The Transformation of Robert E. Sherwood from Pacifist to Interventionist
In: Peace & change: PC ; a journal of peace research, Volume 32, Issue 4, p. 467-498
ISSN: 1468-0130
The playwright Robert E. Sherwood is most known for his powerful antiwar voice on Broadway during the late 1920s and 1930s. A veteran of World War I, Sherwood's ideas echoed those of many in the U.S. population during the interwar years—anger at corporate greed and power‐hungry world leaders, and disillusionment with Woodrow Wilson's stated war goal of "making the world safe for democracy." As fascism spread in Europe, Sherwood evolved from a pacifist into an interventionist. Largely relying on his diary entries and his three Pulitzer Prize–winning plays, Idiot's Delight (1936), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1938), and There Shall Be No Night (1940), this article traces Sherwood's sea change from staunch pacifist to determined interventionist.