Our History

Founded September 4, 1940; Revived June 8, 1980

Who founded America First?

The founders of the America First Committee were chiefly, General Robert E. Wood, then chairman of the Board of Sears Roebuck & Co., and R. Douglas Stewart Jr., Son of the Vice President of the Quaker Oats Co.

Under the leadership of its most effective spokes man, Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, the America First Committee attracted many prominent Americans. Among these were actress Lillian Gish; journalist John T. Flynn; WWI air ace Captain Eddie Rickenbacker; Chicago publisher William H. Regnery; auto industrialist Henry Ford; socialist reformer Father Charles Couglin and Reverend Gerald L.K. Smith.

But the most effective and well-known member was Charles A. Lindbergh, the first man to fly nonstop across the Atlantic ocean in a single engine airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. And it was under the dynamic leadership of this white racial idealist and American patriot that the America First Committee grew to become the largest single organization in America, with over 850,000 dues-paying members in 450 chapters across the nation.

Charles A. Lindbergh Arthur J. Jones