Quaker History

Studies of early Quakerism include: Jack P.B. Dobbs, Authority and the Early Quakers (Frenchay, So. Glos., England: M. Hartog, 2006), originally a dissertation at the University of Oxford, examines the nature of authority in seventeenth century Quakerism; Jean Hatton, George Fox: The Founder of the Quakers (Oxford, England; Grand Rapids, MI.: Monarch Books, 2007); Hilary Hinds, “Embodied Rhetoric: Quaker Public Discourse in the 1650s,” in Rhetoric, Women and Politics in Early Modern England (London: Routledge, 2007), 191–211; Simon Dixon “Quakers and the London Parish 1670– 1720,” The London Journal 32.3 (November 2007), 229–249; and Rosalind Kaye, James Parnell 1636–1656: A Quaker Preacher who Died in Colchester Castle (Colchester, Essex, England: Colchester Quaker Meeting, 2006).

Richard C. Allen, Quaker Communities in Early Modern Wales: From Resistance to Respectability (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007), examines the history and social structure of Quakerism in Wales, from the seventeenth century beginnings through the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Other works on early Quakers in the British Isles include:

Sandra Stanley Holton, Quaker Women: Personal Life, Memory and Radicalism in the Lives of Women Friends, 1780–1930 (London: Routledge, 2007) explores English family networks and reform from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century involving the Wood, Priestman, Bright, Clark and allied families. Regional studies of Quakers in the British Isles include Paul F. Burton, A Social History of Quakers in Scotland, 1800–2000 (Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellen Press, 2007) and Susan Vipont Hartshorne, The Story of Yealand Manor School (York, England: William Sessions, 2007) about a Quaker school for children evacuated from London during World War II. Emma Robinson, Marek Korczynski and Michael Pickering, “Harmonious Relations? Music at Work in the Rowntree and Cadbury Factories,” Business History 49.2 (March 2007), 211–234, looks at the use of music in two Quaker companies in Britain in the early twentieth century.

How the Quakers Invented America by David Yount (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007), is a popular treatment of Quaker influences on American government and religious ideals, written by a Friend. Despite the title, Diane Rapaport’s The Naked Quaker: True Crimes and Controversies from the Courts of Colonial New England (Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2007) includes only two instances of Quakers [End Page 70] coming into conflict with Massachusetts authorities: Elizabeth Howton (Hooton) and Lydia Wardell, both in 1663. Mark Rienberger and Elizabeth P. McLean, “Pennsbury Manor: Reconstruction and Reality,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 131.3 (July 2007), 263–306, contrasts the reconstructed American home of William Penn with what can be determined about its historic appearance and functions. Liam Riordan, Many Identities, One Nation: The Revolution and Its Legacy in the Mid-Atlantic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007) includes Quakers as one important influence in the religious, cultural and political diversity in the Delaware Valley in the years between 1770 and 1830. Jack Marietta’s influential The Reformation of American Quakerism, 1748—1783, originally published in 1984, was reissued by the University of Pennsylvania Press as a paperback in 2007.

Quaker reformer John Woolman is the focus of Geoffrey Plank’s “The Flame of Life was Kindled in All Animal and Sensitive Creatures: One Quaker Colonist’s View of Animal Life,” Church History 76.3 (September 2007), 569–590. Two studies examine Quakers in the era of the American Revolution: Jane Calvert, “Liberty Without Tumult: Understanding the Politics of John Dickinson,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 131.3 (July 2007), 233–262, and Sarah Crabtree, “‘A Beautiful and Practical Lesson of Jurisprudence’: The Transatlantic Quaker Ministry in an Age of Revolution,” Radical History Review 99 (Fall 2007), 51–79.

Quaker anti-slavery continues to be a major focus for research. Katharine Gerbner, “We are Against the Traffik of Men-Body: The Germantown Quaker Protest of 1688 and the Origins of American Abolitionism,” Pennsylvania History 74.2 (Spring 2007), 149–172 is a close analysis of the form and language of this important early anti-slavery document. Brycchan Carey’s “The Pennsylvania Origins of British Abolitionism,” Historian 93 (Spring 2007), 6–11, examines the roots of anti-slavery thought in Philadelphia from the Germantown Petition of 1688 through the 1750s and its impact on British abolitionist sentiment. Tony Stoller, “The Quaker Four and the Abolition Business, 1787–2007,” Friends Quarterly 35.8 (October 2007), 333–344, relates the work of Joseph Wood, Samuel Hoare, George Harrison and James Phillips in the early history of the anti-slavery movement with related contemporary Quaker concerns. Carol Faulkner’s “The Root of the Evil: Free Produce and Radical Antislavery, 1820–1860,” Journal of the Early Republic 27.3 (2007), 377–405 is a reconsideration of the largely Quaker-based boycott of slave goods and its meaning for American abolitionists. Ryan Jordan’s “The Dilemma of Quaker Pacifism in a Slaveholding [End Page 71] Republic, 1833–1865,” Civil War History 53.1 (March 2007), 5–28 considers how Quaker concerns about violence affected their anti-slavery positions. Friends of Freedom: The Underground Railroad in Queens and on Long Island (Flushing, NY: Queens Historical Society, 2006), edited by Wini Warren, includes much material on local Quaker connections with anti-slavery. This publication updates and expands an earlier study, Angels of Deliverance, published in 1999. Zoë Laidlaw, “Heathens, Slaves and Aborigines: Thomas Hodgkin’s Critique of Missions and Anti-Slavery,” History Workshop Journal 64.1 (Autumn 2007), 133–162, examines the ideas of British Quaker Hodgkin (1798–1866), founder, in 1837, of the Aborigines’ Protection Society.

Two reprinted works document the bi-racial New England Quaker Paul Cuffe (1759–1817) and his son, Paul Cuffe Jr. (b. 1792). The younger Cuffe self-identified with the Indian rather than the African part of his image and does not seem to have identified with Quakers. The Memoir of Captain Paul Cuffee: A Man of Colour (Mashantucket, Connecticut: Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, 2007) is a facsimile reprint of the pamphlet published in York, England, in 1811, with a biographical introduction by Jack Campisi. The Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian (Mashantucket, Connecticut: Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, 2006), is a facsimile of a pamphlet originally published in 1839, with an introduction by Jack Campisi.

Katherine A. Hunt, “From the Collection: The Emlen-Williams Quilt,” Winterthur Portfolio 41.1 (Spring 2007), 43–52,uses a “friendship quilt” made for a Philadelphia couple to examine Quaker family and social networks.

Studies of Quaker peace and social witness include Paul R. Dekar, “The Historic Peace Churches and the Fellowship of Reconciliation,” in Brethren Life and Thought 51.1–2 (Winter/Spring 2006), 1–27, Francine Cheeks, “American Friends Service Committee After 90 Years,” Friends Journal 53.6 (June 2007), 16–19, Charles F. Howlett, “Julien Davies Cornell: Gentle Quaker, Determined Litigator,” Friends Journal 53.5 (May 2007), 6–8. The seventieth anniversary of the Friends World Committee for Consultation is the focus of a special issue of Friends Journal 53.10 (October 2007), with articles and recollections by Heather Catchpool Moir, Thomas Hamm, Steven Elkinton, M’Annette Rudell, Betsy Cazden and others. A recent issue of Friends Quarterly 35.7 (July 2007) focuses on Quaker work at the United Nations, including Nicholas A. Sims, “Duncan Wood at Geneva, 1952–1977,” 293–300, and Stephen Collett, “Sixty Years with the UN in [End Page 72] New York,” 319–327. Nancy Gallagher, Quakers in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Dilemmas of NGO Humanitarian Activism (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2007) examines the role of the American Friends Service Committee, focusing primarily on the period from the 1948–49 Israel-Arab War to the 1956 Suez Crisis.

Henry Swain’s Why Now:Because the Fate of Civilization May Depend Upon It (Cover subtitle: The Evolution of a Conscientious Objector) (Nashville, IN: Lotus Petal Publishing, 2006) is an autobiography of his experiences in Civilian Public Service during World War II combined with essays on the continuing relevance of the peace witness. Todd Tucker’s The Great Starvation Experiment (New York, NY: Free Press, 2006) discusses the participation of conscientious objectors in medical experiments during World War II, including some members and future members of the Society of Friends. Gregory A. Barnes, A Biography of Lillian and George Willoughby: Twentieth Century Quaker Peace Activists (Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellen Press, 2007) details a joint career in activism from the 1930s to the present. Theodora Elkinton Waring, Sacred Trust: A Quaker Family Since 1816 (Newton, MA: Barvel Pond Press, 2007) is an autobiographical account of a twentieth century Friend, connecting her own story with the Elkintons.

Founded by Friends: The Quaker Heritage of Fifteen American Colleges and Universities, edited by John W. Oliver Jr., Charles L. Cherry and Caroline L. Cherry, (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007) contains essays about Quaker-related colleges with an introductory essay by Thomas D. Hamm on “The Search for the Quaker College.”

Histories of meetings in the United States include Jean Hallowell Leeper, Cedar Creek Friends and Its People (Mount Pleasant, Iowa: Author, 2007), covering the history of this Iowa meeting from 1841 to 2006. Orange Grove Monthly Meeting: A Centennial Timeline (Pasadena, CA: Orange Grove Monthly Meeting, 2007), compiled by David H. Morse, provides a chronological history of meeting activities and concerns from 1906 to 2006. Talking with Friends: Oral Histories to Commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Downingtown Friends Meeting House, edited by Kevin Ferris (Downingtown, PA: Downingtown Friends Meeting, 2007), documents meeting life in Pennsylvania in the twentieth century.

George M. Oshiro, “Nitobe Inazõ and the Sapporo Band: Reflections of the Dawn of Protestant Christianity in Early Meiji Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 34.1 (2007), 99–126, considers the influence of Nitobe [End Page 73] (1862–1933) with attention to Nitobe’s Quakerism and pacifism.

Matthew Stanley, Practical Mystic: Religion, Science and A.S. Eddington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007) explores the interactions of the religious and scientific values of English Quaker scientist Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944). Margaret Booker’s biography, Among the Stars: The Life of Maria Mitchell: Astronomer, Educator, Women’s Rights Activist (Nantucket, MA: Mill Hill Press, 2007) sees Quaker values in the life and career of Mitchell (1818–1889).