Benjamin Franklin Trueblood (1847–1916) was an American pacifist who served the American Peace Society for 23 years. In this role, he functioned as the official public spokesperson and representative of the Society. He served as editor of the Society's journal, The Advocate of Peace which contained numerous articles by Trueblood.[1] He was elected to the executive council of American Society of International Law in 1905.
Benjamin Franklin Trueblood was born in Salem, Indiana on November 25, 1847, to Esther Parker and Joshua A. Trueblood.[1][3] His parents were Quakers, and he belonged to the Society of Friends throughout his life.[1] His brother was Rev. Alpheus Trueblood, a Quaker minister.[4] Trueblood attended Earlham College, earning his B.A. degree in 1869.[1] He received an M.A. at Earlham in 1875 and received two L.L.D. degrees,[1] one of which was an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Iowa.[3][4]
Trueblood was a principal at the Raisin Valley Seminary in Michigan in 1869 and within the same year he became the minister of the Blue River Friends Meeting House.[1] In 1871, he was a professor at Earlham College, where he taught English literature. In 1873, Trueblood was next at Penn College in Iowa, where he taught Latin and Greek. He was the president of Wilmington College in Ohio from 1874 to 1879, after which he was the president of Penn College through 1890.[1]
American Peace Society
After spending 1890 and 1891 in Europe as the foreign secretary of the Christian Arbitration and Peace Society, he joined the American Peace Society as its general secretary in 1892.[1] From 1892 to 1913, he was the editor of the Advocate of Peace.[4] Trueblood was present at the 1899 Hague Peace Conference, and arrived there on May 21, 1899 – three days after its opening, according to the memoirs of Bertha von Suttner. He was one of the earliest members of the American Society of International Law, being elected to the executive council of ASIL in 1905.[2]
