Dagmar Searchinger Wilson (January 25, 1916 – January 6, 2011) was an American anti-

nuclear test Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by ...

ing activist, artist, and illustrator of children's books for Whitman's Children's Books. Born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, her parents were Cesar and Marion Searchinger. Wilson founded

Women Strike for Peace Women Strike for Peace (WSP, also known as Women for Peace) was a women's peace activist group in the United States. In 1961, nearing the height of the Cold War, around 50,000 women marched in 60 cities around the United States to demonstrate aga ...

in 1961 to end the testing of nuclear weapons.

Early Motivations/ Accomplishments

* When the US-Soviet Arms race began, Dagmar Wilson, a concerned mother of 3, learned about the implications of nuclear war. * She started a telephone tree, urging her friends to call their friends to marshal support for her one day demonstration in support of peace and disarmament. * On November 1, 1961, prior to the formation of any cohesive anti-war movement, Dagmar Wilson and Bella Abzug founded a loose network of 50,000 mothers, grandmothers, and other women, and successfully demonstrated in 60 cities across the country against atmospheric nuclear testing. * Calling on president John F. Kennedy to "end the arms-race - not the human race," Wilson and her colleagues won wide attention from world leaders and press. Kennedy gave partial credit to Wilson and her fellows to force the Cold War super powers to eventually sign a nuclear-test ban treaty.

Notes

People from Manhattan American anti–nuclear weapons activists American pacifists 1916 births 2011 deaths Activists from New York (state) {{US-activist-stub