Quaker history
Encyclopedia
The Religious Society of Friends
is a movement that began in England
in the 17th century. Members of this movement are informally known as Quakers, a word that means, "to tremble in the way of the Lord." In its early days it faced opposition and persecution
; however, it continued to expand, extending into many parts of the world, especially the Americas and Africa.
The Society of Friends, while always small in membership, has been influential in the history of reform. The state of Pennsylvania
was founded by William Penn
in 1682, as a safe place for Quakers to live and practice their faith. Quakers have been a significant part of the movements for the abolition
of slavery
, promote equal rights for women, and peace. They have also promoted education and the humane treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill
, through the founding or reforming of various institutions. Quaker entrepreneurs played a central role in forging the Industrial Revolution
, especially in England and Pennsylvania.
During the 19th century Friends in the United States suffered a number of separations which resulted in the formation of different branches of the Society of Friends. Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) estimated in 2007 there were 359,000 Friends worldwide
pulled together groups of disparate seekers that formed the Religious Society of Friends following 1647. This time of upheaval and social and political unrest called all institutions into question, so Fox and his leading disciples--James Nayler
, Richard Hubberthorne
, Margaret Fell
, as well as numerous others—targeted "scattered Baptists," disillusioned soldiers, and restless common folk as potential Quakers. Confrontations with the established churches and its leaders and those who held power at the local level assured those who spoke for the new sect a ready hearing as they insisted that God could speak to average people, through his risen son, without the need to heed churchmen, pay tithes, or engage in deceitful practices. They found fertile ground in northern England in 1651 and 1652, building a base there from which they moved southward, first to London and then beyond. In the early days the groups remained scattered, but gradually they consolidated in the north—the first meeting being created in Durham in 1653—to provide financial support to the missionaries who had gone south and presently abroad. Before long they seemed a potential threat to the dignity of the Cromwellian state; even arresting its leaders failed to slow the movement, instead giving them a new audience in the courts of the nation.
, went beyond the standard beliefs of Quakers when he rode into Bristol on a horse in the pouring rain, accompanied by a handful of men and women saying "Holy, holy, holy" and strewing their garments on the ground — clearly imitating Jesus's entry into Jerusalem. While this was apparently an attempt to emphasize that the "Light of Christ" was in every person, most observers believed that Nayler and his followers believed him to be Jesus Christ. The group was arrested by the local authorities and handed over to Parliament, where they were tried. Parliament was sufficiently incensed by Nayler's heterodox views that they punished him savagely and sent him back to Bristol to jail indefinitely This was especially bad for the movement's respectability in the eyes of the Puritan rulers because some considered Nayler (and not Fox, who was in jail at the time) to be the actual leader of the movement. Many historians see this event as a turning point in early Quaker history because many other leaders, especially Fox, made efforts to increase the authority of the group, so as to prevent similar behavior. This effort culminated in 1666 with the "Testimony from the Brethren," aimed at those, in its own words, who despised a rule "without which we … cannot be kept holy and inviolable"; it continued the centralizing process that began with the Nayler affair and was aimed at isolating any separatists who still lurked in the Society. Fox also established women's meetings for discipline and gave them an important role in overseeing marriages, which served both to isolate the opposition and fuel discontent with the new departures. In the 1660s and 1670s Fox himself traveled the country setting up a more formal structure of monthly (local) and quarterly (regional) meetings, which still is done today.
Two acts of Parliament made it particularly difficult for Friends. The first was the Quaker Act of 1662, which made it illegal to refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance to the King and country. As persons not pledging allegiance to the laws of the country, were not then allowed to hold any secret meetings. Because Friends believed it was wrong to take an oath, believing their religion was superior to their protectorate country, they were sure to run afoul of this law. The second act was the Conventicle Act of 1664
, which reaffirmed that holding secret meetings by people who did not pledge allegiance to the country was a crime.
Despite these laws, the Friends continued to meet openly . They believed that by doing so, they were testifying to the strength of their convictions and were willing to be punished for doing what they believed was right.
persecution practically ceased. James issued a Declaration of Indulgence
in 1687 and 1688, and it was widely held that William Penn
had been its author.
In 1689 the Toleration Act
was passed. It allowed for freedom of conscience and prevented persecution by making it illegal to disturb anybody else from worship. Thus Quakers became tolerated though still not widely understood and accepted.
See also: Margaret Fell
, Francis Howgill
and Margaret Fell
's nephew William Caton
. Caton soon learned and married Dutch, but argued with Calvinist preachers in Latin. From Amsterdam preaching tours went to other parts of the European continent. In 1661 Ames and Caton visited Heidelberg and dined with the Prince-Elector of the Palatine.
Rotterdam Quakers with English nationality were allowed to ship people to English colonies. With William Penn
visiting in 1671 they tried without success to convert followers of Jean de Labadie
. Amsterdam Quaker Jan Claus accompanied and translated for Penn and George Fox
on later travels in Europe. His brother Jacob Claus had Quaker books translated and published as well as a map of Philadelphia. By 1797 there were only seven Quakers left in Amsterdam with a granddaughter of Jan Claus taking care of the meeting house on Keizersgracht. When she stopped paying the rent the yearly meeting in London took legal action and had her evicted.
, a favorite of King Charles II in 1682 received ownership of Pennsylvania
, which he tried to make a "holy experiment," by a union of temporal and spiritual matters. Pennsylvania made guarantees of religious freedom, and kept them, attracting many Quakers and others. Quakers took political control but were bitterly split on the funding of military operations or defenses; finally they relinquished political power. They created a second "holy experiment" by extensive involvement in voluntary benevolent associations while remaining apart from government. Programs of civic activism included building schools, hospitals and asylums for the entire city. Their new tone was an admonishing moralism born from a feeling of crisis. Even more extensive philanthropy was possible because of the wealth of the Quaker merchants based in Philadelphia.
The Friends had no ordained ministers and thus needed no seminaries for theological training. As a result they did not open any colleges in the colonial period, and did not join in founding the University of Pennsylvania
. The major Quaker colleges were Haverford College
(1833), Earlham College
(1844), Swarthmore College
(1864), and Bryn Mawr College
(1885), all founded much later.
Quakers faced persecution in Puritan Massachusetts, In 1656 Mary Fisher and Ann Austin
began preaching in Boston. They were considered heretics because of their insistence on individual obedience to the Inner Light. They were imprisoned and banished by the Massachusetts Bay Colony
. Their books were burned, and most of their property was confiscated. They were imprisoned in terrible conditions, then deported.
Some Quakers in New England were only imprisoned or banished. A few were also whipped or branded. Christopher Holder
, for example, had his ear cut off. A few were executed by the Puritan leaders, usually for ignoring and defying orders of banishment. Mary Dyer
was thus executed in 1660. Three other martyrs to the Quaker faith in Massachusetts were William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, and William Leddra. These events are described by Edward Burrough in A Declaration of the Sad and Great Persecution and Martyrdom of the People of God, called Quakers, in New-England, for the Worshipping of God (1661)
In 1657 a group of Quakers from England landed in New Amsterdam
. One of them, Robert Hodgson, preached to large crowds of people. He was arrested, imprisoned, and flogged. Governor Peter Stuyvesant
issued a harsh ordinance, punishable by fine and imprisonment, against anyone found guilty of harboring Quakers. Some sympathetic Dutch colonists were able to get him released. Almost immediately after the edict was released, Edward Hart, the town clerk in what is now Flushing,(Queens) gathered his fellow citizens on Dec. 27, 1657 and wrote a petition to Stuyvesant, called the Flushing Remonstrance
, citing the Flushing town charter of 1645, which promised liberty of conscience. Stuyvesant arrested Hart and the other official who presented the document to him, and he jailed two other magistrates who had signed the petition, and also forced the other signatories to recant. But Quakers continued to meet in Flushing. Stuyvesant arrested a farmer, John Bowne
, in 1662 for holding illegal meetings in his home and banished him from the colony; Bowne immediately went to Amsterdam to plead for the Quakers. Though the Dutch West India Company called Quakerism an “abominable religion,” it nevertheless overruled Stuyvesant in 1663 and ordered him to “allow everyone to have his own belief.”
During this time, other people began to recognize Quakers for their integrity in social and economic matters. Many Quakers went into manufacturing or commerce, because they were not allowed to earn academic degrees at that time. These Quaker businessmen were successful, in part, because people trusted them. The customers knew that Quakers felt a strong conviction to set a fair price for goods and not to haggle over prices. They also knew that Quakers were committed to quality work, and that what they produced would be worth the price.
Some useful and popular products made by Quaker businesses at that time included iron and steel by Abraham Darby
and pharmaceuticals by William Allen
. An early meeting house was set up in Broseley
, Shropshire by the Darbys.
At the same time that Friends were succeeding in manufacturing and commerce, they were also becoming more concerned about social issues and becoming more active in society at large.
One such issue was slavery. The Germantown (Pennsylvania) Monthly Meeting put their opposition to slavery into their minutes in 1733, but abolitionism did not become universal among Quakers until its promotion by concerned members such as John Woolman
. Woolman was a farmer, retailer, and tailor from New Jersey who became convinced that slavery was wrong. Before that time, some Quakers owned slaves. In general they opposed mistreatment of slaves and promoted the teaching of Christianity to them. Woolman argued that the entire practice of buying, selling, and owning human beings was wrong in principle. Other Quakers started to agree and became very active in the Abolition movement
. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
prohibited members from owning slaves in 1776.
Another issue that became a concern of Quakers was the treatment of the mentally ill. Tea merchant, William Tuke
opened the Retreat at York in 1796. It was a place where the mentally ill were treated with the dignity that Friends believe is inherent in all human beings. Most asylums at that time forced such people into deplorable conditions and did nothing to help them.
By the late 18th century, Quakers were sufficiently recognized and accepted that the United States Constitution
contained language specifically directed at Quaker citizens — in particular, the explicit allowance of "affirming," as opposed to "swearing," various oaths
The first two prominent Friends to denounce slavery were Anthony Benezet
and John Woolman
. They asked the Quakers, "What thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away and sell us for slaves to strange countries" . In that same year, a group of Quakers along with some German Mennonites met at the meeting house in Germantown, Pennsylvania to discuss why they were distancing themselves from slavery. Four of them signed a document written by Francis Daniel Pastorius
that stated, "To bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against." .
From 1755-1776, the Quakers worked at freeing slaves, and became the first western organization in history to ban slaveholding. They also created societies to promote the emancipation of slaves. . From the efforts of the Quakers, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were able to convince the Continental Congress to ban the importation of slaves into America as of December 1, 1775. Pennsylvania was the strongest anti-slavery state at the time, and with Franklin's help they led "The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting The Abolition of Slavery, The Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race" In November 1775, Virginia's former royal governor claimed that all slaves would be freed if they were willing to fight for Great Britain. This subsequently forced George Washington to allow slaves in the colonies to enlist as well so that they all did not try to run away and fight in Great Britain to get their freedom. Because George Washington passed this law, about 5 thousand African Americans served for the constitutional forces, and gained their freedom when they were done with their service. By 1792 states from Massachusetts to Virginia all had similar anti-slavery groups. From 1780-1804, slavery was largely abolished in all of New England, the Middle Atlantic states, and the North West territories.
The Southern states, however, were still very prominent in keeping slavery running. Because of this, an informal network of safe houses and escape routes—called the Underground Railroad
--developed across the United States to get enslaved people out of America and into Canada
or the free states. The Quakers were a very prominent force in the Underground Railroad, and their efforts helped free many slaves. Immediately north of the Mason-Dixon line
, the Quaker settlement of Chester County, Pennsylvania—one of the early hubs of the Underground Railroad—was considered a “hotbed of abolition." However, not all Quakers were of the same opinion regarding the Underground Railroad: because slavery was still legal in many states, it was therefore illegal for anyone to help a slave escape and gain freedom. Many Quakers, who saw slaves as equals, felt it was proper to help free slaves and thought that it was unjust to keep someone as a slave; many Quakers would “lie” to slave hunters when asked if they were keeping slaves in their house, they would say “no” because in their mind there was no such thing as a slave. Other Quakers saw this as breaking the law and thereby disrupting the peace, both of which go against Quaker values thus breaking Quaker belief in being pacifistic. Furthermore, involvement with the law and the government was something from which the Quakers had tried to separate themselves. This divisiveness caused the formation of smaller, more independent branches of Quakers, who shared similar beliefs and views.
However there were many prominent Quakers who stuck to the belief that slavery was wrong, and were even arrested for helping the slaves out and breaking the law. Richard Dillingham
, a school teacher from Ohio, was arrested because he was found helping three slaves escape in 1848. Thomas Garrett
had an Underground Railroad stop at his house in Delaware and was found guilty in 1848 of helping a family of slaves escape. Garrett was also said to have helped and worked with Harriet Tubman
, who was a very well known slave who worked to help other slaves get their freedom. Educator Levi Coffin
and his wife Catherine were Quakers who lived in Indiana and helped the Underground Railroad
by hiding slaves in their house for over 21 years. They claimed to have helped 3,000 slaves gain their freedom. Susan B. Anthony
was also a Quaker, and did a lot of antislavery work hand in hand with her work with women’s rights.
, with new ones beginning. Friends also continued and increased their work in the areas of social justice and equality. They made other contributions as well in the fields of science, literature, art, law and politics.
In the realm of industry Edward Pease
opened the Stockton and Darlington Railway in northern England in 1825. It was the first modern railway in the world, and carried coal from the mines to the seaports. Henry and Joseph Rowntree
owned a chocolate factory in York, England. When Henry died, Joseph took it over. He provided the workers with more benefits than most employers of his day. He also funded low-cost housing for the poor. John Cadbury
founded another chocolate factory, which his sons George and Richard eventually took over. A third chocolate factory was founded by Joseph Fry in Bristol.
Quakers actively promoted equal rights during this century as well. As early as 1811, Elias Hicks
published a pamphlet showing that slaves were "prize goods"—that is, products of piracy—and hence profiting from them violated Quaker principles; it was a short step from that position to reject use of all products made from slave labor, the free produce movement
that won support among Friends and others but also proved divisive. Quaker women such as Lucretia Mott
and Susan B. Anthony
joined the movement to abolish slavery, moving them to cooperate politically with non-Quakers in working against the institution. Somewhat as a result of their initial exclusion from abolitionist activities, they changed their focus to the right of women to vote and influence society. Thomas Garrett led in the movement to abolish slavery, personally assisting Harriet Tubman
to escape from slavery and to coordinate the Underground Railroad
. Richard Dillingham
died in a Tennessee prison where he was incarcerated for trying to help some slaves escape. Levi Coffin
was also an active abolitionist, helping thousands of escaped slaves migrate to Canada and opening a store for selling products made by former slaves.
Prison reform was another concern of Quakers at that time. Elizabeth Fry
and her brother Joseph John Gurney
campaigned for more humane treatment of prisoners and for the abolition of the death penalty. They had moderate success, in that Parliament did eventually pass legislation to improve prison conditions and to decrease the number of capital crimes.
In the early days of the Society of Friends, Quakers were not allowed to get an advanced education. Eventually some did get opportunities to go to university and beyond, which meant that more and more Quakers could enter the various fields of science. Thomas Young
an English Quaker, did experiments with optics, contributing much to the wave theory of light
. He also discovered how the lens in the eye works and described astigmatism
and formulated an hypothesis about the perception of color. Young was also involved in translating the Rosetta Stone
. He translated the demotic text and began the process of understanding the hieroglyphics
. Maria Mitchell
was an astronomer who discovered a comet. She was also active in the abolition movement and the women’s suffrage movement. Joseph Lister
promoted the use of sterile techniques in medicine, based on Pasteur’s work on germs. Thomas Hodgkin
was a pathologist who made major breakthroughs in the field of anatomy. He was the first doctor to describe the type of lymphoma named after him. An historian, he was also active in the movement to abolish slavery and to protect aboriginal people. John Dalton
formulated the atomic theory of matter, among other scientific achievements.
Quakers were not apt to participate publicly in the arts. For many Quakers these things violated their commitment to simplicity and were thought too “worldly.” Some Quakers, however, are noted today for their creative work. John Greenleaf Whittier
was an editor and a poet in the United States. Among his works were some poems involving Quaker history and hymns expressing his Quaker theology. He also worked in the abolition movement. Edward Hicks
painted religious and historical paintings in the naive style and Francis Frith
was a British photographer whose catalogue ran to many thousands of topographical views.
At first Quakers were barred by law and their own convictions from being involved in the arena of law and politics. As time went on, a few Quakers in England and the United States did enter that arena. Joseph Pease
was the son of Edward Pease mentioned above. He continued and expanded his father’s business. In 1832 he became the first Quaker elected to Parliament. Noah Haynes Swayne
was the only Quaker to serve on the United States Supreme Court. He was an Associate Justice from 1862-1881. He strongly opposed slavery, moving out of the slave-holding state of Virginia to the free state of Ohio in his young adult years.
In the 19th century Friends began to be influenced by the revivals sweeping the United States. Robert Pearsall Smith
and his wife Hannah Whitall Smith
, Quakers from New Jersey, had a huge impact on the Christian world. They promoted the Wesleyan idea of Christian perfection
, also known as holiness or sanctification, among Quakers and among various denominations. Their work inspired the formation of many new Christian groups. Hannah Smith was also involved in the movements for women’s suffrage and for temperance.
during the 19th century. In 1827-28, the views and popularity of Elias Hicks
resulted in a division within five yearly meetings, Philadelphia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Baltimore. Rural Friends, who had increasingly chafed under the control of urban leaders, sided with Hicks and naturally took a stand against strong discipline in doctrinal questions. Those who supported Hicks were tagged as "Hicksites," while Friends who opposed him were labeled "Orthodox." The latter had more adherents overall but were plagued by subsequent splintering. The only division the Hicksites experienced was when a small group of upper class and reform-minded Progressive Friends of Longwood, Pennsylvania, emerged in the 1840s; they maintained a precarious position for about a century.
of England and John Wilbur of Rhode Island. Gurney, troubled by the example of the Hicksite separation, emphasized Scriptural authority and favored working closely with other Christian groups. Wilbur, in response, defended the authority of the Holy Spirit as primary, and worked to prevent the dilution of the Friends tradition of Spirit-led ministry. After privately criticizing Gurney in correspondence to sympathetic Friends, Wilbur was expelled from his yearly meeting in a questionable proceeding in 1842. Probably the best known Orthodox Friend was the poet and abolitionist editor John Greenleaf Whittier
. Over the next several decades, a number of Wilburite-Gurneyite separations occurred.
Starting in the late 19th century, many American Gurneyite Quakers adopted the use of paid pastors, planned sermons, hymn
s and other elements of Protestant worship services. This type of Quaker meeting is known as a "programmed meeting". Worship of the traditional, silent variety is called an "unprogrammed meeting", although there is some variation on how the unprogrammed meetings adhere strictly to the lack of programming. Some unprogrammed meetings may have also allocated a period of hymn-singing or other activity as part of the total period of worship, while others maintain the tradition of avoiding all planned activities. (See also Joel Bean
.)
. He was a Recorded Minister
in the Manchester Meeting. The controversy arose in 1831 when doctrinal differences amongst the Friends culminated in the winter of 1836–1837 with the resignation of Isaac Crewdson and of 48 fellow members of the Manchester Meeting. About 250 others left in various localities in England including prominent members. A number of these joined themselves to the Plymouth Brethren
and brought influences of simplicity of worship to that society. Notable among the Plymouthists who were former Quakers included John Eliot Howard
of Tottenham
and Robert Mackenzie Beverley.
World War I at first produced an effort toward unity, embodied in the creation of the American Friends Service Committee
in 1917 by Orthodox Friends, led by Rufus Jones and Henry Cadbury
. A Friends Service Committee, as an agency of London Yearly Meeting, had already been created in Britain to help Quakers there deal with problems of military service; it continues today, after numerous name changes, as Quaker Peace & Social Witness. Envisioned as a service outlet for conscientious objectors that could draw support from across diverse yearly meetings, the AFSC began losing support from more evangelical Quakers as early as the 1920s and served to emphasize the differences between them, but prominent Friends such as Herbert Hoover
continued to offer it their public support. Many Quakers from Oregon, Ohio, and Kansas became alienated from the Five Years Meeting (later Friends United Meeting
), considering it infected with the kind of theological liberalism that Jones exemplified; Oregon Yearly Meeting withdrew in 1927. That same year, eleven evangelicals met in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to plan how to resist the influence of liberalism, but depression and war prevented another gathering for twenty years, until after the end of the second world war.
To overcome such divisions, liberal Quakers organized so-called worldwide conferences of Quakers in 1920 in London and again in 1937 at Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges in Pennsylvania, but they were too liberal and too expensive for most evangelicals to attend . A more successful effort at unity was the Friends Committee on National Legislation
, originating during World War II in Washington, D.C., as a pioneering Quaker lobbying unit. In 1958 the Friends World Committee for Consultation
was organized to form a neutral ground where all branches of the Society of Friends could come together, consider common problems, and get to know one another; it held triennial conferences that met in various parts of the world, but it had not found a way to involve very many grassroots Quakers in its activities . One of its agencies, created during the Cold War and known as Right Sharing of World Resources, collects funds from Quakers in the "first world" to finance small self-help projects in the "Third World," including some supported by Evangelical Friends International
. Beginning in 1955 and continuing for a decade, three of the yearly meetings divided by the Hicksite separation of 1827, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York, as well as Canadian Yearly Meeting, reunited.
Disagreements between the various Quaker groups, Friends United Meeting
, Friends General Conference
, Evangelical Friends International
, and Conservative yearly meetings, involved both theological and more concrete social issues. FGC, founded in 1900 and centered primarily in the East, along the West coast, and in Canada, tended to be oriented toward the liberal end of the political spectrum, was mostly unprogrammed, and closely aligned with AFSC; by the last part of the century it had taken a strong position in favor of same-sex marriage, was supportive of gay rights, and usually favored a woman's right to choose an abortion. Its membership tended to be professional and middle class or higher.
Rooted in the Midwest, especially Indiana and North Carolina, FUM was historically more rural and small-town in its demographics. The Friends churches which formed part of this body were predominantly programmed and pastoral. Though a minority of its yearly meetings (New York, New England, Baltimore, Southeastern and Canada) were also affiliated with Friends General Conference and were more theologically liberal and predominantly unprogrammed in worship style, the theological position of the majority of its constituent yearly meetings was often similar in flavor to the Protestant Christian mainstream in Indiana and North Carolina. In 1960, a theological seminary, Earlham School of Religion
, was founded in FUM's heartland - Richmond, Indiana - to offer ministerial training and religious education. The seminary soon came to enroll significant numbers of unprogrammed Friends, as well as Friends from pastoral backgrounds.
EFI was staunchly evangelical and by the end of the century had more members converted through its missionary endeavors abroad than in the United States; Southwest Friends Church illustrated the group's drift away from traditional Quaker practice, permitting its member churches to practice the outward ordinances of the Lord's Supper and baptism. On social issues its members exhibited strong antipathy toward homosexuality and enunciated a pro-life position on abortion. At century's end, Conservative Friends
held onto only three small yearly meetings, in Ohio, Iowa, and North Carolina, with Friends from Ohio arguably the most traditional. In Britain and Europe where institutional unity and almost universal unprogrammed worship style were maintained, these distinctions did not apply, nor did they in Latin America and Africa where evangelical missionary activity predominated.
In the 1960s and later, these categories were challenged by a mostly self-educated Friend, Lewis Benson
, a New Jersey printer by training, a theologian by vocation. Immersing himself in the corpus of early Quaker writings, he made himself an authority on George Fox and his message. In 1966, Benson published Catholic Quakerism, a small book that sought to move the Society of Friends to what he insisted was a strongly pro-Fox position of authentic Christianity, entirely separate from theological liberalism, churchly denominationalism, or rural isolation. He created the New Foundation Fellowship
, which blazed forth for a decade or so but had about disappeared as an effective group by the end of the century.
By that time, the differences between Friends were quite clear, to each other if not always to outsiders. Theologically, a small minority of Friends among the "liberals" expressed discomfort with theistic understandings of the Divine, while more evangelical Friends adhered to a more biblical worldview. Periodical attempts to institutionally reorganize the disparate Religious Society of Friends into more theologically congenial organizations took place, but generally failed. By the beginning of the 21st century, Friends United Meeting, as the middle ground, was suffering from these efforts, but still remained in existence, even if it did not flourish. In its home base of yearly meetings in Indiana especially, it lost numerous churches and members, both to other denominations and to the evangelicals .
Quakers in Britain and the Eastern United States embarked on efforts in the field of adult education, creating three schools with term-long courses, week-end activities, and summer programs. Woodbrooke College began in 1903 at the former home of chocolate magnate George Cadbury
in Birmingham, England, and later became associated with the University of Birmingham
, while Pendle Hill
, in the Philadelphia suburb of Wallingford, did not open until 1930. Earlier, beginning in 1915 and continuing for about a decade, the Woolman School had been created by Philadelphia Hicksites near Swarthmore College
; its head, Elbert Russell, a midwestern recorded minister, tried unsuccessfully to maintain it, but it ended in the late 1920s. All three sought to educate adults for the kind of lay leadership that the founders Society of Friends relied upon. Woodbrooke and Pendle Hill still maintain research libraries and resources.
During the 20th century, two Quakers, Herbert Hoover
and Richard Nixon
, both from the Western evangelical wing of the group, were elected to serve as presidents of the United States, thus achieving more secular political power than any Friend had enjoyed since William Penn
.
, this allowed the children to escape the Holocaust. American Quakers played a major role in pressuring the British government to supply these Visas. The Quakers chaperoned the Jewish children on the trains, and cared for many of them once they arrived in Britain.
and settled in what was to become Monteverde
. The Quakers founded the Cheese Factory and a Friends School and, in an attempt to protect the area's watershed, purchased much of the land that now makes up the Monteverde Reserve. The Quakers have played a major role in the development of the community.
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
is a movement that began in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the 17th century. Members of this movement are informally known as Quakers, a word that means, "to tremble in the way of the Lord." In its early days it faced opposition and persecution
Persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation,...
; however, it continued to expand, extending into many parts of the world, especially the Americas and Africa.
The Society of Friends, while always small in membership, has been influential in the history of reform. The state of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
was founded by William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
in 1682, as a safe place for Quakers to live and practice their faith. Quakers have been a significant part of the movements for the abolition
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, promote equal rights for women, and peace. They have also promoted education and the humane treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
, through the founding or reforming of various institutions. Quaker entrepreneurs played a central role in forging the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, especially in England and Pennsylvania.
During the 19th century Friends in the United States suffered a number of separations which resulted in the formation of different branches of the Society of Friends. Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) estimated in 2007 there were 359,000 Friends worldwide
Early days
During the English Civil Wars, George FoxGeorge Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
pulled together groups of disparate seekers that formed the Religious Society of Friends following 1647. This time of upheaval and social and political unrest called all institutions into question, so Fox and his leading disciples--James Nayler
James Nayler
James Nayler was an English Quaker leader. He is among the members of the Valiant Sixty, a group of early Quaker preachers and missionaries. At the peak of his career, he preached against enclosure and the slave trade....
, Richard Hubberthorne
Richard Hubberthorne
Richard Hubberthorne was an early Quaker preacher and writer active in the 1650s and early 1660s until his death in Newgate prison....
, Margaret Fell
Margaret Fell
Margaret Fell or Margaret Fox was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends. Known popularly as the "mother of Quakerism", she is considered one of the Valiant Sixty early Quaker preachers and missionaries.-Life:...
, as well as numerous others—targeted "scattered Baptists," disillusioned soldiers, and restless common folk as potential Quakers. Confrontations with the established churches and its leaders and those who held power at the local level assured those who spoke for the new sect a ready hearing as they insisted that God could speak to average people, through his risen son, without the need to heed churchmen, pay tithes, or engage in deceitful practices. They found fertile ground in northern England in 1651 and 1652, building a base there from which they moved southward, first to London and then beyond. In the early days the groups remained scattered, but gradually they consolidated in the north—the first meeting being created in Durham in 1653—to provide financial support to the missionaries who had gone south and presently abroad. Before long they seemed a potential threat to the dignity of the Cromwellian state; even arresting its leaders failed to slow the movement, instead giving them a new audience in the courts of the nation.
Nayler's sign
In 1656, a popular Quaker minister, James NaylerJames Nayler
James Nayler was an English Quaker leader. He is among the members of the Valiant Sixty, a group of early Quaker preachers and missionaries. At the peak of his career, he preached against enclosure and the slave trade....
, went beyond the standard beliefs of Quakers when he rode into Bristol on a horse in the pouring rain, accompanied by a handful of men and women saying "Holy, holy, holy" and strewing their garments on the ground — clearly imitating Jesus's entry into Jerusalem. While this was apparently an attempt to emphasize that the "Light of Christ" was in every person, most observers believed that Nayler and his followers believed him to be Jesus Christ. The group was arrested by the local authorities and handed over to Parliament, where they were tried. Parliament was sufficiently incensed by Nayler's heterodox views that they punished him savagely and sent him back to Bristol to jail indefinitely This was especially bad for the movement's respectability in the eyes of the Puritan rulers because some considered Nayler (and not Fox, who was in jail at the time) to be the actual leader of the movement. Many historians see this event as a turning point in early Quaker history because many other leaders, especially Fox, made efforts to increase the authority of the group, so as to prevent similar behavior. This effort culminated in 1666 with the "Testimony from the Brethren," aimed at those, in its own words, who despised a rule "without which we … cannot be kept holy and inviolable"; it continued the centralizing process that began with the Nayler affair and was aimed at isolating any separatists who still lurked in the Society. Fox also established women's meetings for discipline and gave them an important role in overseeing marriages, which served both to isolate the opposition and fuel discontent with the new departures. In the 1660s and 1670s Fox himself traveled the country setting up a more formal structure of monthly (local) and quarterly (regional) meetings, which still is done today.
Other early controversies
The Society was rent by controversy in the 1660s and 1670s because of these tendencies. First, John Perrot, previously a respected minister and missionary, raised questions about whether men should uncover their heads when another Friend prayed in meeting. Soon this minor question broadened into an attack on the power of those at the center. Later, during the 1670s, William Rogers of Bristol and a group from Lancashire, their spokesmen being John Story and John Wilkinson, all respected leaders, led a schism that disagreed with the heightening influence of women and centralizing authority among Friends closer to London. In 1666, a group of about a dozen leaders, led by Richard Farnworth (Fox was absent, being in prison in Scarborough), gathered in London and issued a document that they styled "A Testimony of the Brethren." It set rules to maintain the good order that they wanted to see among adherents and excluded separatists from holding office and prohibited them from traveling lest they sow errors. Looking to the future, they announced that authority in the Society rested with them By the end of the century, these leaders almost all now dead but London's authority supreme, the influence of dissident groups had been mostly overcome.Women and equality
One of their most radical innovations was a more nearly equal role for women, as Taylor (2001) shows. Despite the survival of strong patriarchal elements, Friends believed in the spiritual equality of women, who were allowed to take a far more active role than had ordinarily existed before the emergence of radical civil war sects. Early Quaker defenses of their female members were sometimes equivocal, however, and after the Restoration of 1660 the Quakers became increasingly unwilling to publicly defend women when they adopted tactics such as disrupting services. Women's meetings were organized as a means to involve women in more modest, feminine pursuits. Some Quaker men sought to exclude them from church public concerns with which they had some powers and responsibilities, such as allocating poor relief and in ensuring that Quaker marriages could not be attacked as immoral. The Quakers continued to meet openly, even in the dangerous year of 1683. Heavy fines were exacted and, as in earlier years, women were treated as severely as men by the authorities.Persecution in England
In 1650 George Fox was imprisoned for the first time. Over and over he was thrown in prison during the 1650s through the 1670s. Other Quakers followed him to prison as well. The charge was causing a disturbance; at other times it was blasphemy.Two acts of Parliament made it particularly difficult for Friends. The first was the Quaker Act of 1662, which made it illegal to refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance to the King and country. As persons not pledging allegiance to the laws of the country, were not then allowed to hold any secret meetings. Because Friends believed it was wrong to take an oath, believing their religion was superior to their protectorate country, they were sure to run afoul of this law. The second act was the Conventicle Act of 1664
Conventicle Act 1664
The Conventicle Act of 1664 was an Act of the Parliament of England that forbade conventicles...
, which reaffirmed that holding secret meetings by people who did not pledge allegiance to the country was a crime.
Despite these laws, the Friends continued to meet openly . They believed that by doing so, they were testifying to the strength of their convictions and were willing to be punished for doing what they believed was right.
The ending of official persecution in England
Under James II of EnglandJames II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
persecution practically ceased. James issued a Declaration of Indulgence
Declaration of Indulgence
The Declaration of Indulgence was two proclamations made by James II of England and VII of Scotland in 1687. The Indulgence was first issued for Scotland on 12 February, and then for England on 4 April 1687...
in 1687 and 1688, and it was widely held that William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
had been its author.
In 1689 the Toleration Act
Act of Toleration 1689
The Act of Toleration was an act of the English Parliament , the long title of which is "An Act for Exempting their Majestyes Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certaine Lawes".The Act allowed freedom of worship to Nonconformists who had pledged to the...
was passed. It allowed for freedom of conscience and prevented persecution by making it illegal to disturb anybody else from worship. Thus Quakers became tolerated though still not widely understood and accepted.
See also: Margaret Fell
Margaret Fell
Margaret Fell or Margaret Fox was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends. Known popularly as the "mother of Quakerism", she is considered one of the Valiant Sixty early Quaker preachers and missionaries.-Life:...
, Francis Howgill
Francis Howgill
Francis Howgill was a prominent early member of the Religious Society of Friends in England. He preached and wrote on the teachings of the Friends and is considered one of the Valiant Sixty--men and women who were early proponents of Friends beliefs and who suffered for those...
Business in the Netherlands
In 1655 four young English ladies arrived in Amsterdam. They met with ridicule: "O London, London, what English will you send us" was whispered throughout anonymously. A year later they were followed by William AmesWilliam Ames (Quaker)
-Life:He joined the Quakers in 1655 at Dublin, having been a Baptist minister in Somerset, and afterwards an officer in the parliamentary army. He settled at Amsterdam in 1657, where he was tolerated, though once confined for a short time as a lunatic. He travelled in Germany, and was favourably...
and Margaret Fell
Margaret Fell
Margaret Fell or Margaret Fox was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends. Known popularly as the "mother of Quakerism", she is considered one of the Valiant Sixty early Quaker preachers and missionaries.-Life:...
's nephew William Caton
William Caton
William Caton was an early English Quaker itinerant preacher and writer.-Life:He was probably a near relation of Margaret Fell. At the age of fourteen he was taken by his father to Swarthmoor, near Ulverston, to be educated by a kinsman who was then tutor to the Fell family; the boy was then sent...
. Caton soon learned and married Dutch, but argued with Calvinist preachers in Latin. From Amsterdam preaching tours went to other parts of the European continent. In 1661 Ames and Caton visited Heidelberg and dined with the Prince-Elector of the Palatine.
Rotterdam Quakers with English nationality were allowed to ship people to English colonies. With William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
visiting in 1671 they tried without success to convert followers of Jean de Labadie
Jean de Labadie
Jean de Labadie was a 17th century French pietist. Originally a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, he became a member of the Reformed Church in 1650, before founding the community which became known as the Labadists in 1669...
. Amsterdam Quaker Jan Claus accompanied and translated for Penn and George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
on later travels in Europe. His brother Jacob Claus had Quaker books translated and published as well as a map of Philadelphia. By 1797 there were only seven Quakers left in Amsterdam with a granddaughter of Jan Claus taking care of the meeting house on Keizersgracht. When she stopped paying the rent the yearly meeting in London took legal action and had her evicted.
Colonial Pennsylvania
William PennWilliam Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
, a favorite of King Charles II in 1682 received ownership of Pennsylvania
History of Pennsylvania
The history of Pennsylvania is as varied as any in the American experience and reflects the salad bowl vision of the United States. Before Pennsylvania was settled by Europeans, the area was home to the Delaware , Susquehannock, Iroquois, Eries, Shawnee and other Native American tribes...
, which he tried to make a "holy experiment," by a union of temporal and spiritual matters. Pennsylvania made guarantees of religious freedom, and kept them, attracting many Quakers and others. Quakers took political control but were bitterly split on the funding of military operations or defenses; finally they relinquished political power. They created a second "holy experiment" by extensive involvement in voluntary benevolent associations while remaining apart from government. Programs of civic activism included building schools, hospitals and asylums for the entire city. Their new tone was an admonishing moralism born from a feeling of crisis. Even more extensive philanthropy was possible because of the wealth of the Quaker merchants based in Philadelphia.
The Friends had no ordained ministers and thus needed no seminaries for theological training. As a result they did not open any colleges in the colonial period, and did not join in founding the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
. The major Quaker colleges were Haverford College
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
(1833), Earlham College
Earlham College
Earlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...
(1844), Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
(1864), and Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
(1885), all founded much later.
Persecution in the New World
Ann Austin
Ann Austin was one of the first women persecuted for her religious beliefs in the American colonies. She attended Blair Academy 1845, going HAM every night....
began preaching in Boston. They were considered heretics because of their insistence on individual obedience to the Inner Light. They were imprisoned and banished by the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
. Their books were burned, and most of their property was confiscated. They were imprisoned in terrible conditions, then deported.
Some Quakers in New England were only imprisoned or banished. A few were also whipped or branded. Christopher Holder
Christopher Holder
Christopher Holder was an Anglo-American Quaker minister who was persecuted in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his beliefs.-Early life:...
, for example, had his ear cut off. A few were executed by the Puritan leaders, usually for ignoring and defying orders of banishment. Mary Dyer
Mary Dyer
Mary Baker Dyer was an English Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony , for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony...
was thus executed in 1660. Three other martyrs to the Quaker faith in Massachusetts were William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, and William Leddra. These events are described by Edward Burrough in A Declaration of the Sad and Great Persecution and Martyrdom of the People of God, called Quakers, in New-England, for the Worshipping of God (1661)
In 1657 a group of Quakers from England landed in New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam
New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....
. One of them, Robert Hodgson, preached to large crowds of people. He was arrested, imprisoned, and flogged. Governor Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant , served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York...
issued a harsh ordinance, punishable by fine and imprisonment, against anyone found guilty of harboring Quakers. Some sympathetic Dutch colonists were able to get him released. Almost immediately after the edict was released, Edward Hart, the town clerk in what is now Flushing,(Queens) gathered his fellow citizens on Dec. 27, 1657 and wrote a petition to Stuyvesant, called the Flushing Remonstrance
Flushing Remonstrance
The Flushing Remonstrance was a 1657 petition to Director-General of New Netherland Peter Stuyvesant, in which several citizens requested an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship. It is considered a precursor to the United States Constitution's provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of...
, citing the Flushing town charter of 1645, which promised liberty of conscience. Stuyvesant arrested Hart and the other official who presented the document to him, and he jailed two other magistrates who had signed the petition, and also forced the other signatories to recant. But Quakers continued to meet in Flushing. Stuyvesant arrested a farmer, John Bowne
John Bowne
John Bowne was an English immigrant residing in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, who is honored today as a pioneer in the American struggle for religious liberty....
, in 1662 for holding illegal meetings in his home and banished him from the colony; Bowne immediately went to Amsterdam to plead for the Quakers. Though the Dutch West India Company called Quakerism an “abominable religion,” it nevertheless overruled Stuyvesant in 1663 and ordered him to “allow everyone to have his own belief.”
18th century
In 1691 George Fox died. Thus, the Quaker movement went into the 18th century without one of its most influential early leaders. Thanks to the Toleration Act of 1689, people in Great Britain were no longer criminals simply by being Friends.During this time, other people began to recognize Quakers for their integrity in social and economic matters. Many Quakers went into manufacturing or commerce, because they were not allowed to earn academic degrees at that time. These Quaker businessmen were successful, in part, because people trusted them. The customers knew that Quakers felt a strong conviction to set a fair price for goods and not to haggle over prices. They also knew that Quakers were committed to quality work, and that what they produced would be worth the price.
Some useful and popular products made by Quaker businesses at that time included iron and steel by Abraham Darby
Abraham Darby
Abraham Darby may refer to:*Abraham Darby I *Abraham Darby II *Abraham Darby III *Abraham Darby IV , High Sheriff of BuckinghamshireAbraham Darby may also refer to:...
and pharmaceuticals by William Allen
William Allen (Quaker)
William Allen FRS, FLS was an English scientist and philanthropist who opposed slavery and engaged in schemes of social and penal improvement in early nineteenth century England.-Early life:...
. An early meeting house was set up in Broseley
Broseley
Broseley is a small town in Shropshire, England with a population of 4,912 . The River Severn flows to the north and east of the town. Broseley has a town council and is part of the area controlled by Shropshire Council. The first iron bridge in the world was built in 1779 to link Broseley with...
, Shropshire by the Darbys.
At the same time that Friends were succeeding in manufacturing and commerce, they were also becoming more concerned about social issues and becoming more active in society at large.
One such issue was slavery. The Germantown (Pennsylvania) Monthly Meeting put their opposition to slavery into their minutes in 1733, but abolitionism did not become universal among Quakers until its promotion by concerned members such as John Woolman
John Woolman
John Woolman was an American itinerant Quaker preacher who traveled throughout the American colonies and in England, advocating against cruelty to animals, economic injustices and oppression, conscription, military taxation, and particularly slavery and the slave trade.- Origins and early life...
. Woolman was a farmer, retailer, and tailor from New Jersey who became convinced that slavery was wrong. Before that time, some Quakers owned slaves. In general they opposed mistreatment of slaves and promoted the teaching of Christianity to them. Woolman argued that the entire practice of buying, selling, and owning human beings was wrong in principle. Other Quakers started to agree and became very active in the Abolition movement
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply Philadelphia Yearly Meeting or PYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, area....
prohibited members from owning slaves in 1776.
Another issue that became a concern of Quakers was the treatment of the mentally ill. Tea merchant, William Tuke
William Tuke
William Tuke was an English businessman, philanthropist and Quaker. He was instrumental in the development of more humane methods in the custody and care of people with mental disorders, an approach that came to be known as moral treatment.-Career:Tuke was born in York to a leading Quaker family...
opened the Retreat at York in 1796. It was a place where the mentally ill were treated with the dignity that Friends believe is inherent in all human beings. Most asylums at that time forced such people into deplorable conditions and did nothing to help them.
By the late 18th century, Quakers were sufficiently recognized and accepted that the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
contained language specifically directed at Quaker citizens — in particular, the explicit allowance of "affirming," as opposed to "swearing," various oaths
Abolition of Slavery
Most Quakers owned slaves when they first came to America; to most Quakers "slavery was perfectly acceptable provided that slave owners attended to the spiritual and material needs of those they enslaved.". 70% of Quakers owned slaves in the period from 1681 to 1705; however, from 1688 some Quakers began to speak out against slavery until by 1756 only 10% of Quakers owned slaves.The first two prominent Friends to denounce slavery were Anthony Benezet
Anthony Benezet
Anthony Benezet, or Antoine Bénézet , was a French-born American educator and abolitionist.-Biography:Anthony Benezet was born in Saint-Quentin, France, on 31 January 1713. His family were Huguenots. Because of the persecution of Protestants after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685,...
and John Woolman
John Woolman
John Woolman was an American itinerant Quaker preacher who traveled throughout the American colonies and in England, advocating against cruelty to animals, economic injustices and oppression, conscription, military taxation, and particularly slavery and the slave trade.- Origins and early life...
. They asked the Quakers, "What thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away and sell us for slaves to strange countries" . In that same year, a group of Quakers along with some German Mennonites met at the meeting house in Germantown, Pennsylvania to discuss why they were distancing themselves from slavery. Four of them signed a document written by Francis Daniel Pastorius
Francis Daniel Pastorius
thumb|right|300px|Home of Francis Daniel Pastorius in Germantown, PA as it appeared circa 1919Francis Daniel Pastorius was the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, now part of Philadelphia, the first permanent German settlement and the gateway for subsequent emigrants from Germany. He was "the...
that stated, "To bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against." .
From 1755-1776, the Quakers worked at freeing slaves, and became the first western organization in history to ban slaveholding. They also created societies to promote the emancipation of slaves. . From the efforts of the Quakers, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were able to convince the Continental Congress to ban the importation of slaves into America as of December 1, 1775. Pennsylvania was the strongest anti-slavery state at the time, and with Franklin's help they led "The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting The Abolition of Slavery, The Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race" In November 1775, Virginia's former royal governor claimed that all slaves would be freed if they were willing to fight for Great Britain. This subsequently forced George Washington to allow slaves in the colonies to enlist as well so that they all did not try to run away and fight in Great Britain to get their freedom. Because George Washington passed this law, about 5 thousand African Americans served for the constitutional forces, and gained their freedom when they were done with their service. By 1792 states from Massachusetts to Virginia all had similar anti-slavery groups. From 1780-1804, slavery was largely abolished in all of New England, the Middle Atlantic states, and the North West territories.
The Southern states, however, were still very prominent in keeping slavery running. Because of this, an informal network of safe houses and escape routes—called the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
--developed across the United States to get enslaved people out of America and into Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
or the free states. The Quakers were a very prominent force in the Underground Railroad, and their efforts helped free many slaves. Immediately north of the Mason-Dixon line
Mason-Dixon line
The Mason–Dixon Line was surveyed between 1763 and 1767 by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the resolution of a border dispute between British colonies in Colonial America. It forms a demarcation line among four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and...
, the Quaker settlement of Chester County, Pennsylvania—one of the early hubs of the Underground Railroad—was considered a “hotbed of abolition." However, not all Quakers were of the same opinion regarding the Underground Railroad: because slavery was still legal in many states, it was therefore illegal for anyone to help a slave escape and gain freedom. Many Quakers, who saw slaves as equals, felt it was proper to help free slaves and thought that it was unjust to keep someone as a slave; many Quakers would “lie” to slave hunters when asked if they were keeping slaves in their house, they would say “no” because in their mind there was no such thing as a slave. Other Quakers saw this as breaking the law and thereby disrupting the peace, both of which go against Quaker values thus breaking Quaker belief in being pacifistic. Furthermore, involvement with the law and the government was something from which the Quakers had tried to separate themselves. This divisiveness caused the formation of smaller, more independent branches of Quakers, who shared similar beliefs and views.
However there were many prominent Quakers who stuck to the belief that slavery was wrong, and were even arrested for helping the slaves out and breaking the law. Richard Dillingham
Richard Dillingham
Richard Dillingham was a Quaker school teacher from Peru Township in what is now Morrow County, Ohio, U.S.A., who was arrested in Tennessee on December 5, 1848, while aiding the attempted escape of three slaves. Tried April 12, 1849, he was sentenced to three years in the Tennessee State...
, a school teacher from Ohio, was arrested because he was found helping three slaves escape in 1848. Thomas Garrett
Thomas Garrett
Thomas Garrett was an abolitionist and leader in the Underground Railroad movement before the American Civil War....
had an Underground Railroad stop at his house in Delaware and was found guilty in 1848 of helping a family of slaves escape. Garrett was also said to have helped and worked with Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; (1820 – 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves...
, who was a very well known slave who worked to help other slaves get their freedom. Educator Levi Coffin
Levi Coffin
Levi Coffin was an American Quaker, abolitionist, and businessman. Coffin was deeply involved in the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio and his home is often called "Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad"...
and his wife Catherine were Quakers who lived in Indiana and helped the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
by hiding slaves in their house for over 21 years. They claimed to have helped 3,000 slaves gain their freedom. Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
was also a Quaker, and did a lot of antislavery work hand in hand with her work with women’s rights.
Influential Quakers of the 19th century
During the 19th century, Friends continued to have an impact on the world around them. Many of the industrial concerns started by Friends in the previous century continued as detailed in Milligan's Biographical dictionary of British Quakers in commerce and industryMilligan's Biographical dictionary of British Quakers in commerce and industry
The Biographical Dictionary of British Quakers in Commerce and Industry 1775-1920, by Edward H. Milligan, includes entries for some 2,800 people, arranged alphabetically...
, with new ones beginning. Friends also continued and increased their work in the areas of social justice and equality. They made other contributions as well in the fields of science, literature, art, law and politics.
In the realm of industry Edward Pease
Edward Pease (1767-1858)
Edward Pease , a woollen manufacturer from Darlington, England, was the main promoter of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which opened in 1825.-Background and education:...
opened the Stockton and Darlington Railway in northern England in 1825. It was the first modern railway in the world, and carried coal from the mines to the seaports. Henry and Joseph Rowntree
Joseph Rowntree (educationist)
Joseph Rowntree was an English educationist and shopkeeper.Rowntree was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, the son of the Quakers John Rowntree and his wife, Elizabeth Lotherington . In 1822 he started a grocery shop in York. The business was successful...
owned a chocolate factory in York, England. When Henry died, Joseph took it over. He provided the workers with more benefits than most employers of his day. He also funded low-cost housing for the poor. John Cadbury
John Cadbury
John Cadbury was proprietor of a small chocolate business in Birmingham, England, that later became part of Cadbury plc, one of the world's largest chocolate producers.-Biography:...
founded another chocolate factory, which his sons George and Richard eventually took over. A third chocolate factory was founded by Joseph Fry in Bristol.
Quakers actively promoted equal rights during this century as well. As early as 1811, Elias Hicks
Elias Hicks
Elias Hicks was an itinerant Quaker preacher from Long Island, New York. He promoted doctrines that embroiled him in controversy that led to the first major schism within the Religious Society of Friends...
published a pamphlet showing that slaves were "prize goods"—that is, products of piracy—and hence profiting from them violated Quaker principles; it was a short step from that position to reject use of all products made from slave labor, the free produce movement
Free produce movement
The free produce movement was a boycott against goods produced by slave labor. It came about as a method to fight slavery by having consumers buy only produce derived from non-slave labor; labor from free men and women who were paid for their toil...
that won support among Friends and others but also proved divisive. Quaker women such as Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Coffin Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer, and proponent of women's rights.- Early life and education:...
and Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
joined the movement to abolish slavery, moving them to cooperate politically with non-Quakers in working against the institution. Somewhat as a result of their initial exclusion from abolitionist activities, they changed their focus to the right of women to vote and influence society. Thomas Garrett led in the movement to abolish slavery, personally assisting Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross; (1820 – 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves...
to escape from slavery and to coordinate the Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...
. Richard Dillingham
Richard Dillingham
Richard Dillingham was a Quaker school teacher from Peru Township in what is now Morrow County, Ohio, U.S.A., who was arrested in Tennessee on December 5, 1848, while aiding the attempted escape of three slaves. Tried April 12, 1849, he was sentenced to three years in the Tennessee State...
died in a Tennessee prison where he was incarcerated for trying to help some slaves escape. Levi Coffin
Levi Coffin
Levi Coffin was an American Quaker, abolitionist, and businessman. Coffin was deeply involved in the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio and his home is often called "Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad"...
was also an active abolitionist, helping thousands of escaped slaves migrate to Canada and opening a store for selling products made by former slaves.
Prison reform was another concern of Quakers at that time. Elizabeth Fry
Elizabeth Fry
Elizabeth Fry , née Gurney, was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist...
and her brother Joseph John Gurney
Joseph John Gurney
Joseph John Gurney was a banker in Norwich, England and an evangelical Minister of the Religious Society of Friends , whose views and actions led, ultimately, to a schism among American Quakers.-Biography:...
campaigned for more humane treatment of prisoners and for the abolition of the death penalty. They had moderate success, in that Parliament did eventually pass legislation to improve prison conditions and to decrease the number of capital crimes.
In the early days of the Society of Friends, Quakers were not allowed to get an advanced education. Eventually some did get opportunities to go to university and beyond, which meant that more and more Quakers could enter the various fields of science. Thomas Young
Thomas Young (scientist)
Thomas Young was an English polymath. He is famous for having partly deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics before Jean-François Champollion eventually expanded on his work...
an English Quaker, did experiments with optics, contributing much to the wave theory of light
Light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that is visible to the human eye, and is responsible for the sense of sight. Visible light has wavelength in a range from about 380 nanometres to about 740 nm, with a frequency range of about 405 THz to 790 THz...
. He also discovered how the lens in the eye works and described astigmatism
Astigmatism (eye)
Astigmatism is an optical defect in which vision is blurred due to the inability of the optics of the eye to focus a point object into a sharp focused image on the retina. This may be due to an irregular or toric curvature of the cornea or lens. There are two types of astigmatism: regular and...
and formulated an hypothesis about the perception of color. Young was also involved in translating the Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
. He translated the demotic text and began the process of understanding the hieroglyphics
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
. Maria Mitchell
Maria Mitchell
Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer, who in 1847, by using a telescope, discovered a comet which as a result became known as the "Miss Mitchell's Comet". She won a gold medal prize for her discovery which was presented to her by King Frederick VII of Denmark. The medal said “Not in vain do...
was an astronomer who discovered a comet. She was also active in the abolition movement and the women’s suffrage movement. Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister
Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister OM, FRS, PC , known as Sir Joseph Lister, Bt., between 1883 and 1897, was a British surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary...
promoted the use of sterile techniques in medicine, based on Pasteur’s work on germs. Thomas Hodgkin
Thomas Hodgkin
Thomas Hodgkin was a British physician, considered one of the most prominent pathologists of his time and a pioneer in preventive medicine. He is now best known for the first account of Hodgkin's disease, a form of lymphoma and blood disease, in 1832...
was a pathologist who made major breakthroughs in the field of anatomy. He was the first doctor to describe the type of lymphoma named after him. An historian, he was also active in the movement to abolish slavery and to protect aboriginal people. John Dalton
John Dalton
John Dalton FRS was an English chemist, meteorologist and physicist. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory, and his research into colour blindness .-Early life:John Dalton was born into a Quaker family at Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth, Cumberland,...
formulated the atomic theory of matter, among other scientific achievements.
Quakers were not apt to participate publicly in the arts. For many Quakers these things violated their commitment to simplicity and were thought too “worldly.” Some Quakers, however, are noted today for their creative work. John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...
was an editor and a poet in the United States. Among his works were some poems involving Quaker history and hymns expressing his Quaker theology. He also worked in the abolition movement. Edward Hicks
Edward Hicks
Edward Hicks was an American folk painter, a distinguished minister of the Society of Friends, and he also became a Quaker icon because of his paintings.-Early life:...
painted religious and historical paintings in the naive style and Francis Frith
Francis Frith
Francis Frith was an English photographer of the Middle East and many towns in the United Kingdom....
was a British photographer whose catalogue ran to many thousands of topographical views.
At first Quakers were barred by law and their own convictions from being involved in the arena of law and politics. As time went on, a few Quakers in England and the United States did enter that arena. Joseph Pease
Joseph Pease
Joseph Pease may refer to:* Joseph Pease , railway owner, first Quaker elected Member of Parliament** Sir Joseph Pease, 1st Baronet , MP 1865–1903, full name Joseph Whitwell Pease, son of Joseph Pease...
was the son of Edward Pease mentioned above. He continued and expanded his father’s business. In 1832 he became the first Quaker elected to Parliament. Noah Haynes Swayne
Noah Haynes Swayne
Noah Haynes Swayne was an American jurist and politician. He was the first Republican appointed as a justice to the United States Supreme Court.-Birth and early life:...
was the only Quaker to serve on the United States Supreme Court. He was an Associate Justice from 1862-1881. He strongly opposed slavery, moving out of the slave-holding state of Virginia to the free state of Ohio in his young adult years.
In the 19th century Friends began to be influenced by the revivals sweeping the United States. Robert Pearsall Smith
Robert Pearsall Smith
Robert Pearsall Smith was a lay leader in the Holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in Great Britain. His book Holiness Through Faith is one of the foundational works of the Holiness movement...
and his wife Hannah Whitall Smith
Hannah Whitall Smith
Hannah Tatum Whitall Smith was a lay speaker and author in the Holiness movement in the United States and the Higher Life movement in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
, Quakers from New Jersey, had a huge impact on the Christian world. They promoted the Wesleyan idea of Christian perfection
Christian perfection
Christian perfection, also known as perfect love; heart purity; the baptism of the Holy Spirit; the fullness of the blessing; Christian holiness; the second blessing; and entire sanctification, is a Christian doctrine which holds that the heart of the regenerant Christian may attain a state of...
, also known as holiness or sanctification, among Quakers and among various denominations. Their work inspired the formation of many new Christian groups. Hannah Smith was also involved in the movements for women’s suffrage and for temperance.
Hicksites
The Society in Ireland, and later, the United States suffered a number of schismsSchism (religion)
A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...
during the 19th century. In 1827-28, the views and popularity of Elias Hicks
Elias Hicks
Elias Hicks was an itinerant Quaker preacher from Long Island, New York. He promoted doctrines that embroiled him in controversy that led to the first major schism within the Religious Society of Friends...
resulted in a division within five yearly meetings, Philadelphia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Baltimore. Rural Friends, who had increasingly chafed under the control of urban leaders, sided with Hicks and naturally took a stand against strong discipline in doctrinal questions. Those who supported Hicks were tagged as "Hicksites," while Friends who opposed him were labeled "Orthodox." The latter had more adherents overall but were plagued by subsequent splintering. The only division the Hicksites experienced was when a small group of upper class and reform-minded Progressive Friends of Longwood, Pennsylvania, emerged in the 1840s; they maintained a precarious position for about a century.
Gurneyites
In the early 1840s the Orthodox Friends in America were exercised by a transatlantic dispute between Joseph John GurneyJoseph John Gurney
Joseph John Gurney was a banker in Norwich, England and an evangelical Minister of the Religious Society of Friends , whose views and actions led, ultimately, to a schism among American Quakers.-Biography:...
of England and John Wilbur of Rhode Island. Gurney, troubled by the example of the Hicksite separation, emphasized Scriptural authority and favored working closely with other Christian groups. Wilbur, in response, defended the authority of the Holy Spirit as primary, and worked to prevent the dilution of the Friends tradition of Spirit-led ministry. After privately criticizing Gurney in correspondence to sympathetic Friends, Wilbur was expelled from his yearly meeting in a questionable proceeding in 1842. Probably the best known Orthodox Friend was the poet and abolitionist editor John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. He is usually listed as one of the Fireside Poets...
. Over the next several decades, a number of Wilburite-Gurneyite separations occurred.
Starting in the late 19th century, many American Gurneyite Quakers adopted the use of paid pastors, planned sermons, hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
s and other elements of Protestant worship services. This type of Quaker meeting is known as a "programmed meeting". Worship of the traditional, silent variety is called an "unprogrammed meeting", although there is some variation on how the unprogrammed meetings adhere strictly to the lack of programming. Some unprogrammed meetings may have also allocated a period of hymn-singing or other activity as part of the total period of worship, while others maintain the tradition of avoiding all planned activities. (See also Joel Bean
Joel Bean
Joel Bean was a Quaker minister whose name has been associated with a branch of Quakerism that some label “Beanite.”...
.)
British
For the most part, Friends in Britain were strongly evangelical in doctrine and escaped these major separations, though they corresponded only with the Orthodox and mostly ignored the Hicksites.Beaconite Controversy
The Beaconite Controversy arose in England from the book A Beacon to the Society of Friends, published in 1835 by Isaac CrewdsonIsaac Crewdson
Isaac Crewdson was a minister of the Quaker meeting in Manchester who published a book, A Beacon to the Society of Friends, that triggered a split that affected Quakers throughout England. The book was said to have "set off ... a volcanic explosion".-Life:Isaac Crewdson was born in 1780 in...
. He was a Recorded Minister
Recorded Minister
A Recorded Minister was originally a male or female Quaker who was acknowledged to have a gift of spoken ministry.The practice of recording, in a Monthly Meeting Minute, the acknowledgement that a Friend had a gift of spoken ministry began in the 1730s in London Yearly Meeting, according to...
in the Manchester Meeting. The controversy arose in 1831 when doctrinal differences amongst the Friends culminated in the winter of 1836–1837 with the resignation of Isaac Crewdson and of 48 fellow members of the Manchester Meeting. About 250 others left in various localities in England including prominent members. A number of these joined themselves to the Plymouth Brethren
Plymouth Brethren
The Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...
and brought influences of simplicity of worship to that society. Notable among the Plymouthists who were former Quakers included John Eliot Howard
John Eliot Howard
John Eliot Howard was an English chemist of the nineteenth century, who conducted pioneering work with the development of quinine....
of Tottenham
Tottenham
Tottenham is an area of the London Borough of Haringey, England, situated north north east of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:Tottenham is believed to have been named after Tota, a farmer, whose hamlet was mentioned in the Domesday Book; hence Tota's hamlet became Tottenham...
and Robert Mackenzie Beverley.
20th century developments
During the 20th century, Quakerism was marked by movements toward unity, but at the end of the century Quakers were more sharply divided than ever. By the time of the first World War almost all Quakers in Britain and many in the United States found themselves committed to what came to be called "liberalism," which meant primarily a religion that deemphasized corporate statements of theology and was characterized by its emphasis on social action and pacifism. Hence when the two Philadelphia and New York Yearly Meetings, one Hicksite, one Orthodox, united in 1955—to be followed in the next decade by the two in Baltimore Yearly Meeting—they came together on the basis of a shared liberalism . As time wore on and the implication of this liberal change became more apparent, sharpening lines of division between various groups of Friends became more accentuated.World War I at first produced an effort toward unity, embodied in the creation of the American Friends Service Committee
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...
in 1917 by Orthodox Friends, led by Rufus Jones and Henry Cadbury
Henry Cadbury
Henry Joel Cadbury was a biblical scholar, Quaker historian, writer, and non-profit administrator. A graduate of Haverford College, he was a Quaker throughout his life, though essentially an agnostic...
. A Friends Service Committee, as an agency of London Yearly Meeting, had already been created in Britain to help Quakers there deal with problems of military service; it continues today, after numerous name changes, as Quaker Peace & Social Witness. Envisioned as a service outlet for conscientious objectors that could draw support from across diverse yearly meetings, the AFSC began losing support from more evangelical Quakers as early as the 1920s and served to emphasize the differences between them, but prominent Friends such as Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
continued to offer it their public support. Many Quakers from Oregon, Ohio, and Kansas became alienated from the Five Years Meeting (later Friends United Meeting
Friends United Meeting
Friends United Meeting is an association of twenty-six yearly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. In addition there are several individual Monthly meetings and organizations that are members of FUM...
), considering it infected with the kind of theological liberalism that Jones exemplified; Oregon Yearly Meeting withdrew in 1927. That same year, eleven evangelicals met in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to plan how to resist the influence of liberalism, but depression and war prevented another gathering for twenty years, until after the end of the second world war.
To overcome such divisions, liberal Quakers organized so-called worldwide conferences of Quakers in 1920 in London and again in 1937 at Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges in Pennsylvania, but they were too liberal and too expensive for most evangelicals to attend . A more successful effort at unity was the Friends Committee on National Legislation
Friends Committee on National Legislation
The Friends Committee on National Legislation a 501 lobbying organization in the public interest founded in 1943 by members of the Religious Society of Friends...
, originating during World War II in Washington, D.C., as a pioneering Quaker lobbying unit. In 1958 the Friends World Committee for Consultation
Friends World Committee for Consultation
The Friends World Committee for Consultation is a Quaker organization that works to communicate between all parts of Quakerism. FWCC's world headquarters is based in London. It has Consultative NGO status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations...
was organized to form a neutral ground where all branches of the Society of Friends could come together, consider common problems, and get to know one another; it held triennial conferences that met in various parts of the world, but it had not found a way to involve very many grassroots Quakers in its activities . One of its agencies, created during the Cold War and known as Right Sharing of World Resources, collects funds from Quakers in the "first world" to finance small self-help projects in the "Third World," including some supported by Evangelical Friends International
Evangelical Friends International
Evangelical Friends Church International is a branch of Quaker yearly meetings around the world that profess evangelical Christian beliefs.- History :...
. Beginning in 1955 and continuing for a decade, three of the yearly meetings divided by the Hicksite separation of 1827, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York, as well as Canadian Yearly Meeting, reunited.
Disagreements between the various Quaker groups, Friends United Meeting
Friends United Meeting
Friends United Meeting is an association of twenty-six yearly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. In addition there are several individual Monthly meetings and organizations that are members of FUM...
, Friends General Conference
Friends General Conference
Friends General Conference is a North American Quaker organization primarily serving the Quaker yearly and monthly meetings in the United States and Canada that choose to be members...
, Evangelical Friends International
Evangelical Friends International
Evangelical Friends Church International is a branch of Quaker yearly meetings around the world that profess evangelical Christian beliefs.- History :...
, and Conservative yearly meetings, involved both theological and more concrete social issues. FGC, founded in 1900 and centered primarily in the East, along the West coast, and in Canada, tended to be oriented toward the liberal end of the political spectrum, was mostly unprogrammed, and closely aligned with AFSC; by the last part of the century it had taken a strong position in favor of same-sex marriage, was supportive of gay rights, and usually favored a woman's right to choose an abortion. Its membership tended to be professional and middle class or higher.
Rooted in the Midwest, especially Indiana and North Carolina, FUM was historically more rural and small-town in its demographics. The Friends churches which formed part of this body were predominantly programmed and pastoral. Though a minority of its yearly meetings (New York, New England, Baltimore, Southeastern and Canada) were also affiliated with Friends General Conference and were more theologically liberal and predominantly unprogrammed in worship style, the theological position of the majority of its constituent yearly meetings was often similar in flavor to the Protestant Christian mainstream in Indiana and North Carolina. In 1960, a theological seminary, Earlham School of Religion
Earlham School of Religion
Earlham School of Religion , a graduate division of Earlham College, located in Richmond, Indiana, is the oldest graduate seminary associated with the Religious Society of Friends . ESR was founded in 1960 by Wilmer Cooper, D. Elton Trueblood and others for the training of Quaker ministers...
, was founded in FUM's heartland - Richmond, Indiana - to offer ministerial training and religious education. The seminary soon came to enroll significant numbers of unprogrammed Friends, as well as Friends from pastoral backgrounds.
EFI was staunchly evangelical and by the end of the century had more members converted through its missionary endeavors abroad than in the United States; Southwest Friends Church illustrated the group's drift away from traditional Quaker practice, permitting its member churches to practice the outward ordinances of the Lord's Supper and baptism. On social issues its members exhibited strong antipathy toward homosexuality and enunciated a pro-life position on abortion. At century's end, Conservative Friends
Conservative Friends
Conservative Friends refers to members of a certain branch of the Religious Society of Friends . In the United States of America Conservative Friends belong to three Yearly Meetings—Iowa Yearly Meeting , North Carolina Yearly Meeting , and Ohio Yearly Meeting...
held onto only three small yearly meetings, in Ohio, Iowa, and North Carolina, with Friends from Ohio arguably the most traditional. In Britain and Europe where institutional unity and almost universal unprogrammed worship style were maintained, these distinctions did not apply, nor did they in Latin America and Africa where evangelical missionary activity predominated.
In the 1960s and later, these categories were challenged by a mostly self-educated Friend, Lewis Benson
Lewis Benson
Lewis Benson was perhaps the 20th century’s greatest expert on the writings of George Fox. And although this expertise was widely acknowledged, he was also a voice crying in the wilderness, for he sought to herald a gospel greater than he to a body of modern Quakers with little taste for it...
, a New Jersey printer by training, a theologian by vocation. Immersing himself in the corpus of early Quaker writings, he made himself an authority on George Fox and his message. In 1966, Benson published Catholic Quakerism, a small book that sought to move the Society of Friends to what he insisted was a strongly pro-Fox position of authentic Christianity, entirely separate from theological liberalism, churchly denominationalism, or rural isolation. He created the New Foundation Fellowship
New Foundation Fellowship
The New Foundation Fellowship is an international Quaker ministry, based mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It exists to reacquaint people with the Christian Message that was proclaimed by George Fox and the Early Friends...
, which blazed forth for a decade or so but had about disappeared as an effective group by the end of the century.
By that time, the differences between Friends were quite clear, to each other if not always to outsiders. Theologically, a small minority of Friends among the "liberals" expressed discomfort with theistic understandings of the Divine, while more evangelical Friends adhered to a more biblical worldview. Periodical attempts to institutionally reorganize the disparate Religious Society of Friends into more theologically congenial organizations took place, but generally failed. By the beginning of the 21st century, Friends United Meeting, as the middle ground, was suffering from these efforts, but still remained in existence, even if it did not flourish. In its home base of yearly meetings in Indiana especially, it lost numerous churches and members, both to other denominations and to the evangelicals .
Quakers in Britain and the Eastern United States embarked on efforts in the field of adult education, creating three schools with term-long courses, week-end activities, and summer programs. Woodbrooke College began in 1903 at the former home of chocolate magnate George Cadbury
George Cadbury
George Cadbury was the third son of John Cadbury, a Quaker who founded Cadbury's cocoa and chocolate company.-Background:...
in Birmingham, England, and later became associated with the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
, while Pendle Hill
Pendle Hill
Pendle Hill is located in the north-east of Lancashire, England, near the towns of Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Clitheroe and Padiham, an area known as Pendleside. Its summit is above mean sea level. It gives its name to the Borough of Pendle. It is an isolated hill, separated from the Pennines to the...
, in the Philadelphia suburb of Wallingford, did not open until 1930. Earlier, beginning in 1915 and continuing for about a decade, the Woolman School had been created by Philadelphia Hicksites near Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
; its head, Elbert Russell, a midwestern recorded minister, tried unsuccessfully to maintain it, but it ended in the late 1920s. All three sought to educate adults for the kind of lay leadership that the founders Society of Friends relied upon. Woodbrooke and Pendle Hill still maintain research libraries and resources.
During the 20th century, two Quakers, Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
and Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, both from the Western evangelical wing of the group, were elected to serve as presidents of the United States, thus achieving more secular political power than any Friend had enjoyed since William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
.
Kindertransport
Prior to WWII in 1938-1939 10,000 Jewish children were given temporary resident visas for the UK, in what became known as the KindertransportKindertransport
Kindertransport is the name given to the rescue mission that took place nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Free City of Danzig...
, this allowed the children to escape the Holocaust. American Quakers played a major role in pressuring the British government to supply these Visas. The Quakers chaperoned the Jewish children on the trains, and cared for many of them once they arrived in Britain.
Costa Rica
In 1951 a group of Quakers, objecting to the military conscription, emigrated from the United States to Costa RicaCosta Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
and settled in what was to become Monteverde
Monteverde
Monteverde, Costa Rica is a small town in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Located in the Cordillera de Tilarán, roughly a four hour drive from the Central Valley of Costa Rica, Monteverde is considered a major ecotourism destination in Costa Rica...
. The Quakers founded the Cheese Factory and a Friends School and, in an attempt to protect the area's watershed, purchased much of the land that now makes up the Monteverde Reserve. The Quakers have played a major role in the development of the community.
Primary sources
- Gummere, Amelia, ed. The Journal and Essays of John Woolman (1922) online edition
- Jones, Rufus M., ed. The Journal of George Fox: An Autobiography online edition
- Mott, Lucretia Coffin. Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott. edited by Beverly Wilson Palmer, U. of Illinois Press, 2002. 580 pp
- West, Jessamyn, ed. The Quaker Reader (1962, reprint 1992) - collection of essays by Fox, Penn, and other notable Quakers