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American Friends Service Committee ephemera collection
Notifications
Held at: German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library [Contact Us]611 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19123
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
The American Friends Service Committee was founded in 1917 to coordinate relief activities of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, in the United States. Following the end of the First World War the AFSC fed undernourished children in Central Europe until around 1922. In 1924 the AFSC renewed feeding operations in Germany, funded through the American Committee for Relief of German Children, which had been organized by Henry T. Allen in response to the continued need he observed. The AFSC was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 and its work to relieve human suffering and foster peace continues today.
The collection consists of ephemera related to the relief work carried on by the American Friends Service Committee in Central Europe, especially Germany and Austria, following the First World War, from 1919 to 1923. It includes AFSC fliers and bulletins, with some items printed in German; one AFSC annual report; ephemera related to a mass meeting and concert for Quaker relief in Vienna held at the Academy of Music in 1922; and clippings about AFSC activities or conditions in Central Europe, mostly from Philadelphia newspapers. Two clippings dated December 1923 concern Henry T. Allen's initiation of the American Committee for Relief of German Children, with the aim of raising money for the AFSC to renew its feeding work in Germany.
These materials were collected during the contemporary period at the German Society of Pennsylvania, which had many members involved in raising funds for relief in Central Europe. In particular, the Women's Auxiliary of the German Society of Pennsylvania, as well as the GSP Foreign Relief Committee collected funds that went directly to the AFSC in the period from 1920 to 1924. Included is one promotional flier for the AFSC presented under cover of a letter of the GSP Foreign Relief Committee.
Subject
- Charities
- Reconstruction (1914-1939)
- Society of Friends--Charities
- World War, 1914-1918--Children
- World War, 1914-1918--Civilian relief
Place
- Publisher
- German Society of Pennsylvania: Joseph P. Horner Memorial Library
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Violet Lutz
- Finding Aid Date
- 2012.01
- Sponsor
- The processing of this collection was made possible through generous funding from the Max Kade Foundation, as part of the grant project "Retrieval and Cataloging of the German-American Experience, 1918-1960."
- Access Restrictions
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This collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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Copyright restrictions may apply. Please contact the German Society of Pennsylvania with requests for copying and for authorization to publish, quote or reproduce the material.
Collection Inventory
1 item in German (Bulletin No. 29). The bulletins generally concern conditions in Central Europe and the feeding of German children. Bulletin No. 34 contains an address by Alonzo E. Taylor delivered at the University of Pennsylvania ("An Expert statement of conditions in Central and Eastern Europe")
Letter from GSP signed by Louis H. Schmidt, Chairman, Executive Commitee. AFSC flier entitled "Relief for German Children." The GSP letter refers the reader to "Service Committee Bulletin, No. 25," for details
In German and English. Includes: Bulletin No. 39, in German; Bulletin No. 39 (2), in English; Bulletin No. 3 [39 (3)?], in German, with heading: "United Relief Committee, F. W. Haussmann, Treas."; and Bulletin No. 4 [39 (4)?], in English