Balch was awarded the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize for her lifelong work for disarmament and international peace, becoming the second American woman so honored.
On November 14, 1946, Emily Greene Balch was announced as co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, sharing the honor with John R. Mott. The award recognized her decades of tireless work promoting disarmament, international cooperation, and peaceful resolution of conflict, work that spanned both World Wars and the tumultuous interwar period.
By the time of the award, Balch had already been expelled from her professorship at Wellesley College in 1919 due to her outspoken pacifism during World War I, a professional sacrifice that underscored the depth of her convictions. She went on to help found and later served as international secretary and honorary president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), an organization that brought together women from many nations to advocate for disarmament, women's rights, and international law.
Her Nobel recognition made her only the second American woman to receive the Peace Prize, following Jane Addams in 1931, and affirmed the legitimacy of women's leadership in international diplomacy and peace advocacy at a moment when the world was reckoning with the devastation of a second global war and searching for mechanisms, like the newly formed United Nations, to prevent future conflict. Balch's prize validated a lifetime of scholarship-informed activism and remains a landmark moment in the history of women's contributions to international peace and human rights movements.