International Congress of Women

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The officers of the U.S. National and International Council of Women at the congress held in Berlin, Germany in June, 1904. In the front row, the women seated at the tables (left to right), are Helene Lange, Ishbel Aberdeen, Susan B. Anthony, May Wright Sewall, Camille Vidart, and Teresa F. Wilson. Officers of International Congress of Women - DPLA - 977ea350e55bbae5dfafb7b2c6573714 (page 1) (cropped).jpg
The officers of the U.S. National and International Council of Women at the congress held in Berlin, Germany in June, 1904. In the front row, the women seated at the tables (left to right), are Helene Lange, Ishbel Aberdeen, Susan B. Anthony, May Wright Sewall, Camille Vidart, and Teresa F. Wilson.

The International Congress of Women was created so that groups of existing women's suffrage movements could come together with other women's groups around the world. It served as a way for women organizations across the nation to establish formal means of communication and to provide more opportunities for women to ask the big questions relating to feminism at the time. The congress has been utilized by a number of feminist and pacifist events since 1878. A few groups that participated in the early conferences were The International Council of Women, The International Alliance of Women and The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. [1]

Contents

Paris, 1878

The First International Congress of Women's Rights convened in Paris in 1878 upon the occasion of the third Paris World's Fair. An historic event attended by many representatives, seven resolutions were passed at the meeting, beginning with the idea that "the adult woman is the equal of the adult man". [2] The subject of women's suffrage was deliberately avoided at the Congress, as it was too controversial and not supported by all the attendees. Hubertine Auclert wrote a speech calling for the right to vote for French women, but was not allowed to present it to the Congress. Instead, she published it later. [3] Emily Venturi gave a memorable closing speech, in which she declared

Last evening a gentleman who seemed a bit skeptical about the advantages of our congress asked me, ‘Well Madame, what great truth have you proclaimed to the world?’ I replied to him, ‘Monsieur, we have proclaimed a woman is a human being.’ He laughed. ‘But, Madame, that is a platitude.’ So it is; but when this platitude...is recognized by human laws, the face of the world will be transformed. Certainly, then, there would be not need for us to assembly in congress to demand the rights of woman.

— Karen Offen, European Feminisms: A Political History, 1700-1950, 2000

London, 1899

In 1899, the International Congress of Women convened alongside the International Council of Women in conjunction with its 2nd Quinquennial Meeting. [4] The Congress was divided into 5 sections—each with their own individual area of focus for programming: Education, Professional, Political, Social, and Industrial and Legislative. The transactions of the Congress were edited by the then Countess of Aberdeen, who was president of the International Council of Women at the time of the congress, and published in a set along with the Report of Council Transactions from the International Congress of Women's 2nd Quinquennial meeting. [5] [6]

Berlin, 1904

This conference aimed its focus on four main sections; education, social work/institutions, the legal position of women (especially suffrage), and professions/job opportunities available to women. Officers of the German Council of Women were put in charge of this conference. At this conference, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) was founded. Mary Church Terrell—cofounder and first president of the National Association of Colored Women in Washington D.C.—was the only black women present at and spoke at this conference, she also went to the conference in Zurich in 1919. [7] At the Berlin conference, Mary Church Terrell gave her speech titled “Progress and Problems of Colored Women." [8]

Amsterdam, 1908

Among the many attendees at the Amsterdam convening of the International Congress of Women was Isabella Ford. [9] Another important figure of the women's movement during the early 1900s who spoke at that conference was, Carrie Chapman Catt. During her discussion at the conference she spoke of the importance of women's history being part of the world's history.

Women traveled from South Africa and Australia to attend this conference in Amsterdam and to hear all about the success of the International Congress of Women. A male delegate from "Great Britain's Men's League for Women's Enfranchisement also attended. [10] (see Men's League for Women's Suffrage)

Toronto, 1909

This congress was held under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Canada [11] immediately following the 4th Quinquennial Meeting of the International Council of Women. [12] Sessions were held on education, art, health, industries, laws concerning women and children, literature, professions for women, social work, and moral reform. Notable speakers included Jane Addams, Elizabeth Cadbury, Anna Hvoslef, Millicent Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland, Rosalie Slaughter Morton, Eliza Ritchie, Alice Salomon, and May Wright Sewall. [13]

Stockholm, 1911

This conference was led by Carrie Chapman Catt. It was at this conference in Stockholm (1911) that eight men joined together and formed the Men's International Alliance for Women's Suffrage. The eight men who formed that alliance came from Great Britain, the U.S., France, Germany, and Holland. [14]

The Hague, 1915

At the time that planning was in motion for this conference, the First World War was well underway and the conference was meant to be held in Berlin of 1915 but the war altered those plans. [15] [16] While the war may have caused the relocation of the conference, it was the war that had inspired this congress meeting. This congress—more commonly known and referred to as the Women's Peace Congress or just the Hague Congress [17] —was a part of the emergent women's peace movement. More than 1,300 delegates from 12 countries came together at this conference to discuss and draft proposals—based in negotiation tactics— to end the First World War. Three major participants of the conference from the United States that attended were, Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams, who attended as the president of the Woman's Peace Party (which was the precursor to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) [18] and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner, Professor Emily Greene Balch, and Alice Hamilton. [15]

Other attendees included Lida Gustava Heymann, one of 28 delegates from Germany; Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Emily Hobhouse and Chrystal Macmillan from Great Britain; Rosika Schwimmer a Hungarian pacifist and feminist who won the World Peace Prize in 1937; [15] Aletta Jacobs from Holand was another voice during this conference that spoke with other European women about promoting peace and then Emilia Fogelklou. Aletta Jacobs became a big advocate against the war in 1914 and asked other woman around the world to do the same. She was the women who invited the Women's Peace Party to the conference in The Netherlands where Jane Addams facilitated the meeting and recruited different groups of women to present their versions of peaceful resolutions to different countries. [19]

Rosa Genoni was the sole delegate from Italy who attended this conference. [16] Rosa Genoni was representing a number of Italian women's organizations, and she was one of the delegates nominated as envoys to visit belligerent and non-belligerent governments after the Congress to advocate for a halt to the war. [16]

French women, during this time opted out of this event; they declared their intention not to attend nor support the Congress, and none attended. [16] The planned 180-strong British delegation was severely reduced by the British government's suspension of the commercial ferry service between Folkestone and Flushing. [17] and their reluctance to issue passports to proposed delegates. [16]

In September 1915 a delegation went to the United States to meet president Woodrow Wilson to present the proposal for a "League of Neutral Counties" that could help mediating to end the war. [20]

Zurich, 1919

This conference was held [21] at the same time as the Paris Peace Conference in Versailles and hosted over 200 women coming in from 17 nations. One member commented that the German delegation was ‘scarred and shrivelled by hunger and privation, they were scarcely recognizable’. [22] At this conference the women of the International Congress of Women regrouped to form a new organization, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. [23] The main goals set forth by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom at the Zurich Conference were based in the promotion of peace, creating equality, and establishing practices that work towards bringing the world together. Jane Addams was the coordinator of the Zurich congress meeting. It was at this meeting that Women's International League for Peace and Freedom explained their view about how the Treaty of Versailles may have ended the first World War but it was based in plans that could lead to another war. [1] [24]

Vienna, 1921

This congress ended with a short resolution entitled "Revision of peace treaties":

Believing that the Peace Treaties contain the seeds of new wars, this Congress declares that a revision of the Peace Terms is necessary, and resolves to make this object its principal task. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carrie Chapman Catt</span> American social reformer and suffragist (1859–1947)

Carrie Chapman Catt was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904, which was later named International Alliance of Women. She "led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920". She "was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosika Schwimmer</span> Hungarian-born activist

Rosika Schwimmer was a Hungarian-born pacifist, feminist, world federalist and women's suffragist. A co-founder of the Campaign for World Government with Lola Maverick Lloyd, her radical vision of world peace led to the creation of several world federalist movements and organizations. Sixty years after she first envisaged it, the movement she helped to create indeed took a leading role in the creation of the International Criminal Court, the first permanent international tribunal tasked with charging individuals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's International League for Peace and Freedom</span> Civil society organization

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make known the causes of war and work for a permanent peace" and to unite women worldwide who oppose oppression and exploitation. WILPF has national sections in 37 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Council of Women</span> Organization advocating human rights for women

The International Council of Women (ICW) is a women's organization working across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C., with 80 speakers and 49 delegates representing 53 women's organizations from 9 countries: Canada, the United States, Ireland, India, United Kingdom, Finland, Denmark, France and Norway. Women from professional organizations, trade unions, arts groups and benevolent societies participate. National councils are affiliated to the ICW and thus make themselves heard at the international level. The ICW enjoys consultative status with the United Nations and its Permanent Representatives to ECOSOC, ILO, FAO, WHO, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNCTAD, and UNIDO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woman's Peace Party</span>

The Woman's Peace Party (WPP) was an American pacifist and feminist organization formally established in January 1915 in response to World War I. The organization is remembered as the first American peace organization to make use of direct action tactics such as public demonstration. The Woman's Peace Party became the American section of an international organization known as the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace later in 1915, a group which later changed its name to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open Christmas Letter</span> Public Message

The Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British suffragists at the end of 1914 as the first Christmas of the First World War approached. The Open Christmas Letter was written in acknowledgment of the mounting horror of modern war and as a direct response to letters written to American feminist Carrie Chapman Catt, the president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA), by a small group of German women's rights activists. Published in January 1915 in Jus Suffragii, the journal of the IWSA, the Open Christmas Letter was answered two months later by a group of 155 prominent German and Austrian women who were pacifists. The exchange of letters between women of nations at war helped promote the aims of peace, and helped prevent the fracturing of the unity which lay in the common goal they shared, suffrage for women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chrystal Macmillan</span> British feminist and pacifist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women at the Hague</span>

Women at the Hague was an International Congress of Women conference held at The Hague, Netherlands in April 1915. It had over 1,100 delegates and it established an International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (ICWPP) with Jane Addams as president. It led to the creation of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

First Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held in 1902 in Washington D.C. to consider the feasibility of organizing an International Woman Suffrage Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fifth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance</span>

The Fifth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held in London, England from April 26 to May 1, 1909. Twenty countries were represented. Representatives from twenty countries attended, with Carrie Chapman Catt presiding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sixth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance</span>

Sixth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held in June 1911 in Stockholm, Sweden. It was led by the organization's president, Carrie Chapman Catt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seventh Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance</span> June 1913 event

The Seventh Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance met in Budapest, Hungary, 15–21 June 1913. As had been the case with all the preceding International Woman Suffrage Alliance conferences, the location had been chosen to reflect the status of woman suffrage: a place where the prospects seemed favorable and liable to influence public sentiment by demonstrating that it was now a global movement. When it had been announced at the sixth congress that the next one would be held in the capital of Hungary, it was felt that the location seemed very remote, and there were concerns that Hungary did not have representative government. In fact, it proved to be one of the largest and most important conventions. Furthermore, the delegates stopped en route for mass meetings and public banquets in Berlin, Dresden, Prague and Vienna, spreading its influence ever further afield.

The Eighth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance occurred June 6–12, 1920, in Geneva, Switzerland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosa Genoni</span>

Rosa Genoni (1867–1954) was an Italian seamstress, fashion designer, teacher, feminist and advocate for workers' rights. She had a successful fashion design career, with innovative designs such as her Tanagra dress. Rosa Genoni was the Italian delegate at the International Congress of Women, The Hague, Netherlands, 28 April - 10 May 1915. Her activism efforts along with her desire to make Italy a fashion leader were thwarted under Fascism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugénia Miskolczy Meller</span> Hungarian feminist

Eugénia Miskolczy Meller was one of the most active feminists and women's rights activists in Hungary from the turn of the century to the interwar period. One of the founding members of the Feminist Association, she served as a leader for many of the organizations committees and events, arguing for gender equality, as well as women's suffrage. A pacifist, Meller worked with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) arguing for disarmament and urging the passage of international laws codifying citizenship regulations to protect women. Though she had converted to Lutheranism, she was arrested when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944 and disappeared. In 1946, she was posthumously honored for her humanitarian works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leopoldine Kulka</span>

Leopoldine Kulka was an Austrian writer and editor. As editor of Neues Frauenleben she controversially met women from combatant countries at the 1915 Women's conference at the Hague.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mien van Wulfften Palthe</span> Dutch feminist and pacifist (1875–1960)

Mien van Wulfften Palthe was a Dutch feminist and pacifist. As a member of the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, she strove to secure enfranchisement for women and worked as an advocate for peace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inter-Allied Women's Conference</span> 1919 conference

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose Morgan French</span> American suffragist

Rose Morgan French was an American suffragist, temperance and peace activist. She represented California suffragists as a delegate to the International Congress of Women, when it met in The Hague in 1915, and in Zürich in 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisabeth Krey-Lange</span>

Elisabeth Johanna Lovisa Krey-Lange (1878–1965) was a Swedish journalist and women's rights activist. As a journalist, she contributed to the newspapers Stockholms Dagblad and Svenska Dagbladet and to the women's periodical Idun. Krey-Lange took a special interest in the woman's movement. She was a member of the Swedish Association for Women's Suffrage (LKPR) and the first editor the organization's journal Rösträtt för kvinnor. In 1911, she was a reporter at the Sixth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Stockholm. Some reports indicate she was one the Swedish delegates at the 1915 International Congress of Women in the Hague. After the end of World War I, Krey-Lange was an active member of Save the Children, attending a 1920 meeting in Geneva and participating in the distribution of food and clothing in Vienna. In the 1930s, she was international press ombudsman for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

References

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  4. ↑ Ishbel Gordon Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair (1900). The International Congress of Women of 1899. T. F. Unwin. pp.  1–.
  5. ↑ The Countess of Aberdeen, ed. (1900), Women in Professions, being the professional section of the International Congress of Women of 1899
  6. ↑ Butlin, F.M. (1899), "International Congress of Women", Economic Journal, 9 (35), Blackwell Publishing: 450–455, doi:10.2307/2957075, JSTOR   2957075
  7. ↑ Montefiore, Dora B. (June 1904). "The Women's Congress in Berlin". New Age. pp. 363–364.
  8. ↑ "Mary Church Terrell". The Journal of Negro History. 39 (4): 334–337. October 1954. doi:10.1086/JNHv39n4p334. JSTOR   2715413. S2CID   159674309.
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  10. ↑ Keller, Kristin Thoennes (2006-01-01). Carrie Chapman Catt: A Voice for Women. Capstone. ISBN   9780756509910.
  11. ↑ Report of the International Congress of Women held in Toronto, Canada, June 24th-30th, 1909 Under the Auspices of the National Council of Women of Canada. Toronto : Geo. Parker & Sons, 1910.
  12. ↑ Report of Transactions of the Fourth Quinquennial Meeting Held at Toronto, Canada, June, 1909, with which Are Incorporated the Reports of the National Councils and of International Standing Committees for 1908-1909. London : Constable & Co., 1910.
  13. ↑ Report of the International Congress of Women held in Toronto, op. cit.
  14. ↑ Oldfield, Sybil (2003). International Woman Suffrage: November 1914-September 1916. Taylor & Francis. ISBN   978-0-415-25738-1.[ page needed ]
  15. 1 2 3 Sodney, John (2019). "International Congress of Women". Salem Press Encyclopedia. EBSCOhost   89315054.
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  17. 1 2 Apr 28, 1915: International Congress of Women opens at The Hague Archived September 24, 2015, at the Wayback Machine , history.com
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  20. ↑ John Whiteclay Chambers (January 1991). The Eagle and the Dove: The American Peace Movement and United States Foreign Policy, 1900-1922. Syracuse University Press. pp. 55–57. ISBN   978-0-8156-2519-3.
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  22. ↑ "All Aboard The Peace Train - Arming All Sides". Arming All Sides. Archived from the original on 2016-05-07. Retrieved 2016-04-11.
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