REMEMBERING NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER EMILY GREENE BALCH
By Jason Sibert
Emily Green Balch made her mark on many areas, one of them was the struggle for peace.
She was just one American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, as Balch won in 1946. She became involved in the peace movement in 1914 just as World War I was brewing. In addition, Balch was a central leader in Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Balch was born in 1861 to a prominent family in Boston. Her father was a secretary for the famous Senator Charles Sumner. She graduated from Bryn Wawr College in 1889 and later was a graduate student in Paris where she did academic work on the poor in Paris. Balch did settlement work in her hometown of Boston before deciding on an academic career. She studied at Harvard, the University of Chicago, and the University of Berlin. She started teaching at Wellesley College where she focused on economics, consumption, and the economic role of women.
In 1913, she was appointed to serve as an economics professor at Wellesley. Later that year, Balch was promoted associate professor in the political economy and political and social science department. She served on several state commissions and was a leader in the Women’s Trade Union League.
Balch was a longtime pacifist and was a participant in Henry Ford’s International Committee on Mediation. When the United States entered World War I, she became a political activist opposing conscription and supporting the civil liberties of conscientious objectors. She collaborated with Jane Adams in the Women’s Peace party and numerous other groups. Wellesley College terminated her contract in 1919. Balch then served as an editor of the magazine The Nation, a well-known magazine of political commentary.
Balch converted from Unitarianism and became a Quaker in 1921. She stated, “Religion seems to me one of the most interesting things in life, one of the most puzzling, richest and thrilling fields of human thought and speculation… religious experience and thought need also a light a day and sunshine and a companionable sharing with others of which it seems to me there is generally too little… The Quaker worship at its best seems to me give opportunities for this sort of sharing without profanation.”
Her major achievements were just beginning, as she became an American leader of the international peace movement. In 1919, Balch played a central role in the International Congress of Women. It changed its name to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and was based in Geneva.
She was hired by the League as its first international Secretary-Treasurer, administering the organization’s activities. She helped set up summer schools on peace education and created new branches in over 50 countries. She cooperated with the newly established League of Nations regarding drug control, aviation, refugees, and disarmament. In World War II, she favored Allied victory and did not criticize the war effort, but she did support the rights of conscientious objectors. Balch was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom.
Jason Sibert is the executive director of the Peace Economy Project
