Cold War Comforts: Canadian Women, Child Safety, and Global Insecurity

4. Seeds of Destiny: The United Nations and Child Welfare

101 chapter four Seeds of Destiny the United Nations and Child Welfare In November 1961 Mrs. Wayne Elwood, a California housewife, mailed a cheque for $1,000 to the UN, explaining in her letter to Secretary-General U Thant that this was the advertised cost to build a fallout shelter, but she preferred to invest her family’s safety in the hands of the world organization . She specified that her donation be put toward the UN’s non-military operations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, or UNICEF. Inspired by Elwood’s action, several of her friends and neighbours, along with twenty-eight families in North Carolina, agreed to pledge similar quantities because they believed the “United Nations was the only real shelter in a nuclear world.”1 This gesture made headlines across Canada, prompting Canadians to make similar promises. Chatelaine editor Doris Anderson applauded Elwood’s “simple act” and was inspired by the initiative of an “ordinary citizen.”2 She called it a “positive gesture of faith that mankind will not embrace this final piece of madness” but will find a “sane just way to settle the world’s tangled problems” in “these anxious times.”3 Not only was 1961 a time of heightened Cold War anxiety, having witnessed the Bay of Pigs invasion, the erection of the Berlin Wall, and the Soviet detonation of the most powerful thermonuclear weapon to date, it also saw the UN overwhelmed by a debt that put the future of its new peacekeeping responsibilities in question.4 The fear of a crumbling UN prompted one Toronto woman, Brenda Smith, to follow Elwood’s philanthropy with her own donation. She felt it was the obligation of “everyone 102 Abroad who believes in the United Nations … [to] send in as much money as they could afford.”5 It is unknown how many people followed Smith’s appeal, but between 1945 and 1975 hundreds of thousands of Canadians raised millions of dollars for UN programs, including over $21 million in private donations for UNICEF alone.6 Meanwhile hundreds of Canadians joined local branches of the United Nations Association (UNA), an educational service club where members promoted UN initiatives and values. Although the UN was a “boy’s club” in this era, the majority of UNA members were women, and UNICEF, the largest and most prolific UNA committee, was always chaired by a woman. Several Canadian women also held prominent staff positions in the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) overseas. Presumably it was the UN’s overall intention to uphold world peace, in addition to its focus on children and youth, that interested so many women. Using explicit maternalistic language, UNA member (and VOW member) Kay Livingstone explained why women were so drawn to the UN: No longer can women afford to let someone else look after the world while they look after their homes. To protect our homes we must look after the world. The UN is the only organization today which attempts to speak for mankind. The UNA is the only association in Canada designed to link the citizen with that organization.7 As did women engaged in civil defence, Livingstone considered the home under threat and its defence in the hands of women. Rather than signing up to learn first aid or promote the concept of “duck and cover,” Livingstone’s version of emergency planning and protection was the UN, where she saw women, referenced in her quote above as both homemakers and citizens, having a strong role to play. The UNA encouraged women’s participation not only because they believed that “the objectives of the association appeal most strongly to women” but also because they needed women.8 Just as businessmen contributed money, women put in the volunteer hours needed to coordinate the special events and fundraisers. The UNA also saw women, in their roles as mothers and teachers, as having a great interest in and influence on one of the organization’s main targets, children. For reasons both practical and political, the UN dedicated many of its financial and educational resources to improving global child welfare. Certainly the consequences of war, poverty, and natural disasters particularly affected young people, making children the natural recipients of relief and Seeds of Destiny 103 development projects.9 The decision to focus on children was also strategic. As Dominique Marshall has explored in her analysis of the...