Women against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and Gender in the Second World War (review)

Book Reviews61 appeasers like Lord Hurtwood and George Lansbury. Schmitt starts his concluding section with a startling admission: "This book . . . has rested on no conceptual framework, and the events it describes confirm no consoling maxims and point to no comfortable prescriptions ensuring a better future." (214) This seems evasive. Perhaps there are no simple, edifying truths to infer, but is it really all right to reach toward light and (unintentionally) abet darkness? I also wished that Schmitt, who knows the sources so well, more fully explored the Nazis' partial toleration of the sect. (54, 74, 124) Were the Nazis contemptuous, admiring, or cynical? Who used whom? Because the book is a commemoration of Quaker works in a tragic time, these questions are especially urgent. Schmitt's monograph is otherwise exemplary. Clearly written, it begins with an uplifting description of the sect's early history in Germany, followed by a chapter on Quaker relief in post-World War I Germany. The main story appears in chapters four through six. These recount Quaker efforts between 1933 and 1945. A final chapter provides an impression of Quaker tasks after 1945 and abriefconclusion. Much of Schmitt's narration is original: He worked diligently and imaginatively in Quaker archival funds in the U.S., Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany. The resulting detail alone makes the book valuable to historians interested in Quakerism and Nazism, both of which appear here in unfamiliar perspective. Robert SouthardEarlham College Women against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and Gender in the Second World War. By Rachel Waltner Goossen. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. xiii + 190 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth, $39.95; paper, $15.95. In 1 941 the first Civilian Public Service (CPS) camp opened in Patapsco, Maryland. Altogetherone hundred and fifty-one camps and numerous other sites for conscientious objectors to all military service were opened during the Second World War. CPS was a joint program between the federal government's Selective Service and the Historic Peace Churches. Although many who worked in CPS have written or spoken about their experiences, scholars have only recently turned their attention to this topic. As in any war women as well as men are affected by the choices of their government. The effects are often different for men and women because of the distinct social role each sex plays. Conscientious objection has been regarded as solely a male position because women have not yetbeen subject 62Quaker History to compulsory, military service. Little has been published on women's public stand against World War II, and even less on how male positions on conscientious objection affected the women in their lives. Rachel Waltner Goossen (Department of History, Goshen College) has written a fascinating account of women whose lives were affected by the CPS program. She interviewed 27 women and had questionnaire responses from another 153 who had worked for the program as nurses, dieticians, or in other capacities, and from the wives of men who were sent to the CPS camps. There are quotations throughout the book gathered from these sources as well as contemporary letters and accounts. Women Against the Good War has chapters on women as conscientious objectors, wives and girlfriends of CPS men, women worked for CPS, women in CPS training units, and what happened after the war. We learn that many women self-identified as conscientious objectors. Some noted their religious training or family background as the basis of their beliefs. Others grounded their opposition to war in their educational training. Still other women married conscientious objectors and came to hold a similar position. Women who opposed the war wanted to act on that philosophy during a time when mostofthe nation was enthusiastic about fighting. Some went to work for CPS as camp nurses or dieticians, administrative staff. Others became attendants in hospitals for the mentally ill, or served as relief workers after the war. The women who married conscientious objectors often went to great lengths to support their husbands' choices, sometimes in the face of family opposition. Some became the sole breadwinnerforthe family. Otherwomen moved across the country to be near where their husbands were serving, a few even moved...