The Fellowship of Reconciliation is delighted to welcome Erica Fugger as our first organizational archivist in the 21st century. Erica (she/her) is an oral historian and peace educator based in the New York City area. She actively works with organizations, communities and families to implement historical documentation and dialogue initiatives.
In her consultant role with FOR-USA, which began in late May, Erica is helping the Fellowship to unearth intergenerational stories, lessons, and learnings from a century’s worth of print, digital, and multimedia resources. She will work in consultation with our national staff and the Swarthmore College Peace Collection to draw upon these invaluable archives. Erica previously managed Columbia University’s Center for Oral History Archives and Oral History M.A. program, and she served as an Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights. She also directed Washington College’s World War II public memory program known as the National Home Front Project, which collaborated with diverse communities across the United States to document and preserve civilian experiences of the war.
Erica is continuing to explore the lasting impacts of war and peace movements through doctoral work in Rutgers University-Newark’s American Studies Ph.D. program, which builds upon her previous degrees from Columbia University and Union College. Having completed her doctoral qualifying exams this spring, her dissertation will subsequently focus on researching the collaborations between Vietnamese peace activists like Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and U.S. antiwar organizations in the 1960s. Bridging her academic work with applied practice, Erica currently serves as a co-director of Documenting Peace and a researcher for the Community Organizing Oral History Project.