Editing America First Committee (section)

==Organization and membership==
America First chose retired Brigadier General [[Robert E. Wood]], the 61-year-old chairman of [[Sears, Roebuck and Co.]], to preside over the committee.<ref name="deconde"/> Wood remained in his post until the AFC was disbanded in the days after [[Japan during World War II|Japan]]'s attack on Pearl Harbor.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-history-behind-plot-against-america-180974365/|title=The True History Behind 'The Plot Against America'|last=Solly|first=Meilan|date=16 March 2020|website=Smithsonian Magazine|language=en|access-date=2020-04-21|quote=}}</ref>

Organizationally, America First had an executive committee of about seven people, which took the lead in forming America First policies.<ref name="cole-1974-116">Cole 1974, p 116</ref> Its initial members included Wood, Stuart, and several businessmen from the Midwest.<ref name="cole-1974-116"/>  There was also a larger national committee, which was composed of prominent individuals who supported America First's aims.<ref name="cole-1974-116"/> Over the course of the organization's existence, some fifty people were part of the national committee.<ref name="cole-1974-116"/> Finally, there were local chapters organized in cities and towns of various size wherever a sizeable anti-interventionist feeling existed.<ref name="cole-1974-117"/> The existence of chapters permitted a more decentralized fundraising structure, with the chapters typically relying more on small contributions than the national entity.<ref>Cole 1974, pp 116–117</ref>

Serious organization and recruitment efforts took place from Chicago, the national headquarters of the committee, not long after the AFC's September 1940 establishment.<ref>Cole 1974, pp 115–117</ref> These included the taking out of full-page advertisements in leading newspapers in various cities and paying for radio broadcasts.<ref name="cole-1974-117"/>
Fundraising drives produced about $370,000 from some 25,000 contributors. Nearly half came from a few millionaires such as [[William H. Regnery]], H. Smith Richardson of the [[Vicks#History|Vick Chemical Company]], General Robert E. Wood of Sears-Roebuck,  publisher [[Joseph Medill Patterson|Joseph M. Patterson]] (New York ''Daily News'') and his cousin, publisher [[Robert R. McCormick]] (''[[Chicago Tribune]]'').<ref>Cole 1953. p. 15.</ref> Other funding came from executives of [[Montgomery Ward]], [[Hormel Foods]], and the [[Inland Steel Company]].<ref name="lafeber">{{cite book | author-first=Walter | author-last=LaFeber | title=The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad since 1750 | publisher=W. W. Norton & Co. | location=New York | year= 1989 | page=374}}</ref>

[[Image:America First Rally flyer April 4 1941.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.0|Flyer for an America First Committee rally in [[St. Louis, Missouri]] in early April 1941]]

At its peak, America First claimed 800,000–850,000 members in 450 chapters, making the AFC one of the largest [[Anti-war movement|anti-war organizations]] in the history of the United States.<ref>Bill Kauffman, ''Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism'' (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008), pp. 6–7.</ref> Two-thirds of members were located within a 300-mile radius of Chicago,<ref name="Wayne S. Cole 1953">Cole 1953, p 30</ref> and 135,000 members in 60 chapters throughout Illinois, its strongest state.<ref>Schneider p 198</ref> There were almost no AFC chapters in the [[American South]], where traditions of involvement in the military and ancestral ties to the  [[United Kingdom]] ([[Great Britain]]) were both strong.<ref>Dunn pp 57, 335n4</ref>

The AFC was never able to draw sufficient funding to conducting its own public opinion polling. The New York chapter received slightly more than $190,000, most of it coming from its 47,000 contributors. As the AFC never had a national membership form or national dues, and local chapters were quite autonomous, historians point out that the organization's leaders had no idea how many "members" it had.<ref>Cole 1953, 25-33; Schneider 201-2</ref>

The America First Committee attracted the sympathies of political figures, including: Democratic senators [[Burton K. Wheeler]] of Montana and [[David I. Walsh]] of Massachusetts, and Republican senators [[Gerald P. Nye]] of North Dakota and [[Henrik Shipstead]] of Minnesota. [[Philip La Follette]], former Governor of Wisconsin and a founder of the [[Wisconsin Progressive Party]], was another prominent member.<ref name="dunn-65"/> Overall, support from politicians was strongest in the Midwest.<ref name="lafeber"/> Wheeler and Nye were especially active as speakers at America First rallies.<ref name="cole-1974-117"/>  Other celebrities supporting America First were actress [[Lillian Gish]] and architect [[Frank Lloyd Wright]].<ref name="starr">{{cite book|author=Kevin Starr|title=Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace, 1940-1950|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PKL4DQ4XLtUC&pg=PA6|year=2003|publisher=Oxford UP|page=6|isbn=9780195168976}}</ref> Following his resignation as [[List of ambassadors of the United States to the United Kingdom|ambassador to the Court of St. James's]] in late 1940, the increasingly isolationist, anti-British, and defeatist [[Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.]] was offered the chance to head the America First Committee.<ref>Dunn pp 268–271</ref> Members of the national committee included: advertising executive [[Chester Bowles]], diplomat [[William Richards Castle Jr.]], journalist [[John T. Flynn]], writer and socialite [[Alice Roosevelt Longworth]], military officer and politician [[Hanford MacNider]], novelist [[Kathleen Norris]], [[New Deal]] administrator [[George Peek]], and [[World War I]] flying ace and later aviation executive [[Eddie Rickenbacker]].<ref name="cole-1974-116"/>

The aforementioned Gerald Ford was one of the first members of the AFC when a chapter formed at Yale University<ref>{{cite web|url=http://theweek.com/articles/621645/defense-america-first|title=In defense of America First|date=2 May 2016|first=Michael Brendan |last=Dougherty|magazine=The Week}}</ref> (however he resigned from the AFC shortly afterward, lest he endanger his position as an assistant coach for [[Yale Bulldogs football]]);<ref name="dunn-338n52">Dunn p 338n52</ref> Potter Stewart also served on the original committee of the AFC.<ref name="rosie">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/05/america-first-was-not-a-pro-nazi-organisation|title=America First was not a pro-Nazi organisation – Letters|first=George |last=Rosie|date=5 March 2017|newspaper=The Guardian}} Author a Scottish journalist.</ref>
Another future president, and son of the former and recently resigned American ambassador to Britain ([[Joseph P. Kennedy]]), [[John F. Kennedy]] contributed $100 with an attached note, "What you are doing is vital."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Maier |first=Thomas |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/904459783 |title=When lions roar : the Churchills and the Kennedys |date=2015 |isbn=978-0-307-95680-4 |edition=First paperback |location=New York |pages=303 |oclc=904459783}}</ref>