In the mid-1950s, Barbara Reynolds and her family circumnavigated the globe in a yacht, “Phoenix of Hiroshima,” protesting the use and development of nuclear weapons, a four-year voyage that culminated with an internationally famous protest of the United States’ nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands in 1958.

The Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College received a $5,000 grant to digitize 200 archival materials from its Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives, which features The Voyage of the Phoenix. The State Library of Ohio awarded the grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The grant will allow those archival resources to become part of the Digital Public Library of America, as well as other entities that would benefit by possessing these historical materials for public use.

The grant will be directed by Cheryl Paine, a retired librarian at the University of Mt. Union, who has served as a consultant to the PRC since 2018.

According to Paine, “It is a real feather in the cap of Wilmington College to be awarded this type of state grant. It will provide wider national and international access to this remarkable collection devoted to the history of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the history of nuclear disarmament.”

PRC director Dr. Tanya Maus wrote the grant in collaboration with Paine.

Maus said, “We are grateful to LSTA, the State Library of Ohio, and Ohio Digital Network for their continued support of these types of archival projects. We are thrilled to make this unique and nationally recognized collection more visible to the public.”

Over the past three years, the PRC has received two National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grants which has also heightened visibility and furthered the work of the center.

The Peace Resource Center creates a vital connection between the campus community and efforts toward non-violence, social justice and global peace. The PRC was founded in 1975 by the Quaker peace activist Barbara Reynolds (1915-1990), who worked ceaselessly toward creating a world free of nuclear weaponry and war and to helping atomic bombing survivors share their stories of the tragedy of military conflict. In the late 1950s,

Currently, the PRC develops events and programming that encourages dialogue on the College campus about how to resolve conflict from the personal to the global level. The PRC assists faculty and students in creating student-led projects, internships and local/global collaborations so that Wilmington College and its local region can become an even greater part of a global community of peace.