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A War Generation?: The Radcliffe College Community in the Great War Era, 1914–1926

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2020

Michael McGuire*
Affiliation:
Mount Saint Mary College
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: Michael.McGuire@msmc.edu
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Abstract

Over 2,000 Radcliffe College students, administrators, and alumnae irregularly involved themselves in World War I (WWI) activism. While most matriculating and matriculated Radcliffe members collectively contributed to war work, their individual records illuminate peculiar paradoxes that challenge historical concepts of America's WWI culture. Radcliffe females generally assumed war tasks untethered to their professional experiences and political aspirations. Many undergraduates and graduates contended that they chose, circumscribed and concluded war-connected work at their discretion—not Radcliffe's and/or America's. Moreover, domestic efforts designed to awaken Americans' war patriotism and activity encountered a decidedly dormant and indulgent Cambridge college compound. Not until fall 1918—over a year into U.S. belligerency—did Radcliffe's campus completely mobilize for ‘selfless' war service. Radcliffe's WWI-related chronicles—including its members’ post-hostilities humanitarian activity—suggest that “coercive voluntarism” and “complete citizenship” were not ubiquitous forces in WWI America.

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Type
Essays
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE)