About WILPF Portland

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JANE ADDAMS
On April 28, 1915 a unique group of women, led by Jane Addams, met in an International Congress in The Hague, Netherlands to protest World War I then raging in Europe. Some 1,300 women from warring and neutral nations assembled to work out a plan to end the war and lay the foundation for a permanent peace. The organizers of the Congress were prominent women in the International Suffrage Alliance who saw the connection between their struggle for equal rights and the struggle for peace. Out of this meeting the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom was born. WILPF’s first International President was Jane Addams, founder of Hull House in Chicago and the first U.S. woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Portlander Grace De Graff, Kenton School principal and National Teachers League president, served as a delegate in 1915 along with Jane Addams at the Women’s International Peace Congress, the Hague.

Aboard the steamship Oscar II during the 1915-16 Henry Ford Peace Expedition, Grace De Graff along with Kate Devereux Blake and Florence Holbrook, prepared a document which bears repeating today. "To the Teachers of All the World" they wrote:

”In your hands more than any other lies the future of the world. You must choose whether you will train the rising generation in the militaristic spirit that has engulfed Europe in death, desolation and misery or whether you will use your every endeavor to counteract the legacy of hate that will be bequeathed to the children and will teach them that only in the time of peace is the progress of the world possible."
The Portland Branch of WILPF has a history dating back to 1920 with Grace De Graff as one of its earliest members. The branch dissolved and the current organization was revived by Eleanor Davis during the Cuban crisis in the early 1960s.  Portland's Walk of the Heroines on the Portland State University campus pays tribute to Portland WILPFers. 

The Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom has been working since 1915 to unite women worldwide who oppose oppression and exploitation.  WILPF stands for equality of all people in a world free of racism, sexism  and homophobia; the building of a constructive peace through world  disarmament; and the changing of government priorities to meet human  needs.

WILPF has sections in 37 countries coordinated by an international office in Geneva. In additional WILPF has National Sections covering every continent, an International Secretariat based in Geneva, and a New York office focused on the work of the United Nations (UN). 

WILPF supports the work of the United Nations and has NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) status. We are very proud to be one of the first organizations to gain consultative status (category B) with the United Nations, and the only women’s anti-war organization so recognized.

The following WILPFers are honored at the Portland State University's Walk of the Heroines:  Mary Bolton, Marguerite Brodie, Ann Campbell, Eleanor Davis, Grace De Graff, Ruth Frankel, Johnni Freeborn, Del Greenfield, Helen "Frosty" Grossman, Marjorie Tattam, Norma Thomas, Carol Urner.  For more info, visit the walk or view info online here.
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GRACE DE GRAFF 1916