History

1917

Work on behalf of conscientious objectors; reconstruction work in France; planning of major relief work undertaken later in Germany.

1919

Russia;work on behalf of conscientious objectors.

1920s

Continued relief work in Europe; peace efforts in the United States.

1930s

Programs in Appalachia; relief project during the Spanish Civil War; assistance to Jewish and other European refugees; Emergency Peace Campaign in the United States.

1940s

Assistance to Japanese-Americans relocated dur

This House Not for Sale

This House Not for Sale was a project growing out of concerns of residents of northwest Pasadena and was an effort to help stabilize changing neighborhoods and keep property values at their current levels. Householders who intended to stay where they lived were encouraged to display the signs. The project (carried out in conjunction with All Peoples Christian Church in Los Angeles) was a precursor to further AFSC efforts through its Fair Housing Program.

1960s
The "era of activism" saw AFSC staff and volunteers participating in the Civil Rights Movement and protesting the war against Vietnam.   They advocated for fair housing in Pasadena, organized nonviolent civil disobedience trainings and demonstrations, conducted teach-ins on Vietnam at Caltech and elsewhere, and in 1967 alone over 1,400 men received draft counseling through the AFSC network.

Pasadena Flour

These bags of flour were donated by Pasadena citizens in 1922 for Russian famine relief through the AFSC. The flour was shipped by way of the Panama Canal to New York, and then on to Russia.

Quaker presence in Southern California can be traced back to the founding of the first Monthly Meeting in the region in 1884 by Friends from Iowa—in a community that two years later would become incorporated as the city of Pasadena. In 1887, in what would become the city of Whittier (named after the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier), Friends established a Monthly Meeting that eventually became known as First Friends Church.