Helen Mears was a writer and journalist, especially interested in Japan and Asia. Mears first traveled to China in 1925 and ten years later Mears spent nine months in Japan. Out of the trip to Japan she published two books and a series of essays that appeared in The New Yorker. Mears traveled throughout Asia, the Soviet Union, Europe, and parts of South America. After World War II Mears traveled again to Japan served in an official capacity as a member of the U.S. labor advisory committee. From the 1950s through the 1960s Mears wrote occasional articles on southeast Asia, critiquing European and U.S. involvement there. Mears was a board member of the War Resisters League in the 1950s and worked against the H-Bomb. Helen Mears published several books on Japan. These include: Mirror for Americans, Japan, Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1948; Year of the Wild Boar: an American Woman in Japan in 1947.
Held at: Swarthmore College Peace Collection [Contact Us]