Nobel Prize

Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (September 20, 1833-February 10, 1918) had a personality as paradoxical as the term «militant pacifist» which was so often applied to him. He was a nationalistic internationalist, a deeply religious anticlerical propagandist, a crusader for physical fitness who daily took a tram to avoid walking across a square to lunch in a…

Although his active participation in efforts to solve the problems of international law brought him honor and respect from around the world, Louis Renault (May 21, 1843-February 8, 1918) was, in his own words, «a professor at heart». Born at Autun in the Saône-et-Loire district of France, he received his love of learning as a…

Auguste Marie François Beernaert (July 26, 1829-October 6, 1912) was born in Ostend, Belgium, in a middle-class Catholic family of Flemish origin. His father was a government functionary whose changing appointments took the family from Ostend to Dinant and then to Namur, where Auguste and his sister spent their childhood. Their early education was undertaken…

Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet, Baron d’Estournelles de Constant de Rebecque (November 22, 1852 – May 15, 1924), the son of an aristocratic family tracing its ancestry back to the Crusaders, was born at La Flèche in the Sarthe district of the Loire valley. A diplomat and politician, d’Estournelles, immensely energetic, found time to engage in…

The «father» of socialism in Sweden, Karl Hjalmar Branting (November 23, 1860-February 24, 1925) was born in Stockholm, the only child of Professor Lars Branting, one of the principal developers of the Swedish school of gymnastics. He was educated at the exclusive Beskow School in Stockholm, passing his matriculation examination at the age of seventeen,…

In the first third of the twentieth century, Christian Lous Lange (September 17, 1869-December 11, 1938) became one of the world’s foremost exponents of the theory and practice of internationalism. His career from his school days to his death was closely focused on international affairs. Lange was born in Stavanger, an old city on Norway’s…

The life of Frank Billings Kellogg (December 22, 1856-December 21, 1937), a farm boy who rose to international preeminence as the co-author of a treaty to outlaw war, is a uniquely American story. Frank Kellogg was born in Potsdam, N.Y., but the Kellogg family, becoming part of the westward movement which gripped the country at…

Nathan Söderblom (January 15, 1866-July 12, 1931), near the beginning and near the end of his illustrious career, found his name linked with that of another Swedish citizen of the world, . He was called to San Remo in 1897 to conduct the memorial service for Nobel and in 1930 to Oslo to receive the…

Jane Addams (born Laura Jane Addams, September 6, 1860-May 21, 1935) won worldwide recognition in the first third of the twentieth century as a pioneer social worker in America, as a feminist, and as an internationalist. She was born in Cedarville, Illinois, the eighth of nine children. Her father was a prosperous miller and local…

Arthur Henderson (September 13, 1863-October 20, 1935) was born in Glasgow, the son of David Henderson, a manual worker. When his father died in 1872, leaving the family in poverty, Arthur left school to work in a photographer’s shop. Upon his mother’s remarriage the family moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where Arthur returned to school for three…