphia, and the Midwest. Led by popular novelist Kathleen Norris, the National Legion’s membership grew exponentially during the congressional debate over repeal of the embargo. In the first six days of the organization’s existence, 10,000 women in the Los Angeles area signed membership cards, and in early October the national headquarters mailed Congress a petition with 1,000,000 sig- natures demanding neutrality and the restriction of American military forces to the western hemisphere. When asked why she joined the organization, one Mother bluntly stated: “I did not raise my sons for cannon fodder for foreign lands.”13 While not initially affiliated with the National Legion or with the other Mothers’ organizations, Curtis developed a cooperative network with their leaders, in particular with Norris and Rosa Farber of the Detroit-based Mothers of the U.S.A. This rela- tionship was solidified during the tight over the administration’s Lend-Lease bill in 1941.

Although a precise demographic profile of conservative women activists is diffi- cult to determine, by most accounts the average member was white, middle class, and middle aged. The women’s isolationist movement was ideologically diverse, with some chapters more susceptible to fringe elements than others. While the National Legion of Mothers of America was relatively free of extremist elements, the Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and Detroit groups attracted a more reactionary membership. Unabashedly Anglophobic, the Women’s National Committee also harbored anti-Semitic inclinations. Curtis’s staff associated openly with prominent anti-Semites, and the Committee also enlisted the support of aviator Laura Ingalls, who later was convicted of failing to register as a paid agent of the German govern-

‘*“Women Organize Anti-War Group,” New York Sun, 20 September 1939, clipping, Cathrine Curtis Dossier, CCP; “Extension of Remarks of Honorable Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan in the House of Representatives, Saturday, September 14,1940,‘Bulletin of Women Investors in America, Inc.,’” Appendix to the Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 6 August 1940 to 27 September 1940, 5722-23; Curtis to Mrs. Frazier Curtis, 3 February 1941; Curtis to Mr. Andrew Taylor, 19 February 1941, Box 1, CCP.

t3“Mothers Haunt Conscription Debate,” New York PM, 27 August 1940, clipping; Memorandum, n.d., “Mothers of Pennsylvania File,’’ Box 1 1 , World War I1 Collection, 1939-1945, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (hereinafter cited as MP File, Box 1 1 , WWII); Jeansonne, “Women Against World War 11,” 10.

830 T H E HISTORIAN

ment. Unlike some Mothers’ leaders, however, Curtis never expressed a preference for Adolf Hitler.I4

Curtis and the Mothers’ groups spent the fall of 1939 and most of 1940 cam- paigning against Roosevelt’s plan to aid Britain’s war effort. These organizations shared many of the basic ideological tenets of the larger isolationist/anti-interventionist movement. They supported American unilateralism and opposed international obligations. They feared that financial involvement would commit the United States to an Allied victory and inevitably drag it into a war to preserve European imperialism. Curtis and her colleagues distrusted the British intensely and admon- ished the nation for failing to learn the lessons of the First World War. Like other isolationist organizations, these women activists claimed Britain did not really need American aid and that the United States was protected from war by its geographic location.

Fear of entangling alliances was closely connected to Anglophobia. One Pennsylvania mother called Roosevelt “an English consular” and warned, “[w] hen we help England this time we will be a colony again.”I6 A Wisconsin Mother lamented that the “present government is more concerned with the fate of the British Empire than with the fate of millions of American boys who will have to do the fighting and the dying.” She also disagreed with the government’s decision to trade destroyers to the British, because “[ilf the ships are indispensable to the British, then they are indispensable to us.”” Others echoed this sentiment, arguing that in aiding Britain, the United States jeopardized its own defense. Curtis claimed Britain was pressuring the United States to cooperate in establishing a world soci-

I4Jeansonne, “Furies,” 77; McEnaney, “He-Men and Christian Mothers,” 49; “Women’s National Committee, Inquiries,” partial list, 21 September to 14 October 1939, Box 4, CCP; Curtis to Lelia Thompson, 23 September 1939; Box 3, CCP; “Memorandum on Meeting of the National Legion of Mothers of America,” 26 August 1940, MP File, Box 1 1 , WWII; Greenwald, “Fascism in America,” 622- 23; Nation 154 (21 February 1942), 206; John Roy Carlson, “Inside the America First Movement,” American Mercury 54 (January 1942), 20; Carlson, Under Cover, 226.

‘’See Women’s National Committee to Keep the US. Out of War, pamphlet, “Your Answers to the War Dancers,” 1941, Box 4, CCP; Doenecke, Irr Danger Undaunted, 4-5; Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 7 ; Jonas, Isolationism in America, generally.

’6Transcript of Mothers of Pennsylvania meeting, 6 November 1940, MP File, Box 1 1 , WWII.

”Mrs. William A. Wendleburg, “Mothers Fight War Plans,” American Mother’s National- Weekly, 7 September 1940,4-5, MP File, Box 11, WWII.

CATHRINE CURTIS AND CONSERVATIVE ISOLATIONIST WOMEN, 1939- 1941 83 1

ety, where the great democracies would share joint organs of foreign, financial, and economic policies, and would enjoy dual citizenship.’*

Curtis believed that involvement in another war would only solidify Roosevelt’s power and increase governmental intrusion into private lives. Indeed, she maintained, one needed only to look at the aftermath of World War I to realize the dan- gers of war and the state to women and the family. In Russia and Germany, she pointed out, women and children became the property of the state.19

Curtis and her followers differed significantly from the larger isolationist movement in their overt anti-Semitism and their tendency to suspect elaborate conspir- acies. Some Mothers’ members argued that Jews had started World War I1 as part of a plot to destroy Christianity. Lyrl Clark Van Hyning, leader of a Chicago Mothers’ group, held Britain responsible for the war and warned that the British were plot- ting to betray the United States. American boys were to be slaughtered, she charged, so the British could enslave India.2o Agnes Waters, leader of a New York Mothers’ organization, claimed that Roosevelt’s scheme to repeal the arms embargo was part of an international conspiracy involving Jews, New Dealers, blacks, anarchists, and radicals. Guided by the “Hidden Hand” of Bernard Baruch, the repeal was suppos- edly the first stage in a larger communist plot?’

Curtis and the Mothers attempted to legitimize these extremist views by grounding their opposition to war in maternalism. Like anti-war activists before and after, these conservative isolationists maintained that men and women had fundamentally differ- ent moral values. A society dominated by men was prone to violence and destruction. Women’s nurturant nature was essential to the creation of a humane society and demanded women’s participation in the public sphere. The Mothers claimed that their status as women and mothers endowed them with certain powers and responsibilities. One Mother reasoned that “It is imperative that we organize to keep our boys out of

“Memorandum Re: Meeting of National Legion of Mothers of America, 26 May 1941, MP File, Box 1 1 , WWII; Women’s National Committee to Keep the U.S. Out of War, pamphlet, “Do You Want Common Citizenship with Great Britain?” Box 4, CCP.

’%Vomen’s National Committee to Keep the US. Out of War, pamphlet,“The March of Democracy,” 1940,2-3, BOX 4, CCP.

2%Vomen’s National Committee to Keep the U.S. Out of War, pamphlet.“The March of Democracy,” Box 4, CCP; reansonne, “Furies,” 78.

2’Jeanxmne,”Furies,” 82.

8 32 THE H~STOIUAN

Europe’s struggles. We can do it, because women can always do what they set out to Using the rhetorical authority of maternalism, Curtis and the Mothers warned

that a woman’s failure to protect her home and country against interventionist propaganda could mean the death of a son or husband. Their literature was crude and heavy- handed, often illustrated with images of flag-draped coffins, cemeteries, and skeletons to remind women of the ultimate consequences of inaction.23

The appropriation of maternalism was determined by both historical and contemporary social relations. In the pre-New Deal years, prevailing gender conven- tions dictated that women interested in influencing public policy were most successful when they confined their efforts to issues deemed pertinent to women, such as children’s welfare. Widespread unemployment during the Depression only strengthened these convictions. Working women were widely condemned, while popular literature glorified domesticity, reminding women that motherhood was a service to society. Even New Deal social welfare programs were designed to keep women dependent and home-bound. In light of these traditional gender conven- tions, women were hard pressed to gain access to the most male of all policy domainsforeign affairs. Maternal rhetoric became a vehicle through which women like Cathrine Curtis could influence foreign policy decisions.24

ZZLinda Schlott, “The Women’s Peace Party and the Moral 13asis of Women’s Pacifism,” Frontiers 8 (1985): 19-21; Barbara J. Steinson, “‘The Mother Half of Humanity’: American Women in Peace and Preparedness Movements in World War I,” in Women, War, and Revolution, ed. Berkin and Lovett, 259-60; Amy Swerdlow,“Ladies’Day at the Capitol: Women Strike for Peace versus HUAC,” Ferninisr Studies8 (Fall 1982): 493-520. Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thirtking: lbward a Politics of Peace (Boston, 1989); Seth Koven and Sonya Michel, eds., Morhers of a New WorM: Motertialist Politics and the Origins of WelJare States (New York, 1993); Michel and Robyn Rosen, “The Paradox of Maternalism: Elizabeth Lowell Putnam and the American Welfare State,” Gender and History 4 (Autumn 1992): 364-86; Robyn Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in America Reform: 1890-1935 (New York, 1991); 1.0s Angeles Herald-Express, 13 October 1939.

Z3Women’s National Committee to Keep the U.S. Out of War, promotional cartoons, n.d., Box 4, CCP; Flyer, n.d., MP File, Box 11, WWII; Rosa M. Farber to Curtis, 24 January 1941, Box 3; National Legion of Mothers of America, Lend-Lease Campaign Postcards, Box 3, CCP.

“Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 37. On women in the 1930s, see William Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changittg Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970 (New York, 1972),104-11; Alice Kessler-Harris, “Some Benefits of Labor Segregation in a Decade of Depression,” chap. 9 in Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (New York, 1982); Leila J. Rupp, “‘Occupation Housewife’: The Image of Women in the United States:’ chap. 3 in Mobilizing Women For War: German and American Propagando, 2939-1945 (Princeton, 1978); Virginia Sapiro, “The Gender Basis of American Social Policy,” Political Science Quarterly 101 (1986), 221-38; Lois Scharf, “Even Spinsters Need Not Apply: Teachers in the Depression,” chap. 4 in To Work and To Wed: Female Employment, Feminism, and the Grcal Depression (Westport, Corm., 1980).

CATHNNE CURTIS AND CONSERVATIVE ISOLATIONIST WOMEN, 1939- 1941 833

But the maternalism employed by Curtis and her followers lacked the legitimacy and moral authority of earlier activists. Curtis’s political efforts, and those of other Mothers’ leaders, were based not in a desire to find a solution to war but in a desire to destroy Roosevelt, the New Deal, and the welfare state. An examination of three of the most influential leaders of the Mothers’ movement-Elizabeth Dilling of Chicago, Lyrl Clark Van Hyning of Chicago, and Agnes Waters of New York-sup- ports this contention.

All three had gained some level of notoriety prior to their participation in the foreign policy debate. Dilling was the best known, having earned a reputation as an aggressive anti-communist in the early 1930s with the publication of The Red Network, a 352-page book listing some 1,300 alleged communists and 460 subver- sive organizations. Though inaccurate and unreliable, it became the bible of the Far Right. Dilling became a professional speaker and writer and, with Van Hyning, founded the Chicago-based We the Mothers Mobilize for America, the largest of the Mothers’ groups. Roosevelt, communists, and Jews figured prominently in Dilling’s writings. She frequently referred to the New Deal as the “Jew Deal,” arguing that it originated in The Communist Manifesto. A religious woman, Dilling considered Christianity and capitalism inseparable, and constantly at war with communism and Judaism. Dilling admired Hitler because he opposed communism and had “res- cued” Christian Germany from Jews.25

Lyrl Clark Van Hyning, a former teacher, was active in the America First Committee and the German-American Bund before founding We the Mothers. She was also the editor of Women’s Voice, a monthly tabloid financed, written, and pub- lished primarily by women. Like Dilling, Van Hyning was a strident critic of President Roosevelt. As the head of We the Mothers, she advocated a negotiated peace with Germany and expulsion of Jewish refugees. Van Hyning dismissed the Holocaust as a fabrication and supported Hitler’s “Christian Fascism” in its fight against “Jew-Directed Communism.” Like Curtis, Van Hyning spoke of her followers with scorn, regarding them as stupid but useful pawns in her quest for power.26

Agnes Waters, a former suffragist and secretary to Alice Paul of the National Women’s Party, spent time in the early 1930s in the Soviet Union, where her husband was a technical adviser on a collective farm. Following a career in real estate, Waters became a virulently anti-Semitic, anti-communist, and racist crusader for reactionary causes. She wrote anti-Semitic articles for Women’s Voice, and in 1939 worked to defeat a bill to admit Jewish refugee children. Like Dilling and Van

25Jeansonne, “Furies,” 70-77; Jeansonne, “Women Against World War 11,” 11-12.

26Jeansonne, “Furies,” 77-80; Jeansonne,“Women Against World War 11, 14-16.

8 34 THE HISTORIAN

Hyning, Waters believed that the United States could co-exist in a world dominated by fa~cism.2~

There is no evidence that Dilling, Van Hyning, or Waters adhered to maternalist philosophy prior to their involvement with the Mothers’ groups. For them, maternalism was a convenient device, adopted at will and used to stem the tide of liber- alism and communism.

The female isolationists swung into action in July 1940 to protest the country’s first peacetime selective service and training bill. In her testimony before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, Rosa Farber of the Mothers of the U.S.A. maintained that the Mothers were not pacifists. Rather, they opposed the bill because, in their estimation, it not only mandated universal military training for men but would lead to the communistic regimentation of women and the corruption of the purity of youth.28

While the Senate debated the bill in late August, more than 100 women repre- senting local Mothers’ chapters from across the country united under the name of the Congress of American Mothers and staged colorful protests outside the Capitol building. The highlight came when the Mothers hanged Senator Claude Pepper in effigy for his support of compulsory military training and aid to Britain. The women chanted “we’ll hang Claude Pepper from a sour apple tree” as they kicked and dragged the effigy across the Capitol lawn.29 Another group of Mothers draped themselves in black crepe and established a “death watch” outside the Senate recep- tion room as Congress debated the conscription bill. The death watch continued into September as reinforcements of Mothers relieved one another. But the Mothers’ macabre tactics failed to sway enough votes, and Roosevelt signed the country’s first peacetime conscription bill on 16 September 1940.30

The isolationist movement peaked in early 1941 with the drive against the Lend- Lease bill. Roosevelt announced his plan for massive aid to the Allies during his annual message to Congress on 6 January 1941, and on 10 January Lend-Lease bills were introduced in the House (HR 1776) and the Senate (S 275). Curtis and the Mothers’ groups realized the critical importance of the bill. They commandeered an entire office building for the campaign against Lend-Lease. Curtis’s opposition was

*’Jeansonne, “Furies,” 80-86; Jeansonne, “Women Against World War 11,” 23-24.

28Testimony of Rosa Farber, Hearings Before the Scnafe Committee on Military Ajlnirs, 76th Cong., 3d S~SS., 1 1 July 1940,278-84.

29New York Times, 22 August 1940,lO.

”ew York Times, 23 August 1940, 8; “Death Watch,” American Mothers’ National-Weekly, 7 September 1940,7, MP File, Box 1 1 , WWII; Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 371-75.

CATHRINE CURTlS AND CONSEKVATlVE ISOLATlONlST WOMEN, 1939- 1941 835

consistent with her earlier critique of FDR and the New Deal. Like most isolationists, she denounced the bill as extremely dangerous to American liberty. Referring to it as a “dictator bill,” Curtis claimed that Lend-Lease would provide the president “with unlimited powers over the lives and properties of our people. . . . [Tlhe bill nullifies the Constitution and takes away the powers of C~ngress.”~’ Passage would mean “the end of free government in this country and free individual^."^^

Curtis directed much of the women’s anti-Lend-lease activities from behind the scenes and kept the Mothers’ groups apprised of the latest legislative developments. She understood the importance of closing ranks and urged “frankness, understanding and good will between women’s groups all working for the preservation of our beloved United States.”33 Curtis and her six staff members worked around the clock on a shoestring budget to produce an “intensive, intelligent campaign,” complete with newspaper and radio advertisements, designed to counter interventionist ‘‘propaganda.”34 Educational advertising was crucial, Curtis felt, for “[ t] he public as yet has no understanding or appreciation of the sinister motives behind this Bill and it is a shame that it is being put over to them as one to aid Britain.”35 Curtis was particularly concerned that the campaign stress the “women’s angle.” Her cohorts agreed, characterizing the average woman’s ability to withstand liberal propaganda as “about s~b-ze ro . ”~~

While Curtis and the Mothers worked closely with isolationist members of Congress, they did not actively cooperate with other isolationist groups such as the America First Committee. Perhaps, like women peace activists during World War I, they did not wish to pour their energies into male-dominated groups that ignored their viewpoints. Also, positions of leadership and influence almost certainly would have been closed to them had they coalesced with male organization^.^'

”Cole, Roosevelt and the Isolationists. 412-14; Curtis to Mrs. Donald B.Arrnstrong, 3 February 1941, Box 1, CCP.

’*Curtis to Miss Hilda Preibisius, 22 February 1941, Box 1 , CCP.

33Curtis to Mrs. John Weinmann, 27 January 1941, Box 1 , CCI?

“Curtis to Mrs. Jeremiah Millbank, 23 February 1941; Curtis to Mrs. Albert T. Leatherbee, 1 1 March 1941; Curtis to Mrs. Madeline Ensign of the Mutual Broadcasting System, 24 February 1941; Curtis to Mr. Frank M. Russell of the National Broadcasting Company, 24 February 1941, Box 1, CCP.

”Curtis to Mrs. Arthur Coolidge, 2 March 194 I , Box 1, CCI?

%Curtis to Mrs. Jeremiah Millbank, 23 February 1941; Curtis to Mr. Charles Dana Bennett, 2 March 1941; Katherine Cunningham Gray to Curtis, 7 March 1941, Box 1 , CCP.

37Curtis to Rudy Hooffstetter, Jr., 6 August 1941, Box 1 , CCF; Steinson, “‘The Mother Half of Humanity,”’ 260.

836 THE HISTONAN

Working with key congressmen, Curtis recruited individuals to testify against the bill and coached them on their testimony. She testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 10 February 1941, basing her argument against Lend-Lease on feminism and support for free enterprise. Her statement bore a striking similar- ity to the ideology of liberal women pacifists, who argued that militarism and sexism share common roots, and that war keeps women in perpetual subjection. Curtis mailed a copy of her testimony to every member of Congress in an effort to influence the vote.38

While Curtis worked the halls of Congress, Dilling organized a cavalcade to Washington of more than 500 Mothers to demonstrate against the bill. On 15 February and again on 26 February Dilling staged a parade of Mothers down Pennsylvania Avenue. Some pushed empty baby carriages. Others carried umbrel- las painted with slogans, and more than 100 wore chest protectors inscribed “Kill Bill 1776-Not Our Boys.” On 18 February Dilling and about 30 supporters marched to Senator Pepper’s office, chanting “We want Pepper” and blocking the corridor. Dilling and a supporter were arrested by Capitol police and charged with disorderly conduct. Dilling received a suspended sentence and returned to the fray.39

On 28 February about 30 Mothers staged a sit-down outside the office of Senator Carter Glass, another bill supporter. The women had heard a rumor that Glass’s office was decorated with the Union Jack. Chanting “Down with the Union Jack,” they refused to disperse and Dilling was arrested a second time. She was convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $25. Glass complained that the mothers had created “a noisy disorder of which any self-respecting fishwife would be ashamed. I likewise believe that it would be pertinent to inquire whether they are mothers. For the sake of the race, I devoutly hope not.”40

”Curtis to Rosa Farber, 23 January 1941, Box 3; Curtis to Charlotte Aycrigg, 3 February 1941, Box 1; Women’s National Committee to Keep the US. Out of War, pamphlet, “H. R. 1776: The Nation’s Bankrupting Act of 1941,” Box 5, CCP; Cynthia Adcock, “Fear of ‘Other’: The Common Root of Sexism and Militarism,” in Reweaving the Web of L i f . Feminism and Nonviolence, ed. Pam McAllister (Philadelphia, 1982), 210; C. K. %den and Mary Sargent Florence, “Militarism Versus Feminism: An Enquiry and a Policy Demonstrating that Militarism lnvolves the Subjection of Women,” in Militarism vs. Feminism: Writings ofwornen and War, ed. Margaret Kamester and Jo Vellacott (London, 1987), 57; Testimony of Cathrine Curtis, Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Rehtions, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 10 February 1941,827; “Legislator List-Curtis Testimony,” February 1941, Box 1, CCP.

39Jeansonne, “Women Against World War 11,” 18- 19; New York Times, 24 February 1941.

‘ONew York Times, 1 March 1941; 2 March 1941; and 7 March 1941.


Dilling’s tactics infuriated Curtis. Privately, she referred to Dilling as a “hood- lum” and characterized Dilling’s display as “communistic” and “~n-womanly.”~’ She felt that Dilling‘s escapades effectively closed the doors of Senators to women lob- byists and made it next to impossible for women’s groups to raise money or suc- cessfully solicit advertising. Ultimately, both Curtis’s and Dilling’s tactics failed. Lend-Lease was approved by Congress on 8 March 1941 and signed by the President on 11 March. Curtis was dejected over the bill’s passage and blamed it on a collapse of the isolationist forces and her male counterparts’ lack of

Although the passage of Lend-Lease snuffed much of the life out of the isolationist campaign, the movement limped along through 1941. In April, Curtis replaced Kathleen Norris as leader of the National Legion of Mothers of America. The women isolationists, their numbers dwindling, continued to speak out against bills they considered dictatorial, including one to indefinitely extend the term of military service. Despite some congressional defections, the committee remained on friendly terms with Representative Hoffman and Senators Nye and Burton K. Wheeler. Among the public, however, Curtis and the isolationists’ efforts met with noticeably less success. Individuals responded adversely to her campaigns and equated her organization’s anti-British sentiments with pro-German propaganda. By late 1941, most Americans had become convinced that the country’s best defense lay with a strong Allied effort and turned a deaf ear to isolationist pleas.43

Most isolationist organizations, including the America First Committee, dis- banded after Pearl Harbor, but the majority of Mothers’ groups did not. While many politically moderate women abandoned the movement to such extremists as Farber and Dilling, Curtis maintained her position within the Mothers’ organization and continued to demand women’s inclusion in the peace process. The government also began a crackdown on fascist groups in 1941. Dilling was one of 33 defendants in a 1944 mass sedition trial in Washington that ended in a mistrial when the presiding judge died. Despite the organizational connections, Curtis dis-

“Curtis to Marian Ware, 18 February 1941; Curtis to Aileen A. Reilly, 23 February 1941; Curtis to Mr. Stewart Rose, 23 February 1941; Curtis to Mrs. W. K. Jewett, 3 March 1941, Box 1 , CCP.

42Curtis to Mrs. Jeremiah Millbank, 3 March 1941; Curtis to Marian Ware, 15 March 1941; Curtis to Mrs. Catherine Cox, 21 March 1941, Box 1, CCP.

43Greenwald,“Fascism in America,” 618-23; Jeansonne,“Women Against World War 11,” 22; Curtis to Miss Florence Birmingham, 25 June 1941, Box 3; “Mother’s Day Petition,” May, 1941; Ray W. Poppleton to Curtis, 6 August 1941; Charles D. Reed to Curtis, 16 August 1941; Nathan Adams to Curtis, 29 August 1941; J. H. Carnahan to Curtis, 12 May 1941, Box 1, CCP.

838 THE HISTO~UAN

tanced herself from the FarbedDilling factions and eventually, though not enthusi- astically, supported the war eff0rt.4~

In the postwar years and into the 1950s, Curtis continued to support right-wing causes. She collaborated with anti-communists and remained fearful of “deliberate sabotage” by the For her activism, Curtis earned several mentions in journalist John Roy Carlson’s popular 1943 expose of right-wing organizations. She considered this recognition an honor. Curtis remained outspoken on foreign affairs and opposed both the United Nations and the Marshall Plan. Not surprisingly, she was an unflinching supporter of communist-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthyj6

By the late 1950s, Curtis’s reputation as a foreign policy and financial expert had faded. Once a regular on Capitol Hill, she no longer appeared before congressional committees, and her personal papers contain no post-war correspondence from members of Congress. Instead, Curtis returned to the world of business and conservative club women. Yet despite the apparent swiftness with which Curtis and the other Mothers’ leaders faded from the national scene, they and the women’s isolationist movement remain historical subjects worthy of further inquiry.

An examination of Curtis’s career has important implications for the historiog- raphy of the World War I1 neutrality debate and for women’s history. The popular- ity of the reactionary organizations Curtis spearheaded forces a reassessment of the prevalence of anti-Semitism within the broader isolationist movement. Many of these women’s groups used anti-Semitic appeals to attract members. Because of the movement’s sheer size, these women seriously undermined the larger isolationist movement. Isolationist congressmen and senators were tainted through their association with Curtis as well.

Closer scrutiny of women’s isolationist activism also challenges the prevailing interpretation of women’s position in the neutrality debate and in anti-war movements. Women isolationists may have been more formidable than liberal women’s groups during this period. From her close association with isolationist members of

“Jeansonne, “Furies,” 76.

45Marguerite L. Morrison to Curtis, 8 May 1942; Curtis to Marguerite L. Morrison, 10 May 1942, Box 3, ccl?

MCarlson, Under Cover, 22 1; Curtis to Dellmore Lessard, 7 January 1944; Dellmore 1,essard to Curtis, 20 ranuary 1944, Box 3; Women Investors in America, pamphlet, “Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace,” 1947, BOX 5; Gerald L. K. Smith, ‘X Message from San Francisco,” May 1945, Box 4; Curtis to Lewis Haney, 19 October 1950, Box 3; Curtis to Ethel Barbour, 8 November 1950, Box 2; Curtis to Mrs. Mayo Thomas Barbour, 3 November 1954, Box 2, CCI?

CATHRlNE CURTIS AND CONSEKVATIVE ISOLATIONIST WOMEN, 1939- 1941 839

Congress, it is clear that Curtis and the women she represented wielded significant political influence.

Analysis of this movement also offers new insight into the constantly evolving history of maternalism as a powerful rhetorical tool of right- and left-wing political activists. While it is impossible to determine how many women accepted the organizations' larger anti-statist critique and political extremism, at least some must have joined for apolitical reasons, to protect their husbands, sons, and boyfriends. In this respect, maternalism empowered women.

Finally, the success of these organizations offers compelling evidence for the per- vasiveness and persistent appeal of conservatism in the twentieth century. In the 1920s women joined the Ku Klux Klan, and in the 1930s they flocked to movements led by Father Charles Coughlin and Gerald L. K. Smith. While charismatic, colorful leadership unquestionably was critical to the movement's success, one need only assess the strength of contemporary conservative social movements in this country to appreciate the need for an examination of the isolationist movement at the grass roots.47

"Blee, Women of the Ku Klux Klan; Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression (New York, 1982); Glen Jeansonne, Gerald L. K. Smith: Minister of Hate (New Haven, 1988).

Documents

CATHRINE CURTIS AND CONSERVATIVE ISOLATIONIST WOMEN, 1939-1941