The Thrill and Agony of Relief: Quaker Women’s Foreign Service and the History of Emotion

Abstract Recent scholarship on humanitarians and gender, which once focused on aid recipients, has increasingly focused on those giving relief. This paper uses public and private writing to consider the careers of three Quaker women aid workers who were active at aid sites in Europe in the earlier twentieth century. Relief work could be challenging and meaningful, even thrilling, and their experiences vividly demonstrate its emotional rewards and costs. While each might be seen as exceptional historically, their work reflects a long tradition of Quaker women in humanitarian aid, and set the tone for the permanent Friends humanitarian organizations that followed.