Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Minnesota Branch.

The roots of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) go back to April 1915 when more than 1,100 women from twelve countries met in The Hague, Holland. Their goal was to bring about a peaceful solution to World War I. This first international congress of women, which organized the Women's International Committee for Permanent Peace to continue its work, passed twenty resolutions and sent two delegations to fourteen countries and the Pope in the weeks immediately after the conference. While these delegations got many countries to agree to mediation, they were unsuccessful in getting any nation to start the process. Still President Woodrow Wilson was impressed enough with these resolutions that he incorporated many of them into his Fourteen Points. The second international conference of the Women's Committee for Permanent Peace convened in Zurich in 1919, adopted the WILPF name, established an international office in Geneva across the street from the League of Nations, and became the first international body to point out dangers to peace in the Versailles Treaty, which ended World War I. WILPF was not formed by uniting previously existing national units, but was established at the beginning as an international body. The international organization is funded by individual yearly memberships, contributions from national sections, and by gifts and bequests. The first international president was Jane Addams of the United States (eventual winner of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize) and the first international secretary was Emily Greene Balch, also of the United States (an eventual winner of the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize).

In the United States, the Women's Peace Party organized in Washington, D.C. soon after the outbreak of World War I and they held their first convention in January 1915. In January 1916 they became the United States Section of the Women's International Committee for Permanent Peace (which became WILPF in 1919) and established headquarters in Philadelphia and a legislative office in Washington, D.C.

...