Emily Greene Balch

The economics professor who traded academic security for a lifetime of peace activism—and became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her scholarly approach to ending war

Most people don't know that Emily Greene Balch was fired from her prestigious professorship at Wellesley College in 1918 for her pacifist views during World War I—a devastating blow that might have ended another person's career but instead freed her to become one of the 20th century's most influential peace activists. At age 79, when she finally received the Nobel Peace Prize, she had spent three decades proving that rigorous scholarship and passionate activism could work hand in hand to build a more peaceful world.

Timeline of a Life Dedicated to Peace

• 1867: Born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, to a prosperous Unitarian family committed to social reform
• 1889: Graduates from Bryn Mawr College, one of the first generation of women to receive higher education
• 1896: Joins Wellesley College faculty as instructor in economics and sociology
• 1906: Publishes groundbreaking study "Public Assistance of the Poor in France," establishing her as a serious social scientist
• 1915: Attends International Congress of Women at The Hague, beginning her international peace work
• 1918: Dismissed from Wellesley College for her pacifist stance during World War I
• 1919: Helps found the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in Zurich
• 1919-1922: Serves as WILPF's first international secretary-treasurer, building the organization's global network
• 1926: Publishes "Occupied Haiti," exposing American military occupation's harmful effects
• 1946: Shares Nobel Peace Prize with John Mott for her leadership in the international peace movement
• 1961: Dies at age 94, having devoted over four decades to peace activism

The Scholar Who Chose Conscience Over Career

Emily Greene Balch's transformation from comfortable academic to radical peace activist began with a single decision that would define the rest of her life. In 1915, as Europe tore itself apart in World War I, she joined 1,300 women from around the world at The Hague for an unprecedented International Congress of Women. The gathering was ridiculed by the press as naive women meddling in men's affairs, but Balch saw something revolutionary: the possibility of applying scholarly rigor to the ancient problem of war.

Born into a Boston Brahmin family that valued both intellectual achievement and social responsibility, Balch had seemed destined for a life of genteel scholarship. Her father, Francis Balch, was a successful lawyer who encouraged his daughters' education—unusual for the 1870s. At Bryn Mawr, she excelled in classics and philosophy, but it was her exposure to the new field of sociology that captured her imagination. She saw in social science the tools to understand and potentially solve humanity's greatest problems.

The Nobel moment itself came as a complete surprise. Balch was 79 years old, living quietly in a Wellesley boarding house on a tiny pension, when reporters knocked on her door in November 1946. She had been taking an afternoon nap and answered the door in her bathrobe, initially thinking they were playing a prank. When she realized they were serious, her first reaction wasn't joy but worry—she immediately asked if she would have to make a speech, as public speaking had always terrified her. Her second concern was whether she could afford the trip to Oslo. The $17,000 prize money (which she immediately donated to various peace organizations) solved that problem, but her humility about the honor remained. "I am not a great person," she told reporters. "I am just someone who has tried to be useful."

Her path to that moment had been anything but conventional. After establishing herself as a respected economist at Wellesley—one of the few women professors in the field—she made the career-ending decision to oppose America's entry into World War I. Her colleagues watched in horror as she transformed from a mild-mannered academic into a vocal pacifist who organized protests and wrote articles questioning the war's necessity. The final straw came when she took a leave of absence to work with Herbert Hoover's food relief efforts in Europe, witnessing firsthand the war's devastating impact on civilians.

The politics surrounding her Nobel Prize were complex and revealing. The Norwegian Nobel Committee had been criticized for years for giving the Peace Prize primarily to men, despite women's significant contributions to the peace movement. Balch's selection, shared with YMCA leader John Mott, was partly an attempt to address this imbalance. However, some committee members worried that honoring a woman who had been fired for her pacifist views might seem too radical. The compromise was to emphasize her scholarly contributions and organizational leadership rather than her more controversial anti-war activism.

What made Balch unique among peace activists was her insistence on combining emotional commitment with intellectual rigor. While others relied on moral appeals, she conducted careful research into the economic and social causes of conflict. Her study of Haiti, where she spent months investigating the American military occupation, exemplified this approach. She didn't just condemn the occupation as morally wrong—she documented its economic failures, interviewed both American officials and Haitian citizens, and produced a meticulously researched report that influenced U.S. policy.

The human cost of her excellence was profound. Her dismissal from Wellesley at age 51 left her financially insecure for the rest of her life. She never married, later writing that her commitment to peace work made it impossible to maintain the kind of intimate relationships that required constant presence and attention. Her family relationships suffered as well—her more conservative siblings were embarrassed by her radical activities, and she often felt isolated even within her own social circle.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which she helped found and led for decades, became her life's work and her substitute family. As the organization's first international secretary-treasurer, she traveled constantly despite her natural shyness, building networks of women activists across national and cultural boundaries. She learned to speak French and German fluently, corresponded with hundreds of women worldwide, and developed the organizational structures that allowed WILPF to survive and thrive for over a century.

The "Nobel effect" on Balch was characteristically modest. Rather than using the platform for grand pronouncements, she continued her quiet, methodical work. She donated the prize money immediately, saying she had lived on little for so long that she didn't need it. The recognition did give her ideas more credibility, but she remained uncomfortable with personal fame. In her Nobel lecture, delivered by a colleague because she was too ill to travel, she focused not on her own achievements but on the collective work needed to build lasting peace.

Her approach to peace was revolutionary in its practicality. While others spoke in abstract terms about universal brotherhood, Balch focused on specific, achievable goals: international arbitration systems, economic cooperation, and what she called "the substitution of law for war." She understood that lasting peace required not just good intentions but institutional changes that would make war less likely and less profitable.

Voices of Conviction

On her dismissal from Wellesley (1918): "I have no bitterness about it. I think the trustees acted according to their lights, and I acted according to mine. The question is not whether we were right or wrong, but whether we were sincere."

On the nature of peace work (1946): "The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. Peace is not something you wish for; it's something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away."

From her Nobel acceptance speech (1946): "We are not asked to subscribe to any utopia or to believe in a perfect world just around the corner. We are asked to be patient with necessarily slow and groping advance on the road forward, and to be ready for each step ahead as it becomes practicable."

On women's role in peace (1915): "Women have a special moral obligation to work for peace because we are the ones who bear and raise the children who become the soldiers. We cannot stand by and watch our sons march off to kill other mothers' sons."

Reflecting on her life's work (1956): "I never felt I was sacrificing anything for peace. I felt I was gaining everything—the chance to be useful, to work with remarkable people, and to be part of something larger than myself."

The Legacy of Practical Idealism

Emily Greene Balch's story teaches us that true conviction often requires choosing between security and conscience—and that such choices, while costly, can lead to contributions far greater than any comfortable career. Her transformation from academic economist to international peace leader shows how expertise in one field can be powerfully applied to seemingly unrelated challenges. She proved that rigorous scholarship and passionate activism need not be opposing forces but can strengthen each other in the service of human progress.

Her Nobel journey reveals the complex relationship between recognition and impact. Balch's most important work was done in the decades of obscurity between her firing from Wellesley and her Nobel Prize, when she built the organizational foundations for international peace work without any guarantee of recognition or reward. Her story reminds us that the most meaningful achievements often require a willingness to work without immediate validation, trusting that the work itself is worthwhile regardless of whether it brings fame or fortune.

Perhaps most importantly, Balch demonstrated that lasting change comes not from grand gestures but from patient, methodical work to build new institutions and ways of thinking. Her approach to peace—scholarly, practical, and focused on specific achievable goals—offers a model for anyone seeking to address seemingly intractable problems. She showed that idealism without expertise is merely wishful thinking, but expertise without idealism is merely careerism. The combination of both, sustained over decades of dedicated work, can indeed change the world.