George Nasmyth and Florence Nasmyth Papers

George W. Nasmyth was born in Cleveland, Ohio, July 9, 1882. He was educated at Cornell, Berlin, Gottingen, Heidelburg and Zurich. During his graduate studies in Europe, he founded class clubs similar in ideals to those of the American Cosmopolitan Club. These he organized into an Association of International Clubs of which he was president; in 1911, he was a delegate to the International Student Congress in Rome (7th). He was elected President of the Central Commission of the Federation Internationale des Etudiants with Louis Lochner. In the services of the international student movement, he visited the universities of 22 countries.

It was during the tense years of 1912-1914 that Nasmyth finally decided to give up mathematical physics which he had studied, and dedicate his life increasingly to the cause of international understanding and peace. In 1909, in recognition of his international work with students, he was elected a member of the Board of Directors of the World Peace Foundation, Boston. He later became a member of its executive staff. In 1919, he went again to Europe to attend the Paris Peace Conference, and to organize the first meeting since the outbreak of the war of the World Alliance for Friendship Through the Churches. It was there in Geneva that he died of a typhus infection at the age of 39, on September 20, 1920.

In addition to the above mentioned positions, George W. Nasmyth was president of Corda Fratres, 1911-1913; an administrator in the U. S. Fuel Administration, 1917-1919; and a founder and member of the Trade Union College.

Florence Nasmyth was a writer on peace issues.

Nasmyth's correspondents included Edwin Mead, Norman Angell, E.D. Morel, Hamilton Holt, John Haynes Holmes, Dorothy Douglas, Norman Thomas, Frederick Lynch and Agnes Warbasse. Letters of condolence were sent by Emily Greene Balch, David Starr Jordan, Norman Thomas, Alfred Fried, and Lucia Ames Mead, among others.