Anna Lenah Elgström

Overview

Anna Lenah Elgström born Helsingborg, Sweden December 29, 1884 (d. 1968). Swedish pacifist author. Wrote of her opposition to Great War in novel Mother, 1917. Active in International Women’s Committee for Lasting Peace; delegate to WILPF conference, Zurich, 1919, which she chronicled in Women of the Time.

Quotations

“We women are revolting against state mechanism, against an age of materialism, which is dragging down the individual soul, robbing it of reverence for life, deflecting it from the purpose of life, purity, love, knowledge. I have tried to give voice to the pains of motherhood, a motherhood which recognizes these purposes, which venerates life. War is not the only destructive force. The age is material. . . It is a game, a pleasure. It becomes mechanical and this breeds war. Women are to blame as well as men. We ought to possess enough mother conscience, mother responsibility, to rise up and stop this life of materialism and mechanical organization. I am not hopeful this can come quickly. I am not sure we have entered on the last war. I believe in evolution, and evolution comes slowly. It will come in time. . . I believe in the women of the future.” (to Madeleine Doty, Behind the Battle Line, 1918, pp. 143-4; photo Wikipedia)