"The Humaner Instinct of Women": Hannah Bailey and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union's Critique of Militarism and Manliness in the Late Nineteenth Century

• Published in: Peace and change Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 191 - 216
• Main Author: McCarthy, Tara M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01.04.2008; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Activism; American history; Christians; Females; Ideology; Militarism; Nineteenth Century; Patriotism; Peace; Peace Movements; Social sciences; Values; Womens studies
• ISSN: 0149-0508; 1468-0130
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0130.2008.00489.x

From its founding in 1887, the National Peace and Arbitration Department of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), led by Hannah Johnston Bailey (1839–1923), provided an important source of women's peace activism. Bailey used the strength and organization of the WCTU to promote the peace movement, reaching beyond male‐dominated peace societies to appeal directly to women. Her work, particularly in the area of peace education, laid the foundation for other peace activists in the early twentieth century. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, when many Americans began to express concern over the decline of masculinity, the women of the WCTU challenged the association of patriotism with manliness and militarism. Instead, they advocated a new definition, seeking to replace the martial ideal with one emphasizing public service.