Marion E. Kenworthy Papers

The collection contains correspondence, newsletters, minutes of meetings, pamphlets, newspaper articles, editorials, congressional testimony, and various publications of the NSCGRC and its successor, the Non-Sectarian Foundation for Refugee Children (NSFRC).

The documents focus on the effort to pass the Wagner-Rogers bill of 1939, which would have allowed 20,000 German refugee children of all faiths to enter the United States over a two-year period. Of special interest are reports by various female social workers that traveled to Germany before World War II who documented the status of Jewish and "non-Aryan" children in that country. The materials provide an interesting indication of how much information Americans had about the situation in Germany prior to the outset of the war. Also valuable are the comments on the types of children refugee organizations thought would be the best to bring to the United States. Faced with restrictions on the number of children who could be admitted to the U.S., refugee organizations took pains to select those children whom they considered to be well adjusted and who would easily and quickly assimilate into American life. Among the correspondents in the collection are Stephen S. Wise, Senator Robert F. Wagner, Justine Wise Polier, Alf Landon, and Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Justine Wise Polier also appears in many of the minutes from various meetings.