Browse Items (228 total)

The topic of the poster refers to the relentless bombing of Madrid by Franco's forces, which began in November 1936, targeting civilians. The journalist Louis Delaprée writes of the bombardments, “But night falls. The great butchery, the horror, the…

The Society of Friends attempted to remain neutral during the Spanish Civil War, and conducted relief work for both the Republicans and the Nationalists. In Quaker Service in Modern War, Howard Kershner writes, “I maintain that when one undertakes…

Sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helen Keller, and other prominent figures of the time, The American Rescue Ship Mission letter circulated in 1940 makes an appeal for donations to help Spanish Republican…

During the Spanish Civil War and well into Francisco Franco’s regime the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) played an active role supporting peace efforts. With the fall of the Republic in 1939, attention turned to refugees leaving Spain. The…

Can peace ever be stable when injustice exists, and is just violence even possible? This poster, created by the London Quaker Friends in 1938, propels us to the heart of such questions by instantly equating peace and justice. Yet the Quakers were not…

This poster, printed in 1939, expresses the connection between pacifism and the Quaker religion by stating that war disagrees with God. It can be read both as a Spanish Civil War poster and as a caution against the looming Second World War. It is a…

“They Still Draw Pictures” is a collection of 60 original drawings created by the children who had first-hand experience with the violence of the Spanish Civil War. Its significance stems from the fact that the drawings allowed a child--whose…

This journal entry from January 1st, 1937 is found in a Quaker weekly journal from 1937 where it informed other Friends how the Friends Service Council (the British corollary to the American Friends Service Committee), together with the Save the…

This anti-war poster calls attention to the obscene sums of money spent on war preparations, and simultaneously suggests that military stockpiling inhibits God’s kingdom from flourishing. It calls to mind the Quaker peace testimony, which states…

This poster, produced by Great Britain’s Northern Friends Peace Board in 1938, appeals to the ethics of family and maternity. It could be read as a response both to the Spanish Civil War and as a protest of the impending Second World War. In Three…

This quote, attributed to T. Edmund Harvey, alludes to the idea that society will reap what it sows, and that violence will never lead to peace, but only to more violence. Read on another register, images of Spanish peasants and workers forming…

Quaker peace testimonies resounded throughout Britain in reaction to the devastating violence and atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, in contrast to those who wanted to take up arms against the fascists responsible for those atrocities. Though the…

The bombings during the Spanish Civil War not only destroyed buildings and land, but they destroyed families. Children of all ages were victims of fascist attacks, and because of the numerous children who were left orphaned and who were in harms way…

This article, published in the weekly New York Times Magazine on April 3rd, 1938, demonstrates how journalism brought the Spanish refugee crisis into the eyes and minds of American society. The focus of this article is the mass migrations of…