About us
AFS Intercultural Programs began as the American Ambulance Field Service, a volunteer ambulance corps created in April 1915 by A. Piatt Andrew. Over the years AFS has transformed from a wartime humanitarian aid organization into a groundbreaking international secondary school exchange, volunteer, and intercultural learning organization.
Today, the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs (AFS Archives) is the official repository for material related to the history and development of the organization that is now referred to as AFS Intercultural Programs, Inc. The AFS Archives contain more than 500 cubic feet of unique documents, photographs, memorabilia, and audio-visual material dating from as early as 1915. The collections are organized into four chronological record groups: RG1: World War I, RG2: World War II, RG3: Between the Wars, and RG4: Postwar Student Exchanges. The archives also house an extensive memorial library.
To ask a research question, submit a publication inquiry, request a loan, or book an in-person research appointment at our reading room in New York City, please contact us at archives@afs.org. We provide sixty minutes of complimentary research for remote reference requests. In-house appointments are limited and must be made four weeks in advance.
Although we are still in the process of migrating to Preservica, many of our collections remain online through our former Archon database and AFS' website. See the links below.
The Volunteers: Americans Join the World War I, 1914-1919, free secondary school curriculum
AFS World War II Ambulance Drivers Last Post
Arthur Howe, Jr., From Watertown to the World, online exhibition
Archival Spotlight and Stories from the Stacks blog posts
The AFS Archives are a non-profit repository. If you would like to donate funds to the archives, please make an online donation here , or call our offices at +1 212 209 0900.