Women and Life on Earth: Peace, Ecology and a Transnational Women’S Movement, 1975-2006
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Women and Life on Earth: Peace, Ecology and a Transnational Women’s Movement, 1975-2006 A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History of the College of Arts and Sciences By Alyssa S. McClanahan March 2016 M.A., University of Cincinnati, 2012 B.A., University of Cincinnati, 2010 Committee Chair: David Stradling, Ph.D. Abstract “Women and Life on Earth” traces a powerful yet ultimately unsustainable women’s movement born in the late 1970s and early 1980s out of feminist, ecological and disarmament concerns. Focused primarily on American and British women, this dissertation begins with an influential conference in March of 1980 in Northampton, Massachusetts. There, hundreds of women gathered to claim "that ecological right"—the idea that their movement could unite all women behind values of feminism, nonviolence and ecology. In exploring women’s organizations and direct actions, especially transnational ones, this dissertation tracks how this women's movement weathered the 1980s, and interrogates the states of feminism, environmentalism, protest strategy and politics in America and Britain in the late 20th century. It broadly argues that by appropriating ecology as a way to link a litany of women and numerous injustices rooted in violence, participants began to consolidate a movement that was uniquely for and by women. Yet, as genuinely inclusive as these women crafted their philosophy to be, their ideas did not map evenly onto the political movement itself, and in many ways prescribed their own stymied future. While activism in women-only spaces and campaigns proved to be individually impactful, participants realized that the unity they anticipated eluded them. Shared values could not bridge divergent experiences and identities of race, class, sexuality, motherhood, nationality and political organizing traditions. ii Copyright Notice iii Acknowledgements: Over the past four years during my doctoral degree, I have received considerable assistance and guidance from several libraries and archives, namely the Swarthmore College Peace Collection at Swarthmore College, the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, the Arthur and Mary Schlesinger Library on the History of Women at Harvard University and the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics. Their curators, archivists and librarians proved invaluable to my research and the development of my project. The Swarthmore College Peace Collection is one of the largest repositories of organizational records from peace, pacifist and social justice organizations, and on my first doctoral research trip, I surveyed, explored and acquainted myself with the papers of many of the organizations in the women’s movement covered in this dissertation. I benefitted from the assistance, suggestions and enthusiasm of its curator, Wendy E. Chmielewski. At the Sophia Smith Collection—where I gathered the bulk of my dissertation research—curator Amy Hague and archivist Kathleen Nutter proved immensely helpful in locating additional, useful collections and encouraging my project. I am also grateful for the generous travel-to-collections grant I received from the Women’s History Archives. The Schlesinger Library, a significant archive of women’s history, provided the material which informs my fifth chapter. I traveled to the Schlesinger for my undergraduate thesis as well, and as a complete novice then, received kindness and guidance from Stacey Flatt, as I did more recently. I also had the opportunity to travel to the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics, and out of this research trip and the patient assistance of its staff, I had access to records of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp which allowed me to explore the British side of the women’s movement and take my dissertation in a new, transnational direction. iv I cannot forget the University of Cincinnati, namely the Graduate School, for generously funding both my Master’s and my doctoral education through full tuition scholarships and graduate assistantships that allowed me to make graduate school my primary job. I relied on resources available through the university’s libraries almost daily, through my coursework, qualifying exams and dissertation research. Additionally, the university afforded me the opportunity to work as an adjunct instructor for my department, and I greatly benefitted from the ability to create and teach my own classes over the past four years. Finally, the University Research Council awarded me a generous graduate student research fellowship that allowed me to make progress on my dissertation during the summer months. I owe a special thank you to the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center, and specifically to its director Adrian Parr and its program director Sean Keating. An additional thank you is owed to Joy Dunn for answering so many of my emails. More than any other funding body, the Taft Research Center kindly awarded me numerous enrichment awards, travel grants, a summer fellowship and, over this past year, a dissertation fellowship. This financial assistance, accompanied by their dedication to humanities research, publication and collaboration, has been crucial to my success as a student. As someone who received her Bachelor’s, Master’s and now Doctorate from the Department of History at the University of Cincinnati, I have, in many ways, grown up in this department and among its professors. I have always felt that my department prioritizes undergraduate and graduate research, and beyond encouraging its students to travel to archives and libraries, it generously assists us in locating the financial means to get there. Several department awards and fellowships funded my dissertation research, including the Werner E. Von Rosenstiel Fund, the Roger Daniels Summer Fellowship and a much-appreciated no-service v fellowship during my qualifying examinations. I am immensely grateful for this financial support. Beyond this though, I have benefitted from the one-on-one encouragement, mentorship and friendship of numerous professors through years of course work and later “dissertating” and teaching. In this regard, I wish to call attention to a few that have especially impacted me. I want to say thank you for the guidance, kindness and support of current department head, Dr. Chris Phillips, previous department head Dr. Willard Sunderland and my graduate director, Dr. Tracy Teslow. Additionally, this dissertation grew out of a paper I wrote in a research seminar during the first year of my doctorate; Dr. Sigrun Haude directed this project, attentively reading and offering consistent, thoughtful feedback. I am grateful for the encouragement of Dr. Rob Gioielli as well; working as his editorial assistant for the Ohio Valley History journal, he offered pertinent, frequent advice then and now for my dissertation and overall academic career. Thank you to Dr. Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara for administering my Spanish language translation examination, and again, thank you to Dr. Sunderland for assisting me with the Russian language references and history in my dissertation, and for being one of the best undergraduate and graduate professors I have encountered. I am also indebted to the enthusiasm of now-retired Dr. John Alexander. Notoriously tough, Dr. Alexander not only acquainted me to the pace and rigor of graduate school but served as an example of a professor consistently and eagerly engaged in both his research and his students. I appreciate the tutorship of the professors under which I served as their teaching assistant—thank you to Dr. Phillips, Dr. Jason Krupar, Dr. Mark Raider, Dr. Charlie Lester and my advisor Dr. David Stradling. Notably, while I never was their student, Dr. Erika Gasser, Dr. Isaac Campos and Dr. Vanessa Walker all volunteered their time and advice on graduate school and teaching strategies, and genuinely took an interest in my academic vi career. I cannot fail to mention the immeasurable assistance I—and all students and faculty— received from Hope Earls, our department’s past administrative secretary. Beyond that, she remains a great friend and someone that still takes an active interest in students’ lives and well- beings. I also wish to thank our current administrative secretary, Ashley Chrisman, for her patient and prompt help. My dissertation committee, which includes Dr. David Stradling, Dr. Maura O’Connor, Dr. Stephen Porter and Dr. Wendy Kline, are the professors I have been closest to over the course of my graduate—and in many ways, undergraduate—education. All of them have been, without fail, selflessly enthusiastic, caring, hardworking and supportive. As a freshman at UC, my very first history class was with Dr. Kline, and since that year—2007—she has mentored and encouraged me in academic and life lessons. With her as my undergraduate and Master’s advisor, I grew to love and care deeply about women’s history and feminism. I went to my first conference with Dr. Kline, presented my first paper under her, defended two theses under her tutorship, and for all of these reasons and more, I am immensely grateful for her kindness, enthusiasm for history and teaching and for how much of an interest she has always taken in my personal life. She is without a doubt missed in this department. I have also known Dr. Stephen Porter since my undergraduate education, and like Dr. Kline, he pushed me to care deeply about history as well, in his case, histories of human rights and humanitarianism. I worked closely with him through my Bachelor’s and Master’s, taking all of his classes and doing multiple directed readings with him. He also offered useful advice and curriculum tips when I taught my first class, and continues to be a source of great ideas and guidance in the realm of teaching. I cannot thank him enough for his support over these years. More recently, he gave me careful, pointed instruction on not only the development of my vii dissertation but also on future job prospects and ways to market oneself.