A collection of material from the Chicago branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

Chicago: Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 1940. The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was founded in 1915 as the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (it became the WILPF in 1919). The U.S. chapter was Jane Addams' Woman's Peace Party, which was also founded in 1915. The group promoted women's suffrage, disarmament, the end to economic imperialism and the release of political prisoners.

The material in this collection comes from Jessie Lloyd O'Connor, the feminist and progressive activist who likely beloned to the Chicago branch when she lived at Hull House with her husband, the muckraking journalist and radical, Harvey O'Connor, from 1939-1944. In 1945, the O'Connors moved to Fort Worth Texas where Harvey worked as publicity director for the Oil Workers International Union and some of the items here have their Fort Worth mailing address.

The items include a blank membership form, three postcards addressed to O'Connor, Joint Branch Letter #2 (three 11" x 8 1/2" sheets), the Spring 1947 price list for literature, two membership letters signed by Viola Edwards (vice president) and Dorothy Detzer (national secretary), a four-page membership letter signed by Hazel Foster and with a long note from Foster to O'Connor, and a six-page letter to benefactors of the Jane Addams Peace Fund.