Call Number:

DG.026

Repository:

Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Extent:

7.25 linear ft. (18 boxes)

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of item], in the New York Peace Society Records (DG 026), Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Date:

1818-1940 (inclusive) and 1906-1940 (bulk)

Creator:

Andrews, Fannie Fern, 1867-1950, Forbes, Rose Dabney, 1864-1947, Gompers, Samuel, 1850-1924, Gordon, Lindley V., Gulick, Sidney Lewis, 1860-1945, Holmes, John Haynes, 1879-1964, Levermore, Charles H. (Charles Herbert), 1856-1927, Lochner, Louis Paul, 1887-1975, Mead, Edwin D. (Edwin Doak), 1849-1937, Mead, Lucia True Ames, 1856-1936, Short, William H. (William Harrison), 1868-1935, and Straus, Oscar S. (Oscar Solomon), 1850-1926

Abstract:

The New York Peace Society was the first peace society in the United States beginning in 1815, and lasting in various incarnations until 1940.

The New York Peace Society (New York Peace Society), organized by David Low Dodge in the summer of 1815, was the first peace society in the United States. The Society existed in four different stages, beginning in 1815, and lasting until 1940. In 1828, the first New York Peace Society became a branch of the American Peace Society. Subsequent to this merger, a second society was begun in New York City in 1837, lasting until about 1844. This group was active in advocating for arbitration in the dispute of U.S. claims against Mexico. In 1844, a third New York Peace Society was organized, but it soon disbanded (exact dates are unknown). Other forms of a group with the same name existed through the second half of the nineteenth century, one forming a branch of the Universal Peace Union.

In 1906, the New York contingent of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration initiated reorganization of the New York Peace Society. In February of that year a constitution was adopted and Oscar S. Strauss was elected President. Charles H. Levermore was Secretary of the organization from 1917 until 1924. Andrew Carnegie was one of its foremost supporters. The name was changed, from the Peace Society of the City of New York, to the New York Peace Society, at the time of incorporation in 1910. In October 1940, the New York Peace Society voted to merge with the World Alliance for International Friendship Through Religion, and in November of that same year the World Alliance agreed to the merger.

Material in the SCPC includes minutes and annual reports, correspondence, yearbooks, membership lists, miscellaneous forms and lists, pamphlets, and four scrapbooks, three of which relate to the National Arbitration and Peace Congress, held in 1907. The material was transferred to the SCPC in 1940, at the time when the Society was merged into the World Alliance for International Friendship Through Religion. Included are the documents of the Society's work in organizing the League to Enforce Peace, during World War I.

The SCPC has treated the various incarnations of the New York Peace Society as one organization in the arranging of the files. The New York Peace Society records from the first half of the twentieth century are the most extensive. Records are arranged into three major sections: the first section contains the nineteenth century material, organized chronologically, and twentieth century administrative records; the second section contains New York Peace Society correspondence from the first half of the twentieth century; the third section of files contains material about various early twentieth century peace congresses and conferences, sponsored or supported by the New York Peace Society.