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.
The Minnesota state branch of WILPF, which brought in three speakers from England, Germany, and France for seminars during the summer of 1922, was formally established as a state branch on October 4, 1922, at the Women's Club of St. Paul. This group was an outgrowth of the Minnesota Women's Disarmament Committee, established in early 1921, which hoped to further the work of the Washington disarmament conferences. They elected Maud Stockwell as their first chairman. Minnesota membership quickly reached 200, at one dollar per year, and within two years reached a membership of around 500, with most of the members from the Twin Cities area and only about 20 members from greater Minnesota. Chapters were organized and survived for a time in Duluth (1924-1926), Red Wing (1930-1931), Albert Lea (1932-1933), Virginia (late 1930s), Winona (1930s), Northfield, Brainerd, Montevideo, Rochester, and St. Cloud. Chapters in Minneapolis and St. Paul survived into the 1970s, when they were merged into the Twin Cities Metro branch. Stockwell continued as state chairman into 1934, when Ruth Gage-Colby took over for two years. The next 16 years the Minnesota section was led by Jean Wilcox of St. Paul and Anne Graves of St. Cloud. Other state leaders were Marjorie Sibley and Viena Hendrickson (1950s), Medora Peterson and Margaret Thomson (1960s), and Eleanor Otterness (1970s). Minnesota hosted national WILPF conventions in Minneapolis (1938 and 1975), and in St. Paul (1961).
While an accounting of WILPF activities and accomplishments on an international, national, and state level is beyond the scope of this history, a few highlights will be noted. Although WILPF acknowledged the weakness of the League of Nations, they worked closely with it during the 1920s and 1930s, supported treaties limiting naval armaments, and supported the 1927 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war. A 1924 WILPF pamphlet warned of rising anti-semitism in Europe and growing totalitarianism in Germany. WILPF international delegations went to Indochina, China, and Nicaragua. Their report on Haiti, after a visit there, led to a withdrawal of U.S. Marines. In 1932 WILPF circulated a worldwide petition addressed to the League of Nations Disarmament Conference and sponsored a cross-country peace caravan (it went through Minnesota) to gather signatures. Senate hearings on profits in the arms industry resulted from WILPF urgings and WILPF strongly supported the Emergency Peace Campaign of 1937-1939, which hoped to head off World War II, and urged the United States not to supply war materials to Japan and other countries. While WILPF lost many members during the 1940s, those that remained continued to fight for civil and human rights, proposed help for the European Jews and other victims of the war, and opposed the massive internment of Japanese-Americans. WILPF was present at the San Francisco conference which founded the United Nations in 1945 and was granted consultative status three years later with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. In the 1950s WILPF opposed the Korean War and government curtailing of civil liberties during the red scare. WILPF refused to amend its constitution to ban communists from membership. In 1957 WILPF presented 10,000 signatures to the White House protesting nuclear bomb testing. WILPF supported the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 and worked vigorously for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. From the mid-1960s on, WILPF was actively involved all over the country in demonstrations, meetings, vigils, and rallies to stop the war in Vietnam. In the 1970s and 1980s, WILPF worked on disarmament issues, the nuclear freeze, against the military conscription of both men and women, and locally protested the defense contracts of Honeywell and the U.S. Navy's Project ELF. The history of WILPF has been one of working for the peaceful resolutions of conflicts, eliminating the direct causes and means of war, and working for economic and social justice and human rights on international, national, and local levels.
From the guide to the Minnesota branch records., 1921-2000., (Minnesota Historical Society)
