Emily Greene Balch Biography

Emily Greene Balch was an American economist, sociologist and pacifist who dedicated her life to humanitarian causes. She was one of the central leaders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) based in Switzerland, for which she shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 with John R. Mott. Born to well-educated Unitarian parents in Boston, she was raised in an intellectually stimulating environment. A good student, she studied economics at Bryn Mawr College and won the college’s first European Fellowship, proceeding to study economics in Paris under Émile Levasseur. She embarked on a highly successful academic career which she combined with her long-standing interest in social issues. She became a leader of the Women's Trade Union League and focused on issues related to immigration, juvenile delinquency and the economic roles of women. At the beginning of the World War I she moved into the peace movement and collaborated with fellow sociologist and pacifist Jane Addams of Chicago on several projects. Continuing with her commitment to humanitarian causes, she soon became an American leader of the international peace movement and played a central role in the International Congress of Women. She never married and dedicated her entire life to the causes she believed in.