Peace Resource Center: Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives: Home

At the PRC we work for peace by bearing witness to the historical experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing survivors and the legacies of nonviolent activists touched by the horrors of nuclear war. Led by this mission the PRC creates a vital connection between the campus community and efforts toward non-violence, social justice, and global peace.

Barbara Reynolds (1915-1990)

Barbara Reynolds was an internationally- and nationally-known peace activist who devoted her life to creating awareness about the plight of atomic bombing survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She was given the key to the city of Hiroshima in 1969 and made an honorary citizen of Hiroshima in 1975. During the late 1950s Barbara and her husband Earle became major national and international figures in an emerging anti-nuclear movement. In 1975, Reynolds founded the Peace Resource Center (PRC) at Wilmington College to hold her extensive collection of historical documents about the Japanese experience of the atomic bombings and to educate the public about the human toll of nuclear war. It is because of Barbara's historical consciousness and desire to retain materials for the future that the PRC is able to continue her practice of historically-based programming and awareness-raising.

The PRC has begun to digitize its collection through the Opal Digital Collections project. To see digitized materials click on the following links:

Voyage of the Phoenix https://digital.opal-libraries.org/digital/collection/p17342coll8/search

Hiroshima Peace Pilgrimage https://digital.opal-libraries.org/digital/collection/p17342coll11/search

World Peace Study Mission https://digital.opal-libraries.org/digital/collection/p17342coll12/search

About the PRC

The PRC was founded in 1975 by the Quaker peace activist Barbara Reynolds (1915-1990) who worked ceaselessly toward creating a world free of nuclear weaponry and war and to helping atomic bombing survivors share their stories of the tragedy of military conflict. In the late 1950s, Barbara and her husband Earle became icons of the global peace and antinuclear movement after sailing their yacht the Phoenix into a US nuclear test site next to the Bikini Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

In addition, the PRC is the home of the unique archive, “The Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives.” Scholars throughout the country have visited the PRC to utilize this extensive collection of materials for their research on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Peace Resource Center’s non-violence, social justice, and global peace programming, as well as a priceless archive and collection of historical documents, makes it a unique “Hands On” space that promotes and affirms peace as a core value of the Wilmington College mission.

About the Barbara Reynolds Memorial Archives

The PRC archives is the most extensive collection of interdisciplinary materials related to the legacy of nuclear war in the United States. Each year, the PRC BRMA receives between 400-450 visitors, including researchers, students, and members of the public. The archives holds documents; creative responses to the atomic bombings, such as poetry, plays, and artistic works; historic poster collections; historic photos; slides; scrapbooks; photo albums; 16-mm films; reel-to-reel audio; cassette tapes; and artifacts among others. PRC BRMA founder Barbara Leonard Reynolds (1915-1990) collected most of these materials from the 1950s-1970s. The PRC BRMA is unique in that it relays the arc of nuclear war experiences and nuclear disarmament history within the context of the rise and decline of the Cold War during the second half of the 20^th  century.