ABSTRACT
Mary Wilhelmine Williams and Bertha Lutz’s inter-American feminism grew out of the broader international Pan-American movement that followed World War I. The war had shattered the ideal of European cultural superiority, opening a space for the “new” nations of the Americas to shape themselves into the nations of the future. Literature on transnational feminism has explored the lively transatlantic exchange of predominantly Euro-US organizations that also flourished during the post-World War I period, but it has paid minimal attention to women’s inter-American work. Williams’s feminist activism developed in tandem with her concerns for social justice and peace. Jane Addams and Florence Kelley served as her inspirational role models for their efforts to inculcate social welfare and reform through legislation that would offer women special protection in the workforce. The Pan-American feminist politics that Lutz and Williams jointly embraced also challenge long-held historiographical distinctions between “equal rights” and “social justice” feminism.
