Clara Guthrie d'Arcis

Clara Guthrie d’Arcis (22 February 1879, New Orleans – 12 May 1937, Geneva) was an American-born Swiss peace activist, feminist and international businesswoman. She was a founder and president of World Union of Women for International Concord and honorary treasurer of the Peace and Disarmament Committee of the Women's International Organizations. She represented Switzerland at the 5th Quinquennial Convention of the International Council of Women. As president of a peace movement, Clara Guthrie d’Arcis has become well known internationally. Her father was a distinguished member of the Louisiana Bar and her grandfather, Judge Edwin T. Merrick, had served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana. Through her grandmother, Caroline E. Merrick, Guthrie early came in contact with the women's movement in the United States.

Her first husband was Philip Cocke with whom she had a daughter, Elizabeth. In 1911 Guthrie married for the second time to Swiss businessman Ludovic d’Arcis. She then moved to Geneva and joined her husband in running a successful import business for American automobiles and other consumer goods. Clara Guthrie d’Arcis died on 12 May 1937 in Geneva. Peace and Disarmament Committee published a "Peace-Roll of Industry" in which such corporations as General Motors, U.S. Steel, and Shell Union Oil declared peace essential to prosperity. She argued that bankers and industrialists who funded wars and produced arms and war materials had to be re-educated to invest in consumer and other peacetime products. D’Arcis believed that moral considerations must influence business decisions and businessmen must promote peace and disarmament.