World Fellowship Center

The World Fellowship Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, retreat and intergenerational conference center located in Albany, New Hampshire, United States. It is open between June and September, with most of its scheduled summer program commencing shortly after June solstice and concluding on or shortly after Labor Day weekend. A few workshops and other events take place before or afterwards. Nestled at the southeastern edge of the White Mountain National Forest, directly east of Mount Chocorua off Route 16 in Albany, it currently comprises approximately 455 acres (184 ha), including a conference room and dining lodge, nature trails, soccer field, several cabins, campsites and additional lodging facilities, as well as boating and swimming access on a large pond. At full capacity it can host over 150 guests and staff. Since its inception it has featured speakers, groups, organizations, activists, artists and entertainers from around the world.

1929 - 1952: In a Time of War, Prepare for Peace

The name "World Fellowship" is derived from the World Fellowship of Faiths, which was officially established as an organization in 1929. In 1937, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, activist, philanthropist, suffragist, and feminist Lola Maverick Lloyd (1875–1944) propounded the notion of world government, essentially a forerunner to the United Nations, whereby nation-states would be dissolved and there would be one democratically elected government of all people. Lloyd saw the League of Nations, created in late 1918 in the aftermath of World War I, as doomed to fail since it was dominated by the very same war-mongering nations that supported the first World War. It was Lloyd's colleague, Charles Frederick Weller (1870–1957), who had been a speechwriter for Theodore Roosevelt, and Weller's wife Eugenia (née Winston, 1872–1956), who first conceived the idea of a summer retreat and conference center devoted to peace and social justice issues and causes some time in the late 1930s. The year 1940 proved to be paramount for the Weller couple - with much of the world engulfed in war, their adult son died. Shortly thereafter, Charles embarked on a 15-day-long meditation and fast on nearby Mount Whiteface, during which he conceived the notion of creating a more permanent place for the World Fellowship of Faiths. Afterwards, Charles and Eugenia selected a 290-acre (120 ha) plot known as the Draper Estate, located in Albany, which was for sale for $5,000. After making a down payment of $500, the Wellers contacted Lloyd and requested her to pay $2,500; many additional, smaller contributions were amassed in the purchase of the land. Despite the name "World Fellowship of Faiths," World Fellowship has never been officially aligned or affiliated with any religious denomination. The first official year of operation was summer 1941, during which an attendance of 253 people was recorded. The initial theme/mission statement was "In a time of war, prepare for peace." The Wellers assumed the position of directorship for the first twelve summers, from 1941 to 1952. Shortly thereafter, Eugenia died in 1956 at 84, and Charles in 1957 at 86.

1953 - 1969: Uphaus vs. Wyman

In August 1952, Willard Uphaus (1890–1983), a retired Methodist theologian and pacifist, and his wife Ola (née Hawkins) Uphaus (1897–1972), a social worker, first visited, and became directors in June 1953. Uphaus had previously been fired from Hastings College in Nebraska in 1930 for advocating radical viewpoints, and he remained committed to a pacifist philosophy during World War II. In September of that year, a series of articles published by Greg Abbott in the Manchester Union Leader (New Hampshire's only statewide newspaper) maligned Uphaus by branding him as a Communist. The Union Leader had been acquired in 1946 by arch-conservative publisher William Loeb III, and would be used successfully by Loeb to set New Hampshire's political stage for decades to come. Subsequently, in early 1954, with the Red Scare and McCarthyism in full swing, Governor Hugh Gregg, invoking the New Hampshire Subversive Activities Act of 1951, directed Attorney General Louis Wyman to issue a summons for Uphaus mandating that he surrender a list of all attendees and all employees of the World Fellowship Center, out of suspicion that World Fellowship may have had connections to the Communist Party, or was itself a Communist organization. Uphaus steadfastly refused to comply with these demands on the grounds that as a practicing Christian, to do so would be to bear false witness. Additionally, Upahuse felt that such an act would violate and jeopardize the civil rights and liberties of innocent people. This act of resistance commenced a five-year long legal battle that involved numerous subpoenas and appeals. In an attempt to clarify what the Attorney General's demands were (since World Fellowship already had a publicly accessible guest list for tax purposes) Uphaus visited Wyman at his office in Concord in the spring of 1954 in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Wyman that any additional list of names would be unreasonable, unnecessary and a breach of professional integrity. In September 1958, the case eventually made its to way the United States Supreme Court, which ruled 5–4 in June 1959 in favor of the Attorney General. In December of that year Uphaus was sentenced to a year in jail for contempt of court. The sentence lasted from December 14, 1959, to December 13, 1960. Uphaus would chronicle these events in his book "Commitment." The Uphaus couple remained directors until 1969. Ola died in 1972 at 75, and Willard in 1983 at 92.

1970 - 2000: Growth, Inward and Outward

In 1966, Katheryn "Kit" Schmauch (née Hively, b. 1933) and her husband Christoph Schmauch (né Werner Schmauch - b. 1935) first visited and agreed to take on the role of directorship in 1969, assuming full responsibility in 1970. Kit, a teacher, was from Columbus, Ohio; Christoph was a Lutheran minister from Breslau, East Germany, who had immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s. They had four children when they assumed the position, and have had by far the longest tenure of directorship to date. In the over 30 years that they were involved with World Fellowship, they successfully transformed it from a small-scale and relatively obscure conference center to a moderate-sized and internationally known counter-cultural haven by making numerous expansions, additions, capital and social improvements and liaisons with other politically inspired networks and organizations, both throughout both the U.S. and Europe. These included the purchase of 135 acres (55 ha) and the construction of bunkhouse dormitories and other lodging facilities for seasonal workers, as well as the construction of a year-round Cape house for the directors. They instituted a stipend for employees (prior to that, all wages were based on tips left by guests); purchased laundry facilities; upgraded and expanded the kitchen (prior to their arrival the galley kitchen, which is currently the guest kitchen, was where all meals except breakfast were prepared); installed commercial-scale refrigerators; drilled an artesian well on site; arranged for weekly trash collection; constructed a wide variety of recreational facilities such as a basketball court, volleyball court, and soccer field; and added numerous rowboats, canoes and an additional raft to the swimming area of the pond. With the acquired acreage, they blazed nature trails for hiking and established weekly guided nature walks. They expanded the program to include a children's fellowship, and for each week of the summer to have a different theme with several guest lecturers invited to speak about various issues pertaining to peace and social justice. In terms of staff networking, the Schmauchs introduced numerous people from Europe to World Fellowship without ever using outside advertising. They remained co-directors through the 2000 season; afterwards, they lived in nearby Conway until the 2010s, subsequently relocating to Columbus, Ohio.

2001 - 2019: Where Social Justice Meets Nature