Excerpt from "The War in Its Effect upon Women" (1916)

Source: Swanwick, Helena. "The War in Its Effect upon Women," 1916. Reprinted in World War I and European Society: A Source-book. Edited by Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee and Frans Coetzee. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1995.

Commentary

The cost of the Great War (World War I) in Europe was the needless loss of nearly an entire generation of young men, but in many regards, the social conventions of the time, exemplified in the infamous, government concocted "Little Mother" letter, required women to accept their losses quietly. A dedicated pacifist and supporter of universal suffrage, among the most outspoken opponents of Britain's participation in World War I, Helena Swanwick defied this thinking. As active after the war as during it, she later served in the League of Nations Union and was a member of the Empire's delegation to...