A Hymn for the Brave : the Sharps and Humanitarian Work in World War II
John Hay Library, Brown University | September 19 – December 23, 2016
In the late 1930s, Nazi Germany’s escalating territorial expansion sparked a refugee crisis across Europe. American NGOs struggled to provide meaningful aid across the Atlantic. Two Brown alumni, Martha Ingham Dickie Sharp (Pembroke, 1926) and Robert Cloutman Dexter (AB 1912, AM 1917) —and their spouses, Waitstill Hastings Sharp and Elisabeth Anthony Dexter— were among the earliest Americans to join the efforts to aid those fleeing from their homes and fearing for their lives.
The efforts of the Sharps and the Dexters led to the founding of the Unitarian Service Committee, a social justice-minded subdivision of the American Unitarian Association. During the years of war and unrest, the Sharps ran relief and rescue operations throughout Europe. Together they coordinated deliveries of supplies and arranged shelter for those in need of resettlement. They secured transportation and processed visas for hundreds of individuals desperate to emigrate, and tried unavailingly to help hundreds more. For Martha Sharp, this wartime service was one step in a lifelong calling to humanitarian work and public service.
Drawing mostly from the Martha and Waitstill Sharp Collection and the Robert Cloutman and Elisabeth Anthony Dexter papers, this exhibition illustrates the trials, tribulations, and successes of the work undertaken by these individuals through the Unitarian Service Committee. The materials illuminate the commitment to social work that drove Robert Dexter to establish aid programs under the Unitarian church and that inspired the Sharps to go abroad. Through personal photographs and professional papers, the exhibition connects records with faces to relate an account of bravery, resistance, and compassion during global conflict.