Rachel Conrad Nason

• masters of economics

from early adult life: prominent in peace activities

12/8/1968: Received the Distinguished Honor Award from the US State Dept.

Her role was a State Department employee assigned as advisor to United States representatives on United Nations and Inter-american affairs who were concerned with human rights and the status of women. As such, she was part of the project which grew out of the Eleanor Roosevelt era push that successfully passed the United Nations Charter on Human Rights. This took a sustained effort. Nason assisted Roosevelt, John Peters Humphrey, and René Cassin in the preparation of drafts. As a group, they were opposed by a factions in Congress and the State Department who were satisfied with the existing status quo.

In a sense, Nason was part of an entourage who strove for universal human rights.

"Stereotypes about work at the Department of State crumble on close examination of Rachel Nason's twenty years as a foreign affairs officer... Rachel found her true vocation doing the satff work that is essential to official delegations" ~ Opal Goodwin (in the article cited below {Friends Journal}

Many details can be gleaned from: http://artscience.nku.edu/content/dam/hisgeo/docs/archives/Vol14_19... : (Nason's name is searchable in this document)

• lived for many years with her parents at 125 East Fourth Ave., Conshohocken, PA
• lived at 3040 Idaho AVE. NW, WASHINGTON DC (1955) ... DURING STATE DEPT. job

links: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v25/d295

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v25/d296

letter drafted by Nason: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v25/d297

PROPOSAL FOR A United Nations RAPPORTEUR ON HUMAN RIGHTS https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v25/d303

Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Cleveland) to Secretary of State Rusk https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v25/d304 (a close reading of the text of this link is worthwhile. It seems as if the State Department under Dean Rusk was trying to distance itself from the ground roots Civil Rights actions of the day: (see DOCUMENTS)

{~• ed note MMvB2014} I do not know if such a UN post of "Rapporteur on Human RIGHTS" was ever instituted in the 1960's. Wikipedia seems to indicate otherwise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Special_Rapporteur

• for a more complete portrait of Rachel Conrad Nason see:

http://www.friendsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/emember/downloads/...

Biographical notes:

Educator and government official Rachel Conrad Nason (1899-1977) graduated from Wellesley (A.B. 1920) and the University of Pennsylvania (M.A. 1934). She taught history and English at the Chaffee School, Windsor, Conn. (1937-1942) and was dean of women at Hillyer Junior College, Hartford, Conn. (1939-1941). Her lifelong involvement with international affairs began in the 1920s when she served as executive secretary of the Young Friends Movement (Quaker) and was co-founder of the Connecticut Council of International Relations. In 1931 she received a grant from the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War to study in Europe and at the League of Nations; she published a report, Hitler and the Corridor, and lectured widely upon her return. As congressional secretary for the League of Women Voters (1944-1945), Nason helped organize Senate hearings which led to the U.S. ratification of the United Nations Charter.

An advisor to Eleanor Roosevelt while she was chair of the Human Rights Commission, Nason prepared many of the U.S. drafts for what was eventually adopted by the United Nations as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition to serving as an advisor to U.S. delegations at the U.N., Nason was an international organization affairs specialist for the Dept. of State, with responsibility for human rights, anti-discrimination, and status of women programs. In 1968 she received the Dept. of State's Distinguished Service Award; she retired in 1969.

~•From the description of Papers, 1931-1980 (inclusive). (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 122521321.
http://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w6qc7nb4

death

Rachel died in Albuquerque which is where her daughter. Mary-Louise Reynolds lived with her family.