Clara Guthrie d'Arcis

Clara Guthrie d'Arcis, around 1920

Clara Guthrie d'Arcis (born February 22, 1879 in New Orleans , United States , † May 12, 1937 in Geneva ) was a Swiss pacifist , suffragette and international businesswoman.

She was founder and president of the World Union of Women for international unity ( Union mondiale de la femme pour la concorde international UMF ) and the board of the Peace and Disarmament Committee of the International Women's organizations ( Peace and Disarmament Committee of the Women's International Organizations ).

She represented Switzerland at the 5th Five-Year Congress of the International Women's Council in 1911 in Berlin.

Life

She was the daughter of attorney James Guthrie and his wife Clara, née Cocke. After her mother died, she was raised by her grandmother, Caroline E. Merrick, who owned a plantation in New Orleans. Through her, Guthrie came into contact early on with the women's movement in the United States and became one of the first American activists for women's suffrage and an advocate of abolitionism .

She married Philip Cocke, with whom she had a daughter, Elisabeth. In 1902, she opened and ran a lemonade factory in Mississippi, donating the profits to charity. After the company went bankrupt, she decided to move to Geneva in 1911. After divorcing Philipp Cocke, she married the Swiss businessman Ludovic d'Arcis (1879–1950) von Chêne-Bougeries in 1916 . With her husband, she ran a successful import business for American cars ( General Motors ) and other consumer goods.

activities

Clara Guthrie d'Arcis believed that an education for peace led by women could create a peaceful world order. Women had a special role to play in building peace, as they had maternal concern for the preservation of human life. Her experience as a peace activist and international businesswoman convinced her that economic causes of war were paramount. She argued that bankers and industrialists who financed wars and produced weapons and war materials needed to be re-educated to invest in consumer goods and other peacetime products. D'Arcis believed that moral considerations should influence business decisions and that business people should promote peace and disarmament.

In 1915 she founded the Women's World Union for International Harmony (WUIM), which she chaired until her death , for other women from different countries (including Marguerite Gobat, Camille Vidart, Pauline Chaponnière-Chaix , Léonore Gourfein-Welt) . The aim of the organization was to work on international unity and to become a movement of women from all countries for a moral education based on individual discipline and individual engagement.

During the First World War , d'Arcis was actively involved in promoting industrial and economic relations between Switzerland and France, and between Switzerland and the United States. When the American blockade against the neutrals seriously threatened American wheat deliveries to Switzerland, in 1917 it became the “mediator” between Switzerland and the United States. Your article "Suisse et Amérique" in the Journal de Genève of May 5, 1917 gave the impetus for the first official Swiss mission to Washington, which attracted the attention of President Wilson .

In the interwar period , d'Arcis was involved in the Committee for Peace and Disarmament of the international women's organizations ( Comité de désarmement des organizations internationales féminines ). In 1920 she founded the international children's aid association Save the Children with Eglantyne Jebb . She was in charge of fundraising for children affected by the war in neutral Switzerland.

In 1931 she participated in the establishment of a liaison committee of women's associations in support of peace efforts (Peace and Disarmament Committee of the Women's International Organizations). She directed the committee's fundraising campaign and in 1934 launched a fundraising campaign urging American consumer goods manufacturers to recognize that making peacetime was more profitable than making for war. In 1937 the Committee for Peace and Disarmament published a "Peace-Roll of Industry" in which corporations such as General Motors, US Steel and Shell Union Oil declared peace to be essential for prosperity.

During her travels to the United States, she campaigned for disarmament and free trade. In 1930 it helped cut 25% of tariffs on Swiss watch products imported into the United States.

Fonts

• Journal de Genève, March 3, 1935: Mars, homme d'affaires
• Journal de Genève of February 25, 1935: Un bel anniversaire
• Trêve de paroles! Agissons enfin! (Enough talk! Let's finally act!). Message from Ms. Clara Guthrie d'Arcis, Central International Office, Geneva 1926

literature

• Florian Weber: The American promise. Swiss foreign policy in the economic war of 1917/18 . Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-0340-1369-7

• Le mouvement féministe , May 29, 1937

Web links

• Regula Ludi : Clara Guthrie d'Arcis. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Literature by and about Clara Guthrie d'Arcis in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peace and Disarmament Committee of the Women's International Organizations
2. ↑ Margret Nobs: The women's world association for international harmony . In: Die Friedens-Warte , 1943, pp. 60–64. 
3. ↑ Opinion | 100, 75, 50 Years Ago (en-US) . In: The New York Times , May 14, 2012. 
4. ^ Leila J. Rupp: Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women's Movement ( en ). Princeton University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-691-01675-7 , p. 42.
5. ↑ Conference On The Cause And Cure Of War Report 9-12 1934-37 , Universal Digital Library 1934.
6. ↑ Journal de Genève of May 5, 1917
7. ^ Peace and Disarmament Committee of the Women's International Organizations, 1937
8. ^ Journal de Genève of May 8, 1930: Les protestation contre les tarifs américains. Un télégramme de Mme Guthrie d'Arcis au président Hoover
9. ^ Mars, home d'affaire
10. ↑ Un bel anniversaire
11. ↑ Florian Weber: The American promise