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Correspondence, photos, and other material of Detroit businessman Frederick Holt relating to his activities as a member of the Ford Peace Expedition in 1915, as the personal representative of Henry Ford and business manager for the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation in 1916, and with the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities, 1917, and the Playground and Recreation Association of America, 1917. Papers of his wife, Lilian (Silk) Holt (1869-1949), a women's suffragist and philanthropist, include a speech and correspondence, primarily about the Woman's Peace Party, 1915-1916. Among the correspondents are Henry Ford and Hungarian writer and feminist Rosika Schwimmer.

The Holt Peace Papers are comprised of correspondence, papers, and photos relating to Frederick Holt's activities as a member of the Ford Peace Expedition, 1915; as the personal representative of Henry Ford and business manager for the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation, 1916, including financial records; and papers relating to his work with the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities, 1917, and the Playground and Recreation Association of America, 1917. Also includes Mrs. Lilian (Silk) Holt's papers as a women's suffrage worker and philanthropist, chiefly concerning the Woman's Peace Party, 1915-16.

The collection documents the international women's rights organizations, including the National Council of Women and International Council of Women, both of which Wright served as president, and Wright's career as a writer, lecturer, reformer, pacifist, and feminist.

The collection is of great use to any person researching American, European, and International women’s rights organizations, including the ICW and NCW, among others; the women’s rights movement; pacifism; working women; literature on the women’s movement and prominent members of the movement, particularly May Wright Sewall. Other topics of interest are the Paris Exposition (1900) and the Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893), both of which she attended in connection with women’s rights meetings. His Imperial Highness Crown Prince Pu Lun of China who visited the ICW meetings in Indianapolis and became a patron to the girls’ school in documented in Vol. 4. Vol. 6 has a letter from Sewall to the Empress Frederick in Dresden, 1892. There are also materials describing the Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen ocean liners on which she sailed to meetings in Europe.

While most of the collection is in English, there are materials in Greek, French, German, Italian, and Danish. Issues no. 313, 314, and 316 (1893) of the first women’s suffrage journal in Greece, the title of which is translated as The Women’s Journal, are in v. 7. These are the only issues of the journal believed to be in the U.S. [This information from scholar Karen Offen in April 2006], and include an article about and photograph of Sewall.

Note: Photographs and newspaper etchings are scattered throughout most of the scrapbooks.