“Peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.” – Jeanette Barza, 1964[1]
The historical past of ladies working for peace is broad and prolonged. From Jane Addams to Jane Fonda, Medea Benjamin to Barbara Lee, girls have taken outstanding roles in talking out and organizing in opposition to battle, weapons and battle. In celebration of Women’s History Month, what follows are some highlights from Evanston’s personal historical past of ladies peace employees.
The Cold War
It was the top of the Cold War. Evanston, like cities and cities throughout the U.S., was engaged in an official civil protection program. By 1963, fallout shelters had been established throughout Evanston and the federal authorities started to ship radiation detection kits to metropolis officers.[2]
In response to the growing risk of nuclear battle, girls throughout the nation started organizing. In 1961, Women Strike for Peace, (aka WSP or Women for Peace), a nation-large group, was based by Dagmar Wilson and Bella Abzug. On Nov. 1, 1961, 50,000 WSP members marched in 60 cities throughout the U.S. to protest the proliferation and testing of nuclear arms. These feminine “peace strikers” had been “average” girls who “suspended their regular routines for the day” to name upon world leaders to place an finish to nuclear weapons.
Many girls in Evanston joined the WSP motion. By early 1962, Evanston resident Marjorie Dolkart (1912-1991), together with a number of different native girls, shaped a “Pennies for Peace” program, urging girls to avoid wasting pennies as a protest in opposition to nuclear testing. The group, Dolkart instructed the press, selected pennies “to represent the human individual – small but worth saving.”[4]
In 1962, Dolkart’s actions had been documented by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). In authorities paperwork, Dolkart and “Pennies for Peace” (together with WSP chapters) had been included on an inventory of probably “subversive” organizations and people. “Be on the look-out for further developments” about Pennies for Peace, the HUAC doc warned.[5]
At the time, HUAC was in the technique of investigating “Communist activities in the peace movement.”[6] Women’s peace teams, particularly, had been the focus of its marketing campaign to root out “subversive” teams and establish communists. In December 1962, HUAC summoned 15 members of Women Strike for Peace to a listening to in Washington, D.C. The witnesses had been requested questions regarding their very own political views in addition to any ties they or WSP needed to communism.
Evanston resident and WSP member June Cosbey, who lived along with her husband, Robert Cosbey, at 1317 Judson Ave., traveled by prepare with eight different native girls to Washington, D.C. They joined roughly 300 girls who had are available in protest of the HUAC listening to.
“We decided we weren’t going to hide behind our brooms at the mere mention of the House Un-American Activities Committee,” Cosbey instructed a reporter, explaining why she and all the different girls had been there.[7] (In his article, the male reporter described Cosbey as an “attractive blonde.”)
“Women Befuddle House Probers,” learn one among quite a few headlines from papers nationwide protecting the girls’s look at the listening to.[8] In an excellent present of political power, the girls confirmed up at the HUAC listening to, many with their infants and youngsters; they challenged the politicians; they applauded, cheered and laughed; they handed roses to the witnesses after they completed testifying.
And all of the witnesses refused to reply any questions regarding their very own political histories.
“If a Communist or anybody else wants to participate in Women Strike for Peace,” one witness instructed the committee, “I don’t see what [I] can do, or should do, to prevent it. Anyone who will fight for disarmament and the end to nuclear testing is welcome. Unless everybody in the whole world joins us in this fight . . . then God help us.”[9]
Ultimately, their present of energy made a mockery of the HUAC committee. (“I came in late,” learn the caption of a well-known Herblock cartoon picturing one HUAC member whispering to a different, “Which was it that was un-American, women or peace?”)
Once again in Evanston, June Cosbey and others continued their work. In December 1962 Cosbey and others met with congressman-elect Donald Rumsfeld to clarify their objections to the HUAC investigation of ladies’s peace teams.
In March 1963, a Midwest regional WSP convention was held at the Friends Meeting House at 1010 Greenleaf St. in Evanston. June Cosbey, together with one other Evanston resident, Evelyn Salk (1924-2020), served as the convention’s “hospitality chairmen” [sic]. Salk was additionally chair of the North Shore WSP chapter. (She later co-based Northlight Theatre).
A yr later, in May 1964, the Evanston Review reported that Salk was “attending” a NATO “peace meeting” in The Hague, Netherlands.[10]
Salk was, the truth is, protesting on the streets outdoors the assembly.
Salk was one among 800 girls from 14 international locations who demonstrated outdoors the NATO convention in The Hague to protest nuclear arms plans proposed by the U.S.[11]
Attendees of the 1963 Midwest WSP convention registered at a reasonably new group: the Evanston Peace and World Affairs Center (also referred to as the Peace Center).
The middle, positioned at 923 Main St., opened in December 1962. (In 1967, the middle moved to 926 Chicago Ave.) It was designed to function an academic hub for these “who feel that world problems must be resolved by peaceful means.”[12] The middle hosted audio system and occasions and offered “information, education and action on all aspects of disarmament.” [13]
Both ladies and men had been members of the Peace Center. But over the years, many ladies took outstanding and main roles at the middle, together with Marjorie Blau, Dorothy McDade, Annette Jacobson, Mrs. Henry Halstead, Pearl Hirshfield, Frances Mettling (of Winnetka), Lynn Heidt and Jeanette Barza, who served as the Peace Center’s vice chairman and later, as its director till 1966.[14]
Barza described the Peace Center’s work to supply schooling for “the North Shore community which will stimulate mature, ‘aware’ thought and activity.” [16]
Not solely had been peace teams corresponding to Women for Peace and a number of different teams welcome in the middle, however the middle itself was designed to deliver collectively the myriad organizations that shared related issues. “To cooperate and enhance religious, civic, and cultural groups whose programs have a concern for peace,” Barza stated of the Peace Center’s general mission. [17]
By the mid-1960s, as the battle in Vietnam expanded, membership in the Peace Center additionally expanded.[19]
In 1966, Evanston resident Beverly Younger Podewell turned a member. Podewell’s daughter later described her mom, who was energetic in the civil rights motion, as “very political.” (She had marched with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others in Selma.) Podewell was an actor who made her display debut in Medium Cool, a 1969 movie shot largely in Chicago throughout the 1968 Democratic National Convention; the movie serves as a file of the protests and brutal police response that unfolded on the metropolis’s streets throughout the conference.
By the mid 1960s, the Peace Center, like different peace teams round the nation, had begun to shift its focus to opposing the Vietnam War. In February 1966, the middle issued an official assertion calling for the finish of the bombing in Vietnam and the adoption of “peaceful alternatives” to finish the battle.[22]
Next: Part II: The Vietnam War
Call for questions: Do you will have a query associated to Evanston historical past? If you might be inquisitive about an individual, place or occasion, ask away by emailing Jenny Thompson at jenny@evanstonroundtable.com. Formerly of the Evanston History Center, Thompson is an impartial public historian and nonprofit advisor.
[1] Jeanette Barza, “Message of Memorial Day in Atom Age Must be Peace,” Evanston Review, June 4, 1964.
[2] “City Gets Fallout Detectors; Marks 38 Shelter Buildings,” Evanston Review, April 4, 1963.
[3] See: Amy Swerdlow, Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
[4] “Housewives Ask Pennies For Peace,” Chicago Daily News, Jan. 17, 1962.
[5] “Communist Activities in the Peace Movement (Women Strike for Peace and Certain Other Groups),” U.S. House of Representatives, 87th Congress, Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, Dec. 11-13, 1962, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963, 2090.
[6] “Communist Activities in the Peace Movement (Women Strike for Peace and Certain Other Groups),” U.S. House of Representatives, 87th Congress, Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, Dec. 11-13, 1962, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963, 2090.
[7] “ ’Twas Like Ladies Day at Ball Park,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, Dec. 14, 1962.
[8] Columbus Dispatch, Dec. 14, 1962.
[9] “ ’Twas Like Ladies Day at Ball Park,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, Dec. 14, 1962.
[10] “Mrs. Salk Attends NATO Peace Meeting,” Evanston Review, May 14, 1964.
[11] “Women Picket NATO Meeting,” Chicago Tribune, May 14, 1964.
[12] “Let the Fur Fly,” Evanston Review, Feb. 13, 1964.
[13] “Let the Fur Fly,” Evanston Review, Feb. 13, 1964.
[14] “New Peace Center Opens With Staff of Volunteers,” Evanston Review, Dec. 20, 1962. This record is under no circumstances complete. Many extra girls had roles as members, coordinators, board members and leaders of the Peace Center and different regional peace organizations.
[15] “Nuclear Policy Group to be Chartered Here,” Evanston Review, June 1, 1961.
[16] “Let the Fur Fly,” Evanston Review, Feb. 13, 1964.
[17] “Let the Fur Fly,” Evanston Review, Feb. 13, 1964.
[18] Jeanette Barza, Obituary, Evanston Review, May 30, 2002.
[19] “Peace Center Has 15 New Members,” Evanston Review, July 7, 1966.
[20] Rick Kogan, “Actress Beverly Younger Podewell, 83,” Chicago Tribune, July 29, 1999.
[21] Bonnie Ragland, “Teaching of Tolerance – A Step Toward Peace,” Evanston Review, April 14, 1966.
[22] “Peace Center Calls for Halt of U.S. Bombing in Vietnam,” Evanston Review, Feb. 24, 1966.
