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Records of the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy and Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy, two New York City-based American organizations working to raise funds and provide medical and humanitarian aid for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and to refugees who fled Spain after the defeat of the Republican forces in April 1939. The organizations formally merged in January 1938 and became known as the Spanish Refugee Relief Campaign. These files include the organization's official reports, correspondence, pamphlets, broadsides, photographs, and publicity material, as well as several scrapbooks of news clippings.

The collection includes the original manuscript of "Surrender on Demand", Mr. Fry's account of his wartime experiences, which was later rewritten for young readers as "Assignment Rescue" (New York, Four Winds Press, 1968). Among the correspondents represented in the collection are Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Roger Baldwin, Norman Thomas, J. Edgar Hoover, and Herman Wouk. In addition to the material relating to the Emergency Relief Committee (later known as the International Rescue Committee), the collection includes correspondence and papers concerning Fry's work as a writer on foreign affairs as well as copies of his books.