While undertaking PhD research, Emma Post visited the LSE archives to learn more about the life and work of Rachel Crowdy, the highest-ranking female diplomat at the League of Nations. Made Head of the Social Section, while male colleagues were made Directors and paid more, Rachel Crowdy was an influential and tireless voice for improving social, economic and health policy.
In 1919, the war-torn city of Paris became a city of hope when it hosted the Peace Conference that would end the First World War. Many hoped for structural change and projected their optimism on the men gathered in Paris to create a new world order. Men, indeed, as women had not been invited to attend the Peace Conference. While women were instrumental in the running of the peace negotiations, thanks to their work as typists, secretaries, and staff of the hotels and restaurants, it took intense lobbying from women’s organisations before women were given a seat at the table.
These women had fought for suffrage and equality before the war, had often played important roles in the war effort and would not accept a return to the situation before the war.[1] Instead, they organised a parallel women’s peace conference and on the very last day of the negotiations, a delegation of women was invited to present the results of the women’s conference to the male diplomats.[2] One of their suggestions that was adopted by the Peace Conference was that Article 7 became included in the Covenant of the newly founded League of Nations. The League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations, was created to secure peace through cooperation and diplomacy. The Covenant was the founding document of the League of Nations, and Article 7 read that “All positions under or in connection with the League, including the Secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women.” [3]
Women in the League of Nations
When the Secretary-General of the League of Nations was given the task of appointing his staff, he wrote a letter to Rachel Crowdy (1884-1964). Crowdy had grown up in London, but received the letter in France, where she had overseen British volunteer nurses during the war. That work had let her to be knighted as “Dame” and made her the perfect candidate to join the League’s Secretariat. In contrast with her male colleagues, though, she was not appointed a Director, but rather as “Head” of a Section. This meant that although she had similar responsibilities, her position came with less prestige and a lower salary.
Crowdy’s position fitted in a pattern at the League of Nations where women worked in positions for which they were overqualified and underpaid.[4] Still, Crowdy’s appointment to the highest ranks of the League of Nations meant that she was influential both in regards to policymaking and as a symbol of women’s changing position in the 1920s.
It is perhaps not surprising that although all positions in the League were open to women, most women were appointed to the Social Section. This section was responsible for issues such as sex trafficking, child welfare and health questions, topics traditionally associated with women’s presumed maternal and caring abilities. Those topics had also been the focus of various women’s organisations, which found an important liaison in Crowdy.[5] As the head of the Social Section, she gathered information from various organisations, and they in turn suggested their ideas to her, which demonstrates the closeness they felt to her and their belief in her influence on the debates.[6] Crowdy also discussed matters with national governments and with the League’s Secretariat, trying to get everyone on the same line, oftentimes to eventually conclude: “I think, personally, that we shall get what we want”.[7]
Crowdy officially served as a neutral internationalist who could not participate in the debates, but she had some strong opinions of her own that she made sure to push through. In 1923, for instance, the Cuban delegate suggested that young women travelling unaccompanied should be required to carry with them a certificate of their character – in other words, evidence that they were morally sound. Women’s organisations asked Crowdy what could be done to oppose this measure that would limit women’s mobility without protecting them. Crowdy replied in a letter which she had marked personal and confidential, that she had found administrative measures that could serve as a “legitimate excuse” to postpone the discussion, “feeling sure that when Governments had had time to think over the suggestion, they would realise its absurdity.” The time that she had won by this postponement could then be used by the women’s organisations to write to their governments protesting the Cuban suggestion. The pressure from these organisations had its effect, and the Cuban delegate withdrew his suggestion even before the next meeting took place.[8]
Setbacks after years of optimism
Thanks to Crowdy’s hard work, “a miracle had, it seemed to me, been performed” and she was happy to report that “We are getting progress everywhere.” [9] Regardless of these successes, the League saw the need to limit its budget on social issues in the face of a global economic crisis. This angered Crowdy, who was convinced that the work on social issues was essential to the League’s aims, arguing that, “You may disarm the world, you may reduce your troops or abolish your battleships, but unless you introduce better economic conditions, better social conditions and better health conditions into the world, you will not be able to maintain peace even if you obtain it.” [10]
Crowdy’s resistance to the decision to shrink the Social Section was not rewarded. She had been the highest ranking woman to the League for 12 years, but in 1929, when other directors and heads of Section saw their contracts renewed for seven more years, Crowdy’s contract was not extended.
Women’s organisations were angered by this action that pushed out the only high-ranking woman in a time when fascist and nationalist governments were threatening the emancipation of women more generally. They expressed their support for Crowdy and wrote letters to the Secretary General asking for Crowdy’s contract to be extended beyond 1930.[11]
Eventually, her contract was prolonged for one year, after which she was replaced by a man who received a higher position and salary. Though this angered Crowdy, she was also glad to leave Geneva as she had “hated it so much” and “never felt well for a moment”.[12] It is likely that this at least to some degree reflects her frustration with the resistance she had experienced from various member states, as well as her criticism that sound policies were purposefully retarded in favour of national protection, when “with a push”, results could have been achieved.[13]
From the League to the United Nations
Crowdy had not lost faith in the importance of the issues she had worked on at the League. After having left Geneva, Crowdy travelled widely to give speeches about social issues, and she became a member of the International Bureau for the Suppression in Traffic in Persons, an organisation that fought for the criminalisation of sex work.[14] Thanks to her contacts at this organisation, at the League and the British government (where she had worked during the Second World War) she joined the United Nations in 1945.[15] Her input was used for the “UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others” in 1949. Halfway through the 1950s she had to limit her activities due to poor health and on 10 October 1964, she died aged 80. Although she had experienced significant setbacks, Crowdy’s influence was felt throughout the interwar period and beyond.
Further reading
Egginton, Heidi, and Zoë Thomas, eds. Precarious Professionals: Gender, Identities and Social Change in Modern Britain. New Historical Perspectives. London: University of London Press, 2021.
Gorman, Daniel. The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Ikonomou, Haakon A, and Karen Gram-Skjoldager. The League of Nations: Perspectives from the Present. 1st ed Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2019.
Sluga, Glenda, and Carolyn James, eds. Women, Diplomacy and International Politics since 1500. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.
References
[1] For more, see the following LSE blogposts: https://www.lse.ac.uk/library/collection-highlights/peace-and-internationalism and https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsehistory/2019/04/03/lse-internationalism-and-peace-1914-1945/.
[2] Among them were prominent women such as Millicent Garret Fawcett.
[4] Susan Pedersen, “Women at work in the League of Nations Secretariat,” in: Heidi Egginton and Zoë Thomas (eds), Precarious Professionals: Gender, Identities and Social Change in Modern Britain. New Historical Perspectives (London: University of London Press, 2021): 181-203. https://read.uolpress.co.uk/projects/precarious-professionals
[5] More about women’s organisations and sex trafficking.
[6] Such as the National Vigilance Association (4NVA/4/11/30), and the International Council of Women (5ICW/E/07).
[7] Letter from Rachel Crowdy to Alison Neilans (07-02-1923) Association for Moral & Social Hygiene. “League of Nations 1”, 1933 1908. 3AMS/B/11/01/70. LSE: Women’s Library.
[8] Letter from Rachel Crowdy to Alison Neilans (01-02-1924), Association for Moral & Social Hygiene. “League of Nations 1”, 1933 1908. 3AMS/B/11/01/70. LSE: Women’s Library.
[9] Lecture by Crowdy (22-11-1943) International Bureau for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons. “Miscellaneous – Conferences, Egypt (Proposed Congress) Lecture Conferences, London, Oct 1943”. London, October 1943. 4IBS/5/2/40/FL124. LSE: Women’s Library.
[10] In the LSE library: Rachel Crowdy, “The Humanitarian Activities of the League of Nations”, Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs 6:3 (1927): 153.
[11] For instance, letters from the Association for Moral & Social Hygiene (26-11-1928).
[12] “Papers Relating to the International Abolitionist Federation, 1929-1935,” 100, 3AMS/E/03, box 126, LSE: Women’s Library.
[13] “Typed Notes of Interview between Helen Wilson and Alison Neilans and Dame R Crowdy Dated 8 Nov 1928,” 3AMS/E/02/box125, LSE: Women’s Library.
[14] “Records of the International Bureau for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons, General Secretary’s Papers, Earlier Post-War Years (1945-1957), General Secretary, International Bureau File – Hugh Gray’s “Current File”’, 1957 1950. 4IBS/8/B/4/1, box FL353. LSE: Women’s Library.
[15] Crowdy, Rachel. “Correspondence Cr”, 14 September 1944. MARKHAM/25/19. LSE: Women’s Library.
All pictures are used with permission from the United Nations Archives in Geneva and LSE Women’s Library.
