Antiwar Dissent and Peace Activism in World War I America ― A Documentary Reader

World War I was a watershed in modern world history. On the battlefield, millions were slaughtered by chemical warfare, machine guns, and trench warfare—and this senseless bloodletting remains the most enduring legacy of the Great War. Critical to understanding the war’s significance is the often-overlooked emergence of a “modern” dynamic grassroots peace movement that both opposed war and sought to abolish its social causes.

Edited by Scott H. Bennett and Charles F. Howlett, Antiwar Dissent and Peace Activism in World War I America presents primary documents, most anthologized for the first time, illustrating opposition and resistance to the war and the government’s efforts to promote the war and restrict dissent. This fresh collection highlights the broad range of antiwar sentiment: religious and secular, liberal and radical, pacifist and nonpacifist, including conscientious objection. It also addresses key issues raised by the antiwar movement—particularly dissent in wartime, civil liberties, the meaning of patriotism, and citizen peace activism—that remain vital to understanding American democracy.

Scott H. Bennett is a professor of history at Georgian Court University. He is the author of Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915–1963.

Charles F. Howlett is an associate professor of education at Molloy College. He is the author of History of the American Peace Movement, 1890–2000: The Emergence of a New Scholarly Discipline.