League of Nations Secretariat

UN Archives Geneva

Rachel Crowdy

Rachel Crowdy, Chief of the Social and Opium Section of the League of Nations Secretariat between 1920 and 1932, was the highest ranked woman in the organization. Yet, similarly to Wilson, she was not graded as director, lowering her salary as compared to other Heads of Sections. Initially, Rachel Crowdy started a nurse career during the first World War, working for the Voluntary Aid Detachment and then the Red Cross. She took part in the war efforts, setting up and directing hospitals on the front lines. In her early days in the League, she directed the Health Section. In this role, she was the only women to take part in League’s mission against typhus in Poland. Thereafter, she headed the Social and Opium Traffic Section, which tackled with traffic in women and children, dangerous drugs, and child welfare. Rachel Crowdy was a pivotal actor in the League of Nations Secretariat, playing a key role in the establishment of the organization’s policy on Social Questions. After her departure, socio-economic matters gradually gained prominence in the League’s efforts. In the 1930s, the economic depression, and the interventionist national political measure that followed, catalyzed a fresh enthusiasm for the League’s special sections. The work Crowdy had initiated expanded and becoming central in the League’s policies. For instance, Crowdy was the instigator of the League Secretariat’s work on the status of women through the establishment of a Committee on Traffic in Women and Children for 1932-33. Both initiatives later helped the United Nations to define its own policy on socio-economic matters and on the status of women.

Born in Jamaica, Una Marson was a renowned writer and poet. She was the first Jamaican women to publish her own journal and in the 1940s she became the first black women to be employed as a journalist by the BBC. In 1932, she settled in the UK where she was active in the League of Coloured Peoples, notably editing its journal. In 1935, she was invited to the Secretariat of the League of Nations as an observer. She stayed for a temporary assignment within the Information Section, being one of the rare individuals of color in the Secretariat. In 1936, she came back to Geneva as the personal secretary of Emperor Haile Selassie on the occasion of his famous speech against the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. Her short contract with the League reveals the tenuous links the organization fostered with major civil rights associations while supporting the imperialism of its member states.

UN Archives Geneva

Julliene Piachaud at the center of picture. Picture of the Central bureau of stenography and dactylography

At twenty-seven, Julienne Piachaud was overseeing the biggest department of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, its stenographic pool. Containing more than fifty employees, it mainly employed young women recruited locally in the French and Swiss areas, and more rarely coming from the United Kingdom. Despite the size of her office, Julienne Piachaud was barely part of the intermediate class and paid less than her male colleagues heading other general services. The tasks of the stenographic service were vital for the League to function as bureaucratic machinery and required a large number of workers. Moreover, hand-typist and secretaries indirectly participated in executive tasks, by assisting in meetings, translating, answering phones and letters, participating in fostering the relationships of the league with people from the outside.

UN Archives Geneva

Liba Hersch

Liba Hersh was a polish doctor of Medicine but she was only a junior assistant at the League of Nations Secretariat. She was in charge of putting together the statistical yearbook of the League, responsible for gathering the data, translating them into multiple languages, and ordering the results. She had multiple short term appointments and was never able to secure a permanent contract. One of the explanations is pretty common for international civil servants: she was not hired because of her expertise, but because she spoke several sought-for languages. Hersch never reached the position of Member of Section despite being a M.D. Men placed in the intermediate class were often junior officials promised to an executive career in the Secretariat. Women of the international class, instead, often ascended from the lower grades of the second division, or were hired in the intermediate class by superiors who figured that they would remain secretaries for the rest of their career. Yet, Hersch was not performing the work of a secretary of section, but rather the work of a junior official. Despite her young age, she never had the occasion to climb the ladders of the Secretariat, and remained at the same rank until she left in 1940.