AMBASSADOR SWANEE HUNT PAPERS

Ambassador Swanee Hunt was born in 1950 and raised in Dallas, Texas. She is the fourth and youngest child of H.L. Hunt, founder of the Hunt Oil Company, and Ruth Ray Hunt. After graduating cum laude in 1968 from the Hockaday School for Girls in Dallas, Ambassador Hunt attended Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. She earned her BA in philosophy and graduated with honors in 1972. Ambassador Hunt continued her education in Heidelberg, Germany, where she received her MA in counseling psychology from Ball State University's extension program in 1976. The following year, Ambassador Hunt obtained her MA in religion from the Iliff School of Theology and in 1986 earned her Doctor of Theology from the same institution.

In 1982, Ambassador Hunt and her sister, Helen Hunt Hendrix, co-founded the Hunt Alternatives Fund in Denver, Dallas, and New York. Both Ambassador Hunt and her sister were active trustees in the foundation. The Fund provided grants to a wide range of programs addressing such concerns as families, women, youth, poverty, and mental illness. An issue of particular interest to the foundation was reproductive rights. When the Norplant birth control method became an option, the Fund gathered extensive research materials on the subject. After 15 years of grant-making in Denver, the Fund closed its Denver office.

Deeply interested in and committed to social issues, Ambassador Hunt founded several programs, acted on numerous boards, and held positions on committees appointed by then-Governor Roy Romer. In 1986, Ambassador Hunt co-founded and acted as trustee of the Women's Foundation of Colorado. In 1989, she was appointed to and chaired the Colorado Coordinating Council on Housing and the Homeless. Other board memberships include the following:

Karis Community, co-founder, 1980-1983

Piton Foundation, Community Development Project, Denver, 1985-1988

Colorado Children's Campaign, 1986-1989

University of Colorado at Denver, Center for Health, Ethics and Policy, Policy Review Board, Denver, 1987-1989

University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Department of Psychiatry, Visiting Committee, 1987-1989

Governor's Task Force on the Homeless (appointed by Governor Romer), 1988-1989

University of Denver Board of Trustees, 1990-1995

In 1992, Ambassador Hunt became involved in national politics when she actively supported Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. Hosting a symposium on women's issues, she raised $1 million for the Democratic Party and further backed the Democratic bid by making the second largest donation to the campaign. In 1993, President Clinton nominated Swanee Hunt for Ambassador to Austria, a post for which she was confirmed. She held the position until 1997. A serious concern of Ambassador Hunt's was the Balkan conflict, which she actively worked to resolve. In 1996, Ambassador Hunt published a pictorial booklet documenting her trips to Sarajevo called A Personal View - Window on Sarajevo. In Austria, she promoted women's issues by founding the Vienna Women's Initiative and establishing the Center on Democracy. In 1997, Ambassador Hunt organized a three-day conference in Vienna called Vital Voices: Women in Democracy. During the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, she organized the program Unconventional Women, which was presented with many female political leaders to an audience of more than 3,000. With a desire to promote the political involvement of women, she developed the Voting Circles program, which encouraged women to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 election.

Ambassador Hunt combined her sociopolitical interests with her artistic endeavors. She composed Witness Cantata, first performed in 1985, choreographed by Cleo Parker Robinson in 1992, and played in Vienna. During her travels around the world, Ambassador Hunt photographed the people she met and their homelands. In 1994, Ambassador Hunt assembled her collection of photographs from these trips into an exhibit and a catalog titled Witness. The exhibit appeared in galleries in Europe and the United States.

Ambassador Hunt has written articles for various newspapers and magazines, including Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, International Herald Tribune, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy Magazine. She has provided commentary on many international and national news networks. Her book on women and the Bosnian War, This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace, won the PEN/New England Award in 2005, and she published her memoir, Half-Life of a Zealot, in 2006. Ambassador Hunt’s book Worlds Apart, released in August 2011, is an in-depth look at the lessons learned from the Bosnian War that could be applied to global conflict today.

In 1985, Hunt received the Katherine Hamilton Award for founding and supporting mental health programs and commissions. In 1989, KUSA Channel 9 awarded her the Frontier Award for extraordinary volunteer community service. In 2007, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Other awards and honors include:

Mental Health Association of Colorado, Special Award of Recognition, 1984

The Caring Connection, Tribute Dinner Honoree, 1988

International Women's Forum, "Women Who Make a Difference" tribute, 1989

Mental Illness Awareness Week Community Service Award from Colorado Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 1990

Anti-Defamation League, American Heritage Award, 1995

The Remember for Tomorrow Alliance Award, 1997

Ambassador Hunt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the board of Crisis Group. She is the Eleanor Roosevelt lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She married Charles Ansbacher, a composer and symphony conductor in 1985. They have three children. Charles Ansbacher died in 2010.