Emily Greene Balch

Emily Greene Balch was an important Progressive Era reformer and advocate for world peace whose opposition to World War I resulted with the board of trustees at Wellesley College refusing to renew her contract as a professor of economics and sociology. Afterwards, Balch cofounded the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). For her advocacy efforts in preventing and reconciling conflicts, Balch was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1946. In tracing Balch's work at Wellesley, for the WILPF, and for other peace movements, Kristen E. Gwinn draws on a rich collection of primary sources such as letters, lectures, a draft of Balch's autobiography, and proceedings of the WILPF and other organizations in which Balch held leadership roles. Gwinn illuminates Balch's ideas on negotiated peace, internationalism, global citizenship, and diversity while providing pointed insight into her multifaceted career, philosophy, and temperament. Detailing Balch's academic research on Slavic immigration and her arguments for greater cultural and monetary cohesion in Europe, Gwinn shows how Balch's scholarship and teaching reflected her philosophical development. This first scholarly biography of Balch helps contextualize her activism while taking into consideration changes in American attitudes toward war and female intellectuals in the early twentieth century. Kristen E. Gwinn is an independent historian living in Illinois. She has contributed to theEncyclopedia of Activism and Social Justiceand was involved with editingThe Eleanor Roosevelt Papers: The Human Rights Years, 19451948.

 

Kristen E. Gwinn is an independent historian living in Illinois. She has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice and was involved with editing The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers: The Human Rights Years, 1945-1948.