Article

Ellen Starr Brinton:  Archivist and Activist for Peace in Time of War

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Abstract

Ellen Starr Brinton served as the first Curator of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection from 1935 to 1951. She combined her professional work establishing the special collections library and archives at Swarthmore College outside Philadelphia, collecting and preserving records of peace movements around the world dating from the seventeenth century onward. Brinton was successful in this endeavor due to her own background as a Quaker and her activism in the US peace movement from the 1920s onward. In the late 1930s Brinton traveled to Europe to attend international peace conferences and to rescue the records of peace organizations and the papers of peace activists already in danger of destruction by governments and from the spread of fascism across the continent. She was also involved in efforts to assist European peace activists themselves also in personal danger from their governments. Brinton’s work in the first years of establishing the Peace Collection continues to the present, with staff retaining her original organizing principles for primary resources, and her mission to collect, preserve, and make accessible historical materials about the work of peace activists around the world.

Keywords: Archivist, World War II, Women, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Swarthmore College, Quakers, Peace

How to Cite:

Chmielewski, W. E., (2026) “Ellen Starr Brinton:  Archivist and Activist for Peace in Time of War”, The Political Librarian 9(1), 30-39. doi: https://doi.org/10.7936/pollib.9285