In the late 1930s, a number of American women—especially those allied with various peace and isolationist groups—protested against the nation's entry into World War II. While their story is fairly well known, Margaret Paton-Walsh reveals a far less familiar story of women who fervently felt that American intervention was absolutely necessary.

Paton-Walsh recounts how the United States became involved in the war, but does so through the eyes of American women who faced it as a necessary evil. Covering the period between 1935 and 1941, she examines how these women functioned as political actors-even though they were excluded from positions of power-through activism in women's organizations, informal women's networks, and even male-dominated lobbying groups.

“ . . . A good corrective to the view that Women were unaware of international politics in the years leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.”

—Journal of American History

“An invaluable work for anyone interested in women, war, and peace as well as the larger topic of World War II.”

—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

See all reviews...

“Countering expectations that women by gender oppose war, Paton-Walsh focuses on women who advocated involvement against Hitler during the years before Pearl Harbor. Recommended.”

—Choice

“Intellectually honest and finely crafted, this book is a major contribution to the growing historiography concerning women and the Second World War.”

—Glen Jeansonne, author of Women of the Far Right: The Mothers’ Movement and World War II

“This book is an eye-opener. For all of us who today are looking for the women in the current international politics, it will come as quite a surprise to find these savvy American women so intensely engaged in a strategic pressuring of both Congress and FDR to become engaged in the European conflict.”

—Cynthia Enloe, author of Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives

“A valuable contribution to the study of the interventionist side of the Great Debate of 1939–1941. The material on columnist Dorothy Thompson is particularly important.”

—Justus D. Doenecke, author of Storm on the Horizon: The Challenge to American Intervention, 1939–1941

See fewer reviews...

In the "Great Debate" over whether America should enter the war, some women favored aid to the Allies not because they hoped for war but because they hoped aid would forestall more direct U.S. involvement-but also because they believed war was preferable to a Nazi victory. Paton-Walsh shows that this activism involved some of the most prominent women of their day. Elizabeth Cutter Morrow-whose son-in-law, Charles Lindbergh, was an isolationist spokesman-supported the revision of the Neutrality Acts to allow the sale of arms to the Allies and expressed her support in a national radio broadcast. Soon other women joined this debate: Esther Brunauer of the AAUW, journalist Dorothy Thompson, and organizations like the League of Women Voters and National Women's Trade Union League broke from the pacifist tradition to advocate American aid for the Allied cause.

Focusing on the conflict in Europe, Paton-Walsh shows how these women grasped the implications of the Lend-Lease program for America's entry into the war but supported it nevertheless. By late 1941, the Women's Division of the Fight for Freedom Committee had been established; no longer merely advocating aid to Britain to keep American boys out of battle, this organization supported direct American involvement in the war as a means of stopping Nazi oppression.

While most historians have focused on women's pacifism, Paton-Walsh connects women more directly to world events and shows how those interventionists reformulated maternalist ideas to justify and explain their beliefs. Our War Too is a story of American women trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, to preserve both their principles and their peace. It expands our understanding of women as political actors and thinkers about foreign policy as it sheds new light on American public opinion over the build-up to the war.