Peace Symbol History

Have you ever wondered where the peace symbol came from?

There are multiple sources claiming to be the peace symbol creator. Perhaps the most credible source is Gerald Holtom and the date February 21, 1958. In 1958 he worked with the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War.

Bertrand Russell was a member of this committee and through his writings has left us with an unmistakable history of when, where and who created the Peace Sign.

Here are quotes from letters Bertrand Russell wrote in response to H. Pickles from Lichthort Verlag who wrote to complain that the peace symbol was a death symbol because the arms pointed downwards. Russell's reply: ``I am afraid that I cannot follow your argument that the ND badge is a death-symbol. It was invented by a member of our movement as the badge of the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War, for the first Aldermaston March. It was designed from the naval code of semaphore, and the symbol represents the code letters for ND. To the best of my knowledge, the Navy does not employ signalers who work upside down.''

So there you have it, the Navy code of semaphore is the flag signaling system. The letters

 

D


N

"Gerald Holtom [sic] is in fact widely credited with the design of the nuclear disarmament symbol (aka the peace symbol). The earliest reference I could find is in American journalist and playwright Herb Greer's  Mud Pie (London: Parrish, 1964). A little before the first Aldermaston march at Easter 1958, Holtom showed up at the offices of Peace News in London with drawings for banners and the symbol: "On a purple square was superimposed a white circle with a purple cross inside it, or almost a cross. The arms had slipped and were drooping against the lower sides of the circle. Holtom had made the design by combining the semaphore letters N and D: N for nuclear and D, naturally, for disarmament." (P. 30) Holtom was a commercial artist with, it seems, a "visual aid factory". Greer says he put his factory in Twickenham to making "lollipop signs" marked with the droopy cross. In a recent correspondence through email he added, "I was actually there on and before the first Aldermaston March for which it was created. I visited Holtom, I saw the original sketches and discussed it with him.

The reason for the symbol being upside down (D over N) is that semaphore is a military code. Upside down, anti-military." For a much later account by a famous march organizer who witnessed Holtom's presentation, see Michael Randle, "Non-Violent Direct Action in the 1950s and 1960s", in Richard Taylor and Nigel Young,  Campaigns for Peace: British Peace Movements in the Twentieth Century  (Manchester: Manchester U. Press, 1987), p. 134. The symbol was to appear at either end of banners stretching from one side of a street full of marchers to the other."

Source: The Bertrand Russell archives  and copied from - http://www.peaceday.org/pcsign.htm

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