Call Number:

MC.950.202

Repository:

Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections

Extent:

0.005 linear ft. (1 folder)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Friends Girls' School, Tokyo letter (HC.MC 950.202), Quaker and Special Collections, Haverford College, Haverford, PA.

Date:

1938

Creator:

American Friends Service Committee

Form:

letters (correspondence)

Abstract:

This collection contains a copy of a letter written to the Friends Girls' School in Tokyo from the American Friends Service Committee.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) was set up in June, 1917, as an outgrowth of and coordination point for the anti-war and relief activities of various bodies of the Religious Society of Friends in the United States. A co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947, the AFSC continues to work to relieve human suffering and to find new approaches to world peace and non-violent social change.

At the suggestion of Nitobe Inazo and Uchimura Kanzo, who were studying in the United States at the time, the Women's Mission Board of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) decided to establish a school for girls in Japan. Friends Girls' School was then founded in 1887, with six teachers and three students. A year later, the school was moved to its present location on Hijirizaka in Mita, Minato-ku. A fire in 1902 and the firebombings of Tokyo in the spring of 1945 destroyed the buildings, but the school was repeatedly rebuilt through the devotion of teachers, students, and graduates, and with the help of Japanese and American Quakers.

This collection contains a copy of a 1938 letter written by the American Friends Service Committee to the Friends Girls' School in Tokyo sending good wishes and sentiments of solidarity in the face of regional and global political conflict. Additionally included within the collection is a letter from Thomas Kelly to Mary Hoxie Jones about the letter to Japan, discussing the editing process.

This collection is arranged as found in a single folder.