To mark World Refugee Daycelebrated annually on June 20, we tell you what these ambitious archivists of the UN refugee agency, UNHCRthe UN office in Geneva and the UN Archives and Records Management Division (POOR), which preserves the memories of the Organization since its very beginning in 1945:
UN photo
Portrait of Margaret Bruce, Social Affairs Officer at the Human Rights Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (file)
“As the world commemorated the 70th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, ARMS was confronted with a mystery.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted that a photo caption from the 1951 Convention identified three men present but failed to name the only woman seated at the table.
In a search for an answer, archives teams from UNHCR, the UN Office in Geneva and ARMS joined forces to identify this woman.
The first clue came from Knud Larsen, chairman of the conference, who sat in the center of the photo. In his conference address, he thanked a “Miss Kitchen,” deputy executive secretary – located to his right – for keeping the conference on track. Further research revealed that her first name was Margaret.
We then discovered that she married shortly after the 1951 Convention and changed her name to Margaret Bruce.
This discovery opened up her life story to us.
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Margaret K. Bruce (left), head of the Status of Women Division at the UN Department of Human Rights, in conversation with Helvi L. Sipila of Finland, chair of the Commission on the Status of Women in 1967. (file)
Margaret (Kitchen) Bruce was born in Great Britain and joined the secretariat of the first UN General Assembly in London in 1946.
She moved to New York with the Organization and later married a colleague, William James Bruce.
Initially joining the Human Rights Division, Margaret worked directly with Eleanor Roosevelt during the drafting of the document Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
During her 32-year tenure, she served in many key roles, including deputy director of the Center for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs.
She withdrew from the UN in 1977.
UN photo/Marcel Bolomey
During the first session of the UN General Assembly in London in 1946, former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt convened a meeting of women delegates. (file)
Through ARMS’s careful review of the evidence, her identity was rediscovered, and thus her contributions were finally revealed to the world!
After the discovery, the the caption of the photo has been adjusted and now includes Margaret’s name.
That’s right. The caption in the UN Photo archive now reads in full:
“On July 28, 1951, at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, twelve countries signed the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, drawn up by the World Conference on Refugees and Stateless Persons, which met here from July 2 to 25. Israel signed later. Signatories were Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Great Britain and (then) Yugoslavia.”
Seated at table from left to right: “Margaret Kitchen, Deputy Executive Secretary; John Humphrey, Director of the Division of Human Rights; Knud Larsen (Denmark) President of the Conference; Dr. GJ Van Heuven Goedhart, High Commissioner for Refugees.”
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In 1963, Margaret K. Bruce, head of the Section on the Status of Women at the UN Secretariat (left) speaks with the chair of the 17th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), Maria Lavalle Urbina of Mexico. (file)
UN news shows epic moments and special individuals who are part of the history of the UN, cultivated from the UN Audiovisual Library‘s 49,400 hours of video and 18,000 hours of audio recordings in addition UN photo And archives carefully cultivated throughout the UN system since the Organization’s founding in 1945.
Watch VN videos Stories from the UN Archives playlist here and our associated series here.
Join us next week for another dive into history.
