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Theodore M. Brown and Elizabeth Fee

Theodore M. Brown is with the Departments of History and of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. Elizabeth Fee is with the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Theodore M. Brown, PhD, Department of History, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 (e-mail: theodore_ brown{at}urmc.rochester.edu).

IN APRIL 1915, 1300 WOMEN from across Europe and North America came together in a congress of women to protest the killing and destruction of the war then raging in Europe. The organizers of the congress were prominent women in the International Suffrage Alliance, who saw a connection between their struggle for equal rights and the struggle for peace.¹ They elected Jane Addams, founder of Hull House in Chicago, Ill, as president.

The congress passed 20 resolutions demanding an end to the conflict and the promotion of a permanent peace. Its members called on governments to establish a conference of neutral states and to help negotiate an end to the fighting and a resolution of grievances. They called for an assembly of women to frame the terms of the peace settlement and submit to the participating states their practical proposals for creating a lasting peace. They sent envoys to carry their resolutions to the neutral and belligerent states in Europe and to the president of the United States. Jane Addams met with President Wilson, who stated that the congress’s resolutions were by far the best formulations for peace that had yet been proposed.

The women of the congress called for disarmament, for equality between women and men, for equality among nations, and for a world institution to mediate rising conflicts and prevent them from growing into war. They formed an international women’s committee to put together peace proposals for the official peace conference convened in Versailles in 1919.

The women’s congress (meeting in Zürich because the French government refused to admit German women delegates) established a permanent organization called the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF). It was founded as an international body that would work globally, with its units in individual countries and towns—not as a federation of national organizations or an alliance of national affiliates. Its objectives were "to bring together women of different political views and philosophical and religious backgrounds determined to study and make known the causes of war and work for a permanent peace."

WILPF is now the oldest and largest international organization working for women’s rights, peace, and social justice. The organization’s activities through the years since 1915 can in part be traced through the record of the resolutions passed by its international congresses. The resolutions excerpted in this selection are from the 12th such congress, held in Paris, France, August 4–8, 1953. Many of the positions endorsed by this congress—for example, those calling for the prohibition of chemical and biological weapons, condemning racism and genocide, asserting the need to protect refugees and international human rights, and opposing capital punishment—would subsequently be recognized as essential to the promotion of public health and would be passed as resolutions and policy statements of the American Public Health Association.

Two leaders of WILPF have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the first 2 American women to be accorded this honor. Jane Addams (1860–1935) received the prize in 1931, and Emily Greene Balch (1867–1961) received it in 1946.

Accepted for publication September 18, 2003.

Reference

1. Addams J, Balch EG, Hamilton A. Women at The Hague: The International Congress of Women and Its Results. New York, NY: Macmillan; 1915.

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