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Wilmer J. and Mildred Binns Young Papers

Notifications

Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. 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

Call Number:
RG5.289
Repository:
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
Extent:
2 linear ft. (3 boxes)
Language:
English
Preferred Citation:
[Indicate the cited item or series here], Wilmer J. and Mildred Binns Young Papers, RG5/289, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College.
Date:
1909-2014 (inclusive)
Creator:
Young, Wilmer J. and Young, Mildred Binns
Abstract:
Wilmer J. Young (1887-1983), a Quaker teacher and peace activist born in Iowa, was involved in post World War I reconstruction in France and Poland. He married Mildred Binns in 1922, and together they worked with AFSC work camps and cooperative farms until he began to teach at Pendle Hill in 1955. The collection contains primarily journals and correspondence from his time in France.

Wilmer J. Young was born in 1887 in Linn County, Iowa, the son of William Penn and Mary Mott Young. He attended Westtown School and graduated from Haverford College in 1911. Young taught at Olney, Moses Brown, and Westtown. In 1918, he joined about 200 other American Quakers in reconstruction work in war-torn France. He was selected to succeed Charles J. Rhoads as head of the American Unit in 1919. Wilmer returned to the United States in 1920. His fiance, Mabel Halloway, had died while he was abroad, but in 1922, he married Mildred Binns and returned to teaching in Kansas City, Missouri. Mildred was born in 1901 in Barnesville, Ohio. The Youngs returned to Europe in the mid 1920s to work in Poland.

In 1934 he headed the American Friends Service Committee's first work camp in Westmoreland County, Pa. Two years later the family moved to the South for 19 years to work with tenant farmers in programs spondored by the AFSC at the Delta Cooperative and Little River Farms. Wilmer then taught at Pendle Hill, the Quaker Conference Center in Wallingford, Pa., from 1955 to 1968.

Mildred also taught at Pendle Hill and wrote several pamphlets on Quaker topics and served on the board of Friends Journal. In later life, the Youngs became increasingly involved in the peace movement and non-violent activism. Wilmer participated in the Omaha Project in 1957 and A Quaker Action Group in the late 1960s and was arrested and jailed with A.J. Muste, Lawrence Scott, and others during the former. He died in Philadelphia in September 1983, and Mildred died in 1995.

This collection includes Wilmer J. Young's journals and correspondence from his time in France, 1918-1919, as arranged by Mildred Binns Young in 1983. It also contains day books from Haverford College and a typescript essay of memories of her grandfather by Karen Young. There are also clippings and other memorabilia of his involvement with the peace movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s; a larger collection of his papers were destroyed in a fire while he and Mildred were living at Guild House in 1970.

Donor: Karen Young

Date: 2014

Accession number: 2014-006

The papers were arranged and labeled by Mildred Young in 1983.

Peace Action Center records, 1959-1963. Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Visible witness : a testimony for radical peace action, by Wilmer J. Young. Pendle Hill Pamphlet, v. 118.

Photographs from Wilmer J. And Mildred Binns Young Papers have been stored separately as PA 173. They include images of France and Poland and family photographs, as well Westmoreland Work Camp, Little River Farm, Delta Cooperative Farm, Mt. Rainier Camp, Pendle Hill, and Quaker Peace Witness.

People
Organization
Subject

Publisher
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
Finding Aid Author
FHL staff
Finding Aid Date
2014
Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research.

Use Restrictions

Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce items in this collection beyond the bounds of Fair Use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder or their heirs/assigns. See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0/.

Collection Inventory

Diary, 1918-1919.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Labeled: "A very compact and hard to read diary of WJY's first months in France 1918 into 1919. He marks the place where he got the news of his fiancee's death on Jan. 19, 1919 (Mabel Holloway)."

Accounts, 1954-1972.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Note inside: All preceeding lost in Guild House fire in 1970

Accounts, 1979-1983.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Includes addresses and "Outline of Events 1960-87."

Accounts, 1972-1975.
Box 1
Accounts, 1976-1979.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Includes addresses, plays attended, and "Record of Our Years in the South 1936-1960."

Accounts, 1983-1988.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Includes addresses and "A Christmas Retrospective 1920-1988"

Onley Boarding School Correspondence Received by WJY, 1913-1915.
Box 1
Correspondence Received by WJY, 1914-1915 and n.d.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Labeled: "Letters mostly from Anna Dewees (when about 50 she married Dr. Henry Taylor of Wash. D.C.)"

Cards and notes received by WJY, 1919-1920.
Box 1
Letter from Warsaw, "To the Friends Council for Intern Service", 1924-255.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Includes travel papers for Wilmer J. Young

Correspondence Received by WJY, 1918.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

"Lettters to WJY while he was allocated to the Red Cross." Includes "Group Letters" from the "Bureau of Friends" containing information about work in France.

Correspondence Received by WJY, 1920.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

"Letters Writen to WJY while he was winding up the French Mission as head of the Paris Office Spring 1920 (mostly read by MBY for the first time Nov.7, 1983)

Letter and newsletter received by WJY from the Union of Democratic Control, 1920.
Box 1
Correspondence Received by WJY concerning the Suicide of Mary Appel, 1920.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Mary Appel was a young aid worker who committeed suicide in France while Young was the head of the Paris Office

Correspondence Received by WJY, 1921.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Labeled: "A Hopeful Correspondence."

Letter (in French) received by WJY, 1923.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

From Marie [?], Dombasle-en-Argonne (Commune de)

Letter from John Kay received by Wilmer and Mildred Young, 1975.
Box 1
Correspondence, MBY to Karen [West], 1987.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Includes typescript "Why Grammie and Grandfather left Westtown for the South"

Correspondence and passport, 1918, 1920.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Labeled: "Letters sent to WJY as he left France in 1920 some arriving after he was home." Includes WJY's 1918 passport as well as clippings and correspondence about the murder of aid worker, Paul R. DeMott in Germany.

Correspondence Received by WJY, 1912, 1917, 1929.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Westtown School letters

Reading lists, 1929-1979.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

2 volumes, includes some clippings

Books and pamphlets, 1915-1920.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

2 copies of the New Testament, one in French, a memorial for Isaac Sharpless, and a list of the members of the Quaker Anglo-American Mission with addresses.

Peace clippings, 1961-1965.
Box 1
Non-violent action literature, 1959-1961.
Box 1
Postcards from Europe (blank), Ca.1922.
Box 1
Newspaper "Reconstruction", 1918-1919 [gaps].
Box 1
"Christmas Cards bought but never sent", Ca. 1925.
Box 1
WJY Arrest, 1959.
Box 1
Omaha Action, 1959.
Box 1
Grandfather (Wilmer J. Young), a few memories, 2014.
Box 1
Scope and Contents

Typescript, by Karen Young, 2/7/14

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