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Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Collection
ARS.0056
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Archive of Recorded Sound
Title: Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Collection
Creator:
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Identifier/Call Number: ARS.0056
Identifier/Call Number: 693
Physical Description:
14 box(es)
242 audiocassettes ; 38 7" open reel tapes; photographs, transcripts; supplemental print materials; related monographs
Date: 1967-1989
Language of Material: English
Physical Location: Archive of Recorded Sound, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94305-3076
Abstract: The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Collection contains oral history interviews on audiocassettes
and reel-to-reel tapes, transcripts (full and excerpts), photographs, and supplemental materials and related monographs.
Collection is open for research. Listening appointments may require 24 hours notice. Contact the Archive Operations Manager.
Property rights reside with the repository. Publication and reproduction rights reside with the creators or their heirs. To
obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Head Librarian of the Archive of Recorded Sound.
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Collection, ARS.0056. Courtesy of the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound,
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA.
1. San Jose Chapter
2. San Francisco East Bay Chapter
3. Palo Alto Chapter
4. Santa Cruz Chapter
5. Outside of California
6. Class Presentations
7. WILPF 1967 National Conference at Asilomar, CA
8. Supplemental Materials
9. Monographs
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Collection consists of 232 audiocassettes housed in 7 boxes and 38
7" open reel tapes housed in 2 boxes. The collection also contains supplemental print and manuscript materials housed in 4
boxes. The oral history interviews that comprise the collection were recorded between roughly 1979 and 1989. Some of the 7"
open reel tapes contain recordings of the 1967 WILPF National Conference at Asilomar. The print and manuscript material have
varied date ranges.
The interviews are the product of the Women's Peace Oral History project, which began in 1979. As the director of the Women's
Peace Oral History project, Judith Porter Adams trained student and volunteer interviewers, coordinated and funded the national
project with support of the Jane Addams Peace Association and individual donations, and collected and arranged the materials
now housed at the Archive of Recorded Sound.
The interviewees include 'rank and file' as well as prominent members who have held state, national, and international leadership
positions in WILPF and Women Strike for Peace (many were active in both). With a few exceptions, older women (over 60) were
interviewed because of their years of involvement in peace and justice issues. Those who are still alive in the year this
collection was processed by the ARS are still dedicated activists in their late 80's and 90's.
WILPF had its roots in the U. S. Women's Peace party, and was founded in 1915 by 1300 women from neutral and warring nations
who met in the Hague, Netherlands to try to negotiate the end of the war, send envoys from their group to nations at war and
the U.S., and to urge peaceful resolution and 'continuous mediation' to avoid future conflicts. WILPF's second congress met
in Versailles in 1919 where the peace terms were negotiated, and the women's congress made several long-term resolutions for
disarmament, gender equality, and for a world body to negotiate peaceful settlement of conflicts (although WILPF was critical
of the League of Nations). President Wilson used many of their proposals in his 14 Point Peace Plan.
Jane Addams, named the first president of WILPF, became the second woman (and the first American woman) to win the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1931. Longtime WILPF board member Emily Greene Balch also won the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1946.
The U.S. section of WILPF opposed U.S. participation in WWII (although members supported the troops). In the 1950s, WILPF
members rallied against the HUAC hearings. WILPF worked against nuclear testing, and many members also joined the grassroots
Women Strike for Peace, a less hierarchical peace-action group. In the 1960s, WILPF was a critical force in the anti-Vietnam
War movement. WILPF continues to take a strong stand on issues related to peace and women's equality as a U.N. Non-Governmental
Organization (NGO).
The Women's Peace Oral History project was organized by Judith Porter Adams, who began the project in 1979, to celebrate WILPF's
70th anniversary. The project interviewed ninety older women from local California and other states' branches. Adams, her
students at Stanford and San Jose State, and volunteers conducted the interviews. The project's goal was to preserve the stories
of how the women became committed to peace and justice issues, and what sustained them over their lifetime of activism."
See also WILPF Oral History Project tapes in Preservation Master Tape Collection, ARS0097.
This finding aid was produced with generous financial support from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
All interviews from this collection have been digitized. Many of these are available to stream or download via Stanford's
library catalog, Searchworks http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/6757885.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Women Strike for Peace
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom