Women Against the Good War

“Clear, well organized, and accessible to a general readership. This story essentially has never been told, and [Goossen’s] account will certainly become the defintive one.”History: Reviews of New Books

“Drawing upon surveys, interviews, and a wealth of unpublished material, Rachel Waltner Goossen tells the story of Mennonite and other women who opposed World War II on religious grounds, often as the wives or sweethearts of conscientious objectors in the wartime Civilian Public Service camps. Goossen explores the ambiguities of these women’s situation, and the ways their lives and outlook were profoundly altered by their experience. Women Against the Good War illuminates a little-known but fascinating part of America’s homefront history during World War II.” — Paul Boyer, Institute for Research in the Humanities

“Women Against the Good War is an important contribution to the new history of World War II, which challenges the long-held assumptions that after Pearl Harbor hardly anyone in the United States opposed the war effort. Goossen’s innovative research brings to historical consciousness the fact that draft resistance is not a Vietnam War phenomenon and the role of thousands of pacifist women who actively and publicly opposed the war by joining the ten thousand men in C.O. camps and performing other forms of alternative service, often sacrificing career goals and an adequate livelihood.” — Amy Swerdlow, author of Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s