War and Postwar
During World War I, Blatch devoted her time to the war effort, heading the Women's Land Army, which provided additional farm labor. She wrote Mobilizing Woman Power in 1918, about women's role in the war effort, urging women to "go to work". In 1920, she published A Woman's Point of View, where she took a pacifist position due to the destruction of the war.
After the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Blatch joined the National Woman's Party to fight for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, rather than the protective legislation supported by the Women's Trade Union League. She also joined the Socialist Party, and was nominated for New York City Comptroller and later the New York State Assembly, but did not win office. She eventually left the party, because of its support for protective legislation for women workers.
During the 1920s, Blatch also worked on behalf of the League of Nations, proposing improvements for the amendments to the League's Covenant.
Read more about this topic: Harriot Eaton Stanton Blatch
Famous quotes containing the words war and, war and/or postwar:
“If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)
“Fashions change, and with the new psychoanalytical perspective of the postwar period [WWII], child rearing became enshrined as the special responsibility of mothers ... any shortcoming in adult life was now seen as rooted in the failure of mothering during childhood.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)