Tag Archives: suffrage

100th anniversary of the start of World War I

Recognition of the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I-the Great War

Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Anti-conscription demonstration 1916

Wendy Chmielewski, Curator of the Peace Collection attended the “Resistance to War” conference at the University of Hull (UK), September 7-9, 2014 . The conference included presentations historians and other scholars from the UK and other countries focused on resistance to war from the mid nineteenth century through World War I. Chmielewski presented a paper on the role of women in fundraising efforts that financed the peace movement in Great Britain in the 1850s.

On September 30th, Anne Yoder, Peace Collection Archivist, spoke on World War I conscientious objection at the Kate Furness Public Library in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. This presentation was part of the Furness Library’s program recognizing the centenary of the Great War.

Yoder and Chmielewski will both be attending the “World War I: Dissent, Activism, and Transformation” conference at Georgian Court University (NJ), and co-sponsored by the Peace History Society, in mid October. Yoder will be speaking about WWI conscientious objectors, David and Julius Eichel. Chmielewski will present on the war and anti-rhetoric in the suffrage speeches and writings of movement leaders Carrie Chapman Catt and Jane Addams. Both papers will use resources housed in the Peace Collection.

Peace Collection staff have contributed articles on resistance to World War I as part of the new web site “Home Before the Leaves Fall, Digital Resources in the Delaware Valley on the Great War”. The web site <http://wwionline.org/> contains information about resources in the Peace Collection and Friends Historical Library on peace congresses leading up to the war, women efforts for peace from 1914 onward, conscientious objectors, the varieties of opposition to the war, and the work of British and American Quaker relief organizations.

Mary Walton to speak about Alice Paul at Swarthmore Friends Meeting

Swarthmore Friends Meeting is pleased to announce:

Mary Walton, author of A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, will speak at Swarthmore Friends Meeting, this Sunday, February 23, at 11:45 in Whittier Room. Alice Paul was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement during 1913-1920, and a New Jersey Quaker in a lineage of women Quaker activists. She was also a pioneer of nonviolent resistance. She is compared to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, in terms of her vision for and leadership of the women’s suffrage movement. Through nonviolent direct action, she and her followers spurred a recalcitrant Congress and President to approve the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Join us as we learn more about the struggles and sufferings of those involved in this movement from Mary Walton this Sunday. Mary Walton is author of four books, a former reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a community organizer.

Thanks to Mary Walton for her lecture on Alice Paul ’05 and Mabel Vernon ’06

We would like to thank author Mary Walton for her lecture this afternoon on the courageous work of Swarthmore alums Alice Paul ’05 and Mabel Vernon ’06 in their organizing and nonviolent campaigns to secure the vote for women in the United States.

A standing-room only crowd of people from the Swarthmore community and the local community gathered in the Scheuer Room to celebrate the International Day of Peace, the College’s sesquicentennial, and 125 years since the first peace studies course in higher education was taught at Swarthmore. The audience expressed their appreciation for Ms. Walton’s presentation with extended applause.

We would like to thank all of our co-sponsors who made this event a success, including Peace Day Philly for including our event in the city-wide celebration of the International Day of Peace.

Sponsors: Peace and Conflict Studies, the President’s Office, Swarthmore College Peace Collection, Friends Historical Library, History Department, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Women’s Resource Center, Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, English Literature Department, and Political Science Department.

Mark your calendars: Alice Paul ’05, Mabel Vernon ’06, and the Battle for the Ballot

Mark your calendars for the College’s first sesquicentennial celebration event, a talk by author Mary Walton:

A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul ’05, Mabel Vernon ’06, and the Battle for the Ballot

Mary Walton

September 19, 2013; 4:15 p.m.

Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall, Swarthmore College

Maps and directions

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Mary Walton

On September 19th, Peace and Conflict Studies and co-sponsors will celebrate the International Day of Peace, 125 years of peace and conflict studies at Swarthmore College, and the start of the College’s Sesquicentennial with a talk by Mary Walton, author of A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot. The focus of Walton’s talk will be Alice Paul (Class of 1905) and her friend and fellow Swarthmore alum, Mabel Vernon (Class of 1906).

A New Jersey Quaker, Alice Paul was the leader of the militant wing of the suffrage movement from 1913 to 1920. Hers was a David-and-Goliath struggle to convince a reluctant congress and a stubborn president to give women the vote. Paul and her followers were the first people to picket the White House. They were arrested, thrown in jail, brutalized and force fed when they went on hunger strikes. A pioneer in non-violent resistance, she was to suffrage what Gandhi was to Indian independence, what Martin Luther King Jr. was to civil rights.

In 1913, Mabel Vernon gladly gave up teaching to join her college friend, Alice Paul, in working full time for the Congressional Union. From that day on, she devoted her life to suffrage and other causes. Mabel Vernon was among the most militant suffragists. In 1916, she stood up in a full auditorium and heckled President Wilson as he spoke about democracy. Vernon picketed the White House and was among the first suffragists to go to jail.

Mary Walton is the author of four previous works of nonfiction. She was a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer for many years where she wrote more than a hundred magazine stories as a staff writer for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. She has also written for the New York Times, Washingtonian, theWashington Monthly, and the American Journalism Review. After graduation from Harvard University, and a turn at social work and community organizing, Walton began her journalism career in 1969 as a reporter for the Charleston (WV) Gazette.

International Day of Peace 2013

Bibliographic links for photographs.