James L. Barton

James L. Barton grew up in a Quaker family in Charlotte, Vermont. He graduated from Middlebury College and earned an advanced degree from Hartford Theological Seminary. Dr. Barton was deeply committed to humanitarian work through missionary service. In 1885 he and his wife, Flora Holmes Barton, traveled to Turkey, where he supervised the missionary school system in Harput. In 1892 he was elected president of Euphrates College, an English-language theological seminary.

The Bartons returned to the United States in 1894. Barton continued to advocate for missionary schools in the Near East as the Foreign Secretary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston.

He helped organize the first committee meeting in New York City on September 16, 1915. When it became apparent that the group’s work would be long-term, Barton was asked to head the relief committee. He was named Chairman when NER was chartered by Congress in 1919.

Barton was a quiet but shrewd leader. Beginning in 1917, Barton asked American missionaries who were leaving Ottoman Turkey to send him detailed narratives of their experiences. These eyewitness accounts of the Armenian Genocide were instrumental in raising American consciousness of the tragedies and funds for relief work.

Barton worked tirelessly to unite philanthropists, relief workers, and the American people in one of the greatest humanitarian efforts of all time. He authored numerous books, articles, and letters to prominent newspapers. In 1930, Barton published "The Story of Near East Relief". This book is widely regarded as the authority on the organization’s early history.

Barton played an important leadership role during the transition from Near East Relief to Near East Foundation. And, as vice chairman of NEF, he traveled extensively and cultivated relationships with foreign leaders. At the time of his death in 1936, the New York Times praised Barton as “a Near East saint.”

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