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Jane Addams Peace Association [JAPA] Records
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Held at: Swarthmore College Peace Collection [Contact Us]500 College Avenue, Swarthmore 19081-1399
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. 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
JAPA began as a project of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1948. It's mission has been "to deepen understanding of peace and justice for children and their adults through reflection, dialogue, and social action. It seeks to "perpetuate the spirit of activist and pacifist Jane Addams, her love for children and humanity, her commitment to freedom and democracy, and her devotion to the cause of world peace." This is accomplished primarily through its annual Children's Book Awards. For many years, JAPA supported WILPF as their fiscal sponsor as well as in ongoing peace education, but in 2016 JAPA became its own entity. [quotes are from JAPA's website]
JAPA became it's own entity in 2016, prompting the Peace Collection to separate its records from WILPF thereafter (though there may still be some later JAPA material in the WILPF records).
The accessions received from JAPA (2017-077 [3 boxes] and 2021-001) by 2023 seem to be primarily those of Director Linda Belle. They were originally thought to be in good enough condition to send them straight to offsite storage, but later attention made it obvious that at least some processing might make it possible to discard much duplicate material. This was true of many folders of meeting minutes of the WILPF Board of Directors (attended by Linda Belle and others); any notes or other original material found in these folders of JAPA staff was kept, but the duplicates were taken out. Another reason for processing some of the cartons of files was because of questions on various topics that came in where it was necessary to check in numerous folders in different cartons. Sorting topic folders together into one or more boxes that are now together on a shelf should help with finding material for researchers. However, there was not time to process all the cartons donated.
An attempt was made to sort files in the processed boxes (1-26) into categories, so that meeting minutes, directory lists, correspondence, JACBA material, and financial records (to name a few) are together. However, not all files for each category are concurrent and a search should be made of the whole set of box/folder titles to find everything possible. The last 12 boxes of files are unprocessed; for all but one of these 12 the box/folder listings were created by JAPA.
The Swarthmore College Peace Collection is the official repository for these records.
Gift of JAPA, 2017 and 2021
This collection is only partially processed; this finding aid was created by Anne M. Yoder, Archivist.
Oversized publicity material -- mostly images of the covers of winning books -- for the Jane Addams Children's Book Awards were removed to the Oversized Documents Collection. Most of these were mounted on foam board. These are currently stored in two drawers of Mapcase #4.
- Publisher
- Swarthmore College Peace Collection
- Finding Aid Author
- Anne M. Yoder, SCPC Archivist
- Finding Aid Date
- 2023 (October)
- Access Restrictions
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There are no restrictions to use of this collection.
- Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendents, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
- Use Restrictions
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None.