John Raleigh Mott | |
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Mott circa 1946
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Born |
Livingston Manor, Sullivan County, New York, U.S. |
May 25, 1865
Died | January 31, 1955 Orlando, Florida, U.S. |
(aged 89)
Alma mater | |
Occupation | Activist |
Organization | YMCA, World Student Christian Federation |
Spouse(s) | Leila Ada White (m. 1891) |
Parent(s) | John Mott, Sr. Elmira (Dodge) Mott |
Awards | Nobel Peace Prize (1946) |
John Raleigh Mott (May 25, 1865 – January 31, 1955) was a long-serving leader of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF). He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for his work in establishing and strengthening international Protestant Christian student organizations that worked to promote peace. He shared the prize with Emily Balch. From 1895 until 1920 Mott was the General Secretary of the WSCF. Intimately involved in the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1948, that body elected him as a lifelong honorary President. His best-known book, The Evangelization of the World in this Generation, became a missionary slogan in the early 20th century.
Mott was born in Livingston Manor, New York, Sullivan County, New York on May 25, 1865, and his family moved to Postville, Iowa in September of the same year. He attended Upper Iowa University, where he studied history and was an award-winning student debater. He transferred to Cornell University, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1888. He was influenced by Arthur Tappan Pierson one of the forces behind the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, which was founded in 1886. Mott married Leila Ada White (1866-1952) in 1891 and had two sons and two daughters.
In 1910, Mott, an American Methodist layperson, presided at the 1910 World Missionary Conference, which was an important milestone in the modern Protestant missions movement and some say the modern ecumenical movement.