Emily Greene Balch (1867-1961) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for her work in the international peace movement (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom). After graduating first in her class from Bryn Mawr in 1889, she helped to found Denison House (Boston’s first Settlement House). Then taught economics at Wellesley for 20 years but eventually was fired for being too radical. Her classes included one on the writings of Karl Marx. Balch also focused her work on immigration issues. The outbreak of World War I saw Emily getting heavily involved in international women’s and pacifist organizations. Outraged by the war, Emily helped to found the Woman’s Peace Party in 1915, which changed its name to the WILPF in 1919. She devoted the last 40 years of her life to working for international peace. She died in 1961 at the age of 94 and is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery.
Her childhood home was at 130 Prince Street and her family was very active here at the First Church in Jamaica Plain, Unitarian Universalist.
Quote:
“I see no possibilities of social progress apart from fundamental changes on both the economic and the political side…..Peace is too small a word for this.”
EMILY GREENE BALCH