Gilbert and Minnie Bowles correspondence

Gilbert Bowles (1869-1960), the son of Quakers Ephraim and Elizabeth Epperson Bowles, received his bachelor's from Penn College in 1898, and his master's in 1899/1900. He received a Litt.D. in 1938, an LL.D. from Whittier College in 1917, and another LL.D. from Haverford College in 1938. He married Minnie M. Pickett in 1898. He arrived in Tokyo as a Quaker missionary in 1901, and spent 40 years there. He helped restructure Friends Meetings in Japan after the war with China in the late 1890s had torn them apart. A teacher, leader, and administrator of Tokyo Friends' Girls' School, he was chairman of the trustees Friends’ Girls’ School from 1901 to 1941. He helped lay the foundation of the present Tokyo Friends Center program. Bowles believed that international problems could be solved through concerted peaceful efforts, and in the case of Japan, would provide solution to its international problems. He helped found the Japan Peace Society in 1906, and then served as corresponding secretary and director. In 1924, the Japan Peace Society transferred its work to the League of Nations Association of Japan and Bowles served as the Executive Secretary of its Foreign Section. Bowles promoted peace through the Japan branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He strove to reduce Japan's differences with Korea, China, and the United States. He opposed the United States Immigration Act of 1924, suggesting it would strengthen Japan's military cult. In 1941, Gilbert and Minnie Bowles removed to Hawaii, where they helped Japanese who suffered from United States internment policies. After the war, Bowles assisted Japan with various relief and rehabilitation projects. Gilbert Bowles was the author of Jamaica and Friends Missions, 1899; and The Peace Movement in Japan.

Minnie Pickett Bowles (1868-1958) first arrived to teach in Japan in 1893. During her long career at the Friends' Girls' School in Tokyo, Japan, Minnie Bowles, the wife of Gilbert Bowles, taught Bible classes to more than 2,000 young men. Minnie also taught classes in cooking and sewing. By the 1940s, about one hundred girls graduated annually from the Friends' Girls' School, Tokyo.