American Rescue Ship Mission Letter

American Rescue Ship Mission Letter

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 Refugees reach Mexico and amnesty. After the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939, those who fought Franco’s regime faced violent extrajudicial treatment in post-war Spain, and French refugee camps offered a hardly-better alternative. Mexico, however, as one of the few publicly pro-Republican nations during the Spanish Civil War, became a safe haven for Republican refugees. The American Rescue Ship Mission, a project of the United American Spanish Aid Committee, sought to transport refugees from France to Mexico. Considering its prominent sponsors and the broad target demographic, this document shows how the resettlement of Republican refugees became an issue that transcended Quaker concerns to involve the American public at large.

Elizabeth Marsh Jensen Papers

December 1940

Charlotte Colantti

Letter