Peace Movement Activities, 1931-68

Component identifier:

Series 4

Content Summary:

Jessie Street campaigned for the settlement of all international disputes by conciliation and arbitration without resorting to war. She believed that Governments should ban nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The Government should only have the sole responsibility of the manufacture and sale of armaments and not private enterprise, in order to avoid profits being made from their sale.

This series ranges from 1931 to 1968 and consists of correspondence (Folders 1-5), papers written by Street including speeches and broadcasts (Folders 6-14), conference papers and printed material (Folders 16-29), reports of overseas visits (Folder 15) and newspaper clippings (Folders 30-32).

Street attended many United Nations Peace conferences and these are described in the Series 5. She attended the World Peace Conference in Warsaw (1950) and the World Assembly for Peace in Helsinki (1955). Papers of the World Congress of Peace (1949) held in Paris are included. In 1958 she attended the Executive Committee of the World Peace Council, New Delhi and also visited the Chinese Peace Committee in Peking.

Broadcasts were made on the Anglo-Soviet Pact (1942); visit to Berlin (1945); visit to Budapest (1948); impressions of Japan (1954) and impressions of Paris (1952).

Some of Street's 16 written reports of her travels overseas include impressions of Stalin's death and funeral (1953) and an interview with the victims of Hiroshima and Bikini (1945).

Note: Newspaper clippings range from 1938 to 1967. A related series is Series 5 (United Nations) and Series 12 (Miscellaneous). Series 12 contains an interview with Hewlett Johnson, the Dean of Canterbury on his visit to Australia. There is also an interview with Professor Fletcher, which appears to have been a radio broadcast made sometime during the 1950s and/or 1960s (no dates are given). Both interviews concentrate on dispelling the myths of the cold war tactics practiced at the time, between Western nations and the Soviet Union (Folder 3).

Immediate source of acquisition:

Jessie Street's husband, Sir Kenneth Street, donated the papers to the National Library in 1970. Her son, Sir Laurence Street, made a substantial addition in 1972. Further small additions were made to the collection between 1973 and 2001.

Subjects:

Women's rights

Contents

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