International Conference of Women Workers to Promote Permanent Peace
The International Conference of Women Workers to Promote Permanent Peace was held in San Francisco, California, July 4–7, 1915, at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. It was held in the Civic Auditorium (now the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium), which was transformed into a Peace Palace. May Wright Sewall, by appointment of Charles C. Moore, chair of the exposition, organized the peace conference in the interests of women pacificists meeting to promote permanent peace. Preparations On June 24, 1914, President Moore of the exposition issued a commission authorizing Sewall to organize a Conference of International Women Workers to devise means for generating throughout the world the spirit of Co-operative Internationalism. The questions to be considered at the conference were: "What can women do toward a re-organization of Society on a basis of safety which shall prevent its members from being offered on the altar of War, either as victims or as instruments?" Sewall's first acquaintance with the "Peace Palace" was made a few days after her first visit to the exposition site. Said she, "For beauty of architecture, for enchantment of coloring, for fascination of environment, for a certain jaunty air of good fellowship, and for a spirit of cooperative aspiration, the