Born: 8 January 1867, United States
Died: 9 January 1961
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
More than 40 years later, American Emily Greene Balch would win the prize for “her lifelong work for the cause of peace.” Balch was born into a well-to-do Boston family in 1867 and was part of the first class to graduate from the all-women Bryn Mawr College in 1889. She continued her studies of sociology and economics in Paris and Berlin, as well as taking courses at Harvard and the University of Chicago. In 1896, she began teaching at Wellesley College, though she wouldn’t attain the rank of professor of economics and sociology until 1913. In addition to her academic work and publications, she served on municipal boards and state commissions and participated in various causes, including suffrage, racial justice, and labor issues (child labor, safer conditions, and higher wages).
But like many, the outbreak of World War I changed the course of her life, galvanizing her to fight for peace. She served as a delegate to the 1915 International Congress of Women, playing a key role in major projects:
establishing the Women’s International Committee for Permanent Peace (later renamed the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom).
preparing peace proposals to be considered by the countries at war.
traveling to Scandinavia and Russia as part of a delegation to push for these governments to begin peace talks.
Balch also co-wrote Women at The Hague: The International Congress of Women and Its Results (1915) with Jane Addams (who would also win the Nobel Peace Prize) and Alice Hamilton. She was a member of the Stockholm-based Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation. Returning to the U.S., she campaigned against the country’s entry into the war and began working on the editorial staff of the weekly publication The Nation and wrote Approaches to the Great Settlement (with an introduction by another Peace Prize winner, Norman Angell). She attended the 1919 International Congress of Women and became secretary of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) until 1922. In 1934, she returned to the role unpaid for a year and a half when the organization was struggling financially—just as a second World War loomed. She also donated her Peace Prize money to the WILPF when she won in 1946.
During the interwar years, Balch worked with a variety of government bodies and international organizations, including the League of Nations, precursor to the United Nations. Projects included disarmament, the internationalization of access to aviation and waterways, and control of drugs. In 1926, a WILPF committee was tasked with investigating conditions in Haiti under the occupation of U.S. troops; Balch wrote and edited most of the resulting report. In the 1930s, she looked for ways to help victims of the Nazis’ increasing persecution, which would lead Balch to shift her position from pacifism to the defense of human rights.
She was 79 when she received her Peace Prize in 1946 and would continue working with the WILPF into her 90s.
The following is republished with permission from the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail.
Emily Greene Balch (1867-1961) lived here with her family in a house no longer standing. Balch won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for her indefatigable work for peace, in particular with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She was a Socialist, and a founder of Denison House and the Women’s Trade Union League. She studied immigration and economics, teaching economics at Wellesley for 20 years until her radical peace work led to her dismissal in 1919. For the next 40 years she worked for peace all over the world, organizing WILPF activities and undertaking special missions as its delegate.