Teddy Roosevelt’s Nobel Prize: New Hampshire and the Portsmouth Peace Treaty

Teddy Roosevelt chose Portsmouth to be the site of the 1905 peace treaty negotiations between Russian and Japanese delegations to end the Russo-Japanese war. Charles Doleac's program first focuses on Roosevelt's multi-track diplomacy that included other world powers, the Russian and Japanese delegations, the US Navy, and New Hampshire hosts in 30 days of negotiations that resulted in the Portsmouth Peace Treaty and earned Roosevelt the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. The program then focuses on how ordinary people from throughout New Hampshire positively affected the Portsmouth negotiations. The program customizes each presentation to the program site's local history at the time of the treaty to encourage audiences to join the annual statewide commemoration of "Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day" on Sept. 5.

This program is made possible by a grant from New Hampshire Humanities.

Charles Doleac is an attorney with Boynton, Waldron, Doleac, Woodman and Scott in Portsmouth. He creates seminars on East/West comparative cultures and professional ethics, and is president and co-founder of the Japan America Society of NH. The author of An Uncommon Commitment to Peace: Portsmouth Peace Treaty 1905, he created the treaty's authoritative website and its 100th anniversary museum exhibit. In 2011, Doleac received Japan's imperial decoration, the Order of the Rising Sun Gold Rays with Rosette, for his efforts in promoting the treaty as a model for citizen involvement in multilateral diplomacy's conflict resolution.