Portsmouth Peace Treaty Forum Celebrates 120th Anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize with New Exhibit
PORTSMOUTH – This year marks the 120th anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Theodore Roosevelt for orchestrating the peace conference in Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 with the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty on Sept. 5, 1905.
To commemorate the anniversary, the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Forum has created a special exhibit in the Portsmouth Historical Society’s John Paul Jones House with documents from the Nobel Peace Prize Institute in Oslo, Norway that the Forum has not previously displayed.
The new display, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Nobel Peace Prize,” which complements the existing, “An Uncommon Commitment to Peace, 1905-2005” exhibit, showcases copies of the original
telegrams exchanged between the Institute and the White House announcing and acknowledging the awarding of the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.
The main exhibit features an authentic replica of TR’s Nobel Prize, authorized by the Institute in 2006 on the 100th anniversary of the award. A separate replica of the Nobel Peace Prize was presented to Captain Jon Iverson, then commandant of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard which hosted the formal proceedings of the 1905 peace conference. Materials from that commemoration are included in the new exhibit along with a poster honoring TR as if he were one of the contemporary Nobel recipients who receive such individualized posters honoring the work for which they receive their medals.
The exhibit is located in the John Paul Jones House that reopened for the season on May 21, 2026. (Hours: Thursday-Monday, 10 am to 4 pm and by appointment at 43 Middle St. in Portsmouth NH.)
On Sept. 5, Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day statewide, the Forum will host the annual bellringing and reading of the Governor’s Proclamation in Market Square, starting at 3:15 p.m.
“In 2006, the director of the Nobel Peace Prize Institute Geir Lundstrom congratulated the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Forum on being the first organization ever to commemorate the anniversary of a Prize and its recipient,” said Charles B. Doleac, president and founder of the Forum.
“Our work recognizes the role local citizens played in 1905 that complemented the formal negotiations between Russia and Japan and the back-channel diplomacy of Roosevelt. That Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize the following year demonstrates how the war had become a global focal point. It continues to be important to understand what the end of the Russo-Japanese War meant to the world and the difference local citizen diplomacy made to the outcome. Their participation in 1905 mattered. It still does.”
For more information, visit PortsmouthPeaceTreaty.org
CAPTION: Historical documents from the Nobel Peace Prize Institute in Oslo, Norway are displayed in the new "Theodore Roosevelt's Nobel Peace Prize" exhibit at the John Paul Jones House in Portsmouth NH.
