Endowments; Quakers--Charities; Civilian war relief; United States; American Friends Service Committee; Society of Friends
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Date
[between 1917 and 1919?]
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 81
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
For War Relief and Reconstruction
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) founded organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by American mem bers of the Religious Society of Friends to assist civilian victims of World War I. It continued to engage in relief action in Europe and the Soviet Union after the Armistice of 1918. By the mid-1920s it focused on improving racial relations in the U.S., as well as exploring ways to prevent the outbreak of another conflict before and after World War II... In April 1917—days after the United States joined World War I by declaring war on Germany and its allies—a group of Quakers met in Philadelphia to discuss the pending military draft and how it would affect members of peace churches such as Quakers, Mennonites, Brethren, and the Amish. They developed ideas for alternative service that could be done directly in the battle zones of northern France. They also developed plans for dealing with the United States Army, since it had been inconsistent in its dealing with religious objectors to previous wars. Although legally members of pacifist churches were exempt from the draft, individual state draft boards interpreted the law in a variety of ways. Many Quakers and other COs were ordered to report to army camps for military service. Some COs, unaware of the significance of reporting for duty, found that this was interpreted by the military as willingness to fight. One of AFSC's first tasks was to identify CO's, find the camps where they were located, and then visit them to provide spiritual guidance and moral support. In areas where the pacifist churches were more well known (such as Pennsylvania), a number of draft boards were willing to assign COs to AFSC for alternative service. In addition to conducting alternative service programs for COs, AFSC collected relief in the form of food, clothing, and other supplies for displaced persons in France. Quakers were asked to collect old and make new clothing; to grow fruits and vegetables, can them, and send them to AFSC headquarters in Philadelphia. AFSC then shipped the materials to France for distribution. The young men and women sent to work in France, working with British Quakers, provided relief and medical care to refugees, repaired and rebuilt homes, helped farmers replant fields damaged by the war, and founded a maternity hospital. After the end of the war in 1918, AFSCs began working in Russia, Serbia, and Poland with orphans and with the victims of famine and disease, and in Germany and Austria, where they set up kitchens to feed hungry children. Eventually AFSC was chartered by President Herbert Hoover to provide the United States sponsored relief to Germans. During the 1930s and through World War II, AFSC helped refugees escape from Nazi Germany, aiding people who were not being helped by other organizations, primarily non-religious Jews and Jews married to non-Jews. They also provided relief for children on both sides of the Spanish Civil War, and provided relief to refugees in Vichy France. At the same time AFSC operated several Civilian Public Service camps for a new generation of COs. When Japanese Americans were "evacuated" from the West Coast into inland concentration camps, the AFSC headed the effort to help college students transfer to Midwest and East Coast schools in order to avoid camp, and worked with Japanese Americans resettling in several cities during and after the war. After the war ended, they did relief and reconstruction work in Europe, Japan, India, and China. In 1947 they worked to resettle refugees during the partition of India, and in the Gaza Strip. Between 1937 and 1943, the AFSC built the Penn-Craft community for unemployed coal miners in Fayette County, Pennsylvania..." [SOURCE: "American Friends Service Committee." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Friends_Service_Committee. Accessed 15 Oct. 2018.]