Editor: Seth Ford,
Fords@grinnell.edu

History Home Page

Web pages maintained by pricel@grinnell.edu

Regan Golden-McNerney: "Motherhood versus Masculinity: The Transformation of American Motherhood in Response to the Peace Movement and the Vietnam War"

Regan Golden-McNerney explored the topic of womanhood and the peace movement in United States between 1950 and the 1970s by exploring the life of one woman: Peg Mullen. Peg Mullen, Regan explained was typical of her times: like many women who married during the Second World War, Peg Mullen went to work while her husband went to war, and at its conclusion withdrew to the home to raise her family. Home, for Peg Mullen, was a farm in Iowa. Like many housewives in the late 1950s, Peg Mullen combated her isolation by joining various associations, such as the PTA.

However, Peg Mullen broke the conventional mold with her early and active commitment to politics. She attended the National Democratic Convention in 1964, 1968, and in 1972 served as a delegate. She was also critical of US policy in Vietnam at a time when most women's peace movements were apolitical. Unlike many women who were engaged in the peace movement in the 1960s, she directed her efforts to the national level. And unlike many women involved in the peace movement at that time, she was, by her own words, working class and not well-educated.

Founding Mothers and Others For Ending the Draft, Peg Mullen broke new ground as a woman activist. Her reasons for doing so, however, were traditional: the desire to protect her sons. She drew on traditional images in making her challenge: she was just a farmer, just a wife, just a mother. The death of one son by friendly fire in Vietnam, and her subsequent efforts to learn of the circumstances of his death prompted Peg Mullen to challenge the government and the highest levels of the military. In the process, Regan argued, she also challenged the image of masculinity portrayed by the army.

While Peg Mullen seemed to be at the vanguard of women's activism, she did not claim to be a feminist. During her telephone with Regan, Peg Mullen always skirted questions about feminism. Here, too, the usual historical accounts of women in the second half of the twentieth century did not seem to accurately describe Peg Mullen’s life and attitudes. For Regan, it was when Peg Mullen’s story differed from those accounts that it became most interesting.

Lindsay Hagy: "Three Duchesses: The Political Influence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Elizabeth, Duchess of Somerset, and Melusine, Duchess of Kendal Under Queen Anne and King George I.”

In this paper Lindsay Hagy took up the question of how women in the eighteenth century exercised power. Lindsay’s study revealed that women didn't often exercise power, "but when they had it, they had lots of it.” And those women who did have power exercised it through their association with the court, where friendship and sometimes sexual relations brought women into close contact with the monarch.

Lindsay studied three women: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Elizabeth, Duchess of Somerset, and Melusine, Duchess of Kendal. Most powerful of the three was Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who served as the Groom of the Stole to Queen Anne between 1683 to 1711, eventually becoming keeper of the Privy Purse. Sarah was a political animal, and took considerable pride in the exercise of power. She eventually exercised influence over a number of offices and attempted to influence Parliament as well.

Queen Anne eventually found Sarah too controlling, and replaced her with the less threatening Elizabeth, Duchess of Somerset. However, even Elizabeth who repeatedly expressed her lack of interest in court politics enjoyed a measure of power by virtue of her access to the queen. Access gave Melusine, Duchess of Kendal, mistress of King George, power as well, because others at court assumed that such access translated into influence.

The assumption itself, Lindsay argued, translated into real power, because it affected how others related to these women. For example, Melusine became the informal sounding board for petitions to the king. Eventually, this role gave her the power to determine what was brought before the king. In the case of Elizabeth and Melusine, it was others' assumptions about their access to monarchs, Lindsay argued, rather than any direct influence that these women exercised over monarchs themselves, that gave them power.
MS-