Science, Gender, and Internationalism ─ Women's Academic Networks, 1917-1955

Born out of the optimism of the Paris Peace Conference, the League of Nations, and women's suffrage in Britain and the United States, the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) was founded in 1920 and consciously set out to break the mold of prewar society. To achieve sweeping professional and social change, the IFUW brought together women passionately committed to promoting higher education as a means to achieve international understanding, and launched an international academic women's network to achieve these objectives, weaving together personal friendships and professional contacts across divisions hardened by the unprecedented ordeal of global conflict. At its peak, the IFUW had 24,000 members and had expanded to thirty nations. In this fascinating transnational study, Christine von Oertzen traces the IFUW's rise in the international arena and its eventual decline in the Cold War era, making a valuable contribution to the cultural histories of diplomacy and intellectual exchange.

Christine von Oertzen is a Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany.