|
|
A. Ruth Fry
Papers, 1905-1957
|
|
|
A. Ruth Fry
Papers, 1905-1957
|
Document Group: 046
Provenance: Depositor - A. Ruth Fry, 1948-1960
Size: 1.1 linear feet (.33 meters)
Restrictions: None
Microfilm: None
Finding Aid: Collection originally processed and checklist prepared by Martha Shane, April 1986 (under a grant from the Ford Foundation); checklist updated by Anne Yoder, November 1997
This checklist is the property of the Swarthmore College Peace
Collection.
Historical Introduction
[Anna] Ruth Fry was born in Highgate, England on September 04, 1878, into a Quaker family. Her father, Sir Edward Fry, was both a judge and a lawyer who gained international repute for his role as a skilled negotiator at the Hague Tribunal in 1917. Ruth was educated at home, and then went on to work for peace as an activist and a writer. From 1914-1924, she served as general secretary of the Friends Relief Commission, a committee organized by British Quakers to provide help for refugees and others ravaged by the war. Fry toured the war zones as a traveling commissioner and wrote about the various relief efforts in her book A Quaker Adventure (1926). She was also the first chairman of the Russian Famine Relief Fund in 1921. In 1926-1927, she served as the secretary for the National Council for the Prevention of War, and in 1936-1937 as the treasurer of the London branch of the War Resisters' International. The pacifist journal Reconciliation appointed her to its editorial board in 1935. During the Boer war, Fry was treasurer of the Boer Home Industries Commission.
Fry wrote numerous books, pamphlets and tracts, many of which are available in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. She died on April 26, 1962.
Scope and Contents
The Fry Papers contain biographical information; correspondence (1918-1948); a scrapbook (1925-1942); photographs; hand-drawn maps of Friends' relief work in Poland and the Soviet Union; and her writings. The latter consist of books, numerous peace tracts, articles and reports that were printed in newspapers and periodicals, and manuscript reports and journals about her trips to France, Holland, Belgium, Austria, the Soviet Union, Germany, the United States, Switzerland, and South Africa (with her father and alone).
There is much additional material about Fry in the Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College. Other Fry papers are in the Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. The archives of the American Friends Service Committee is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
|
Box 1 |
|
Biographical Information |
|
Autobiographical writings |
|
Articles from periodicals about ARF, 1925-1948 |
|
Articles from newspapers about ARF, 1905-1947 |
|
Correspondence, 1918-1948 |
|
Correspondence with William Albright, 1920-1921 |
|
Pamphlets by ARF (catalogued) |
|
Books by ARF (catalogued) |
|
Box 2 |
|
Material by ARF: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Box 3 |
|
Photographs, 1920-1921, of Quaker relief efforts in Hungary, Poland, Germany, Serbia and Austria and Russia (including the famine in 1921); Watercolor drawings of Russia by V. Mirolubovka [Removed to Photograph Collection] |
|
Maps; includes hand-drawn maps of American Friends Service Committee relief work in Poland and the Soviet Union, 1921-1925 [Removed to Oversize Documents Collection] |
|
Inventories of writings by ARF |
|
Miscellaneous; includes three drawings by Sir Richard Paget at the Geneva Famine Conference called by the Red Cross in August 1921, of 1) Dr. Delpage, president of the Belgian Cross, 2) Monsieur Birukoff, representative of the Pan-Russian Relief Committee, and 3) Monsieur Ador, former president of Switzerland, presiding. |
|
Scrapbook of newspaper clippings, articles, correspondence and a manuscript by Fry, 1925-1942 [Removed to Scrapbook Collection] |
Swarthmore College Peace Collection
For more information, contact Wendy Chmielewski, Curator, at
wchmiel1@ swarthmore.edu or call 610-328-8557.
For other resources, see the college's online library catalog (Tripod).
