Quakers

The Quakers, formally known as the Religious Society of Friends, comprise a small, radical, Protestant denomination formed during the religious upheaval in 17th century England. They earned the name "Quakers" for how members shook, or "quaked", reflecting their struggle against their inner motives "under the Light." Many migrated to America and it's presence was strongest in Philadelphia in the colony of Pennsylvania, which was owned by Quaker leader William Penn. Quakers were active leaders of many American reform movements past and present, especially abolition of slavery, Indians' rights, prohibition, women's rights, civil rights, prison reform, hospital reform, and world peace. Other famous Quakers include founder George Fox, abolitionist John Brown, feminist Lucretia Mott, and presidents Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon.

Current status

There are about 100,000 Quakers in the United States today. Hamm (2003) identifies seven currently contested issues--the centrality of Christ, leadership, religious authority, sexuality, identity, unity, and growth. The Quakers are heavily involved with the Peace Testimony, support for "People of Color," the American Friends Service Committee, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. They are well known for their support of liberal arts colleges including Haverford and Swarthmore (near Philadelphia) and Earlham (in Richmond, Indiana). A majority are affiliated with the Society of Friends (Five Years Meeting); others belong to the smaller Religious Society of Friends (General Conference), the Religious Society of Friends (Conservative), and the more fundamentalist Association of Evangelical Friends.

About 20,000 Quakers now live in Britain, and several thousand in Canada. Overseas missions, starting in 1903, were most successful in Africa, especially Kenya, which has 300,000 Quakers in 15 Yearly Meetings.

Quaker beliefs

The core beliefs among American Friends in the 21st century are worship based on the leading of the Spirit; the ministry of all believers; decision making through the traditional Quaker business process; simplicity as a basic philosophy of life; and a commitment to education as a manifestation of Quaker faith.

History

Founding

The origin of the Friends can be traced to the mid-17th century in England. The Quakers emerged from the Puritan movement, which was a backlash against the Church of England. Although impossible to link the formation of the Quakers to any one person, it is most commonly attributed to George Fox. Fox, who was raised in the Anglican Church until the age of 19, set out to find a greater spiritual understanding of God in 1643. Fox traveled around England for three years on a spiritual journey meeting with priests, baptists, and separatists. His journey became a spiritual reawakening for him, as he claimed to have heard the voice of God, which turned him against the large, organized religions of England. Fox spent the next several years preaching throughout the northwest, experiencing great success in drawing supporters from the separatists.

By 1653, the Quaker movement numbered 10,000 people. Amidst persecution from the Puritans, small groups of Quakers(who were known as the "Camp of the Lord in England," and later the "First Publishers of Truth" and "the valiant sixty"), began preaching their message across the entire country.

19th century

The Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends, founded in 1821, was the largest Society of Friends meeting in the world by 1850.

Disagreements over doctrine and evangelism split them into the modernizing Gurneyites, who questioned the applicability of early Quaker writings to the modern world, and the conservative Wilburites. Wilburites not only held to the writings of Fox and other early Friends, they actively sought to bring not only Gurneyites, but Hicksites, who had split off during the 1820's over antislavery and theological issues, back to orthodox Quaker belief.

Inm the late 19th century Hicksite Quakers looked optimistically toward the future despite declining membership rolls and changing socioeconomic conditions that were dismantling rural communities. Advocates of a more liberal Quaker theology reconciled traditional beliefs with Higher Criticism of the Bible and a relativist view toward other faiths. Hicksites dismissed the quietism of an earlier generation and, drawing on contemporary intellectual and social currents, embraced causes such as education, ending racial discrimination, and other social reform.

Abolitionism

The Quakers were the single group most responsible for promoting antislavery and abolitionism in the 1770-1860 era. Sassi (2006) compares Anthony Benezet's influential 1771 antislavery tract, Some Historical Account of Guinea, with the sources from which he gleaned his information about Africa and the slave trade, the narratives published by European travelers to West Africa. Benezet, a Philadelphia Quaker and humanitarian reformer, cited the travel literature in order to portray Africa as an abundant land of decent people. His purpose was refutation of the argument that the slave trade was a beneficial transfer of people from a land of barbarism and death to regions of civilization and Christianity. However, Benezet employed the travel narratives selectively, suppressing contradictory evidence as well as controversial material that could have been used to construct an alternative depiction of African humanity. Nonetheless, Benezet's research shaped the subsequent debate over the slave trade and slavery, as antislavery writers incorporated his depiction into their rhetorical arsenal and proslavery defenders searched for a rebuttal.

In 1816 Virginia Quaker merchant William Hartshorne made the radical proposal that Virginia Quakers join their brethren outside the South in not participating in a slave-based economy, and not grow, buy or sell tobacco, cotoon and sugar, nor sell to plantations. The merchants of the South simply could not disentangle themselves from slavery, forcing many to compromise their religious principles in order to remain economically viable, and others (especially in North Carolina) to migrate to Indiana.

Midwestern Quakers were devoted to abolitionism. The Indiana Yearly Meeting set up a Committee on the Concerns of the People of Color ("African Committee"). Both Orthodox and Hicksite had radically abolitionist splinter groups - the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-Slavery Friends and Congregational, or Progressive, Friends. Midwestern Quakers were influential in providing education for black children, helping runaway slaves and freedmen who had freed themselves from kidnappers, and providing relief to the poor.

Although many Quakers became active abolitionists, many leaders feared that social activism would destroy their religious society, and therefore abolitionism, even as they made clear their opposition to slavery. In response, many abolitionists established "comeouter" churches dedicated to advancing the principle of immediatism, seeking to align churches with the American Anti-Slavery Society's agenda of racial equality. Other reform groups known as Progressive Friends advocated for women's rights. Both Anti-Slavery Friends and Progressive Friends engaged in civil disobedience. The contrast between the Society of Friends and the splinter groups demonstrates how republican religion was tied to social and political stability.

20th century

Peace

Although the Peace testimony remained important for some Quakers, in practice the majority supported American wars, according to an Indiana case study. When the United States entered World War I in 1917 nearly all Indiana Quakers ceased any peace advocacy and probably two-thirds of eligible Indiana Quakers served in the military. In World War II, most Quakers regarded it as as a just war and it is estimated that 90% served, although there were some conscientious objectors. In the late 1940s some radicals refused to register for conscription, but they were not well supported and many Quakers regarded the Korean War (1950-53) as a justifiable police action. Although opposition to the Vietnam War steadily grew, conservative Quakers were uncomfortable with the radical tendencies of conscientious objectors and some Indiana Quakers openly supported the war. No Indiana congregations endorsed civil disobedience, and two opposed it. In 1990 the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends declared opposition to the use of force in the Persian Gulf, but by then the majority of Indiana Quakers no longer considered themselves pacifists.

Missions

Hanson (2005) explores the work of Henry Wilbur in the organization and outreach of the Friends General Conference (FGC) and the Committee for the Advancement of Friends Principles (CAFP) during the early 20th century. Wilbur became involved in promoting Quakerism when he moved to New York in 1896 and argued for better organizational structure for the Advancement of Friends Principles in 1899. The CAFP was created in 1902 with the mission of evangelization among Friends and others seeking religious truth, primarily through the organization of reading groups and weekend conferences. In 1905 Wilbur became the first paid staff member of the committee. Wilbur's efforts and expertise became so essential to the Quaker community that, in 1911, he became the general secretary of the FGC.

Images of Quakers

The images outsiders held of Quakers has included frienfly and hostile elements. In his campaign for president in 1828, for example, Herbert Hoover's reliigion came under attack as inappropriate for a commander in chief.

There was a great deal of popular representation of Quakers---in jokes, popular magazines, novels, images, advertising and other media---from 1850 to 1920. Popular representations of Friends typically approved the devout distinctiveness attributed to stereotypical Quakers, as evidenced by their plain dress, plain speech, and refusal to swear oaths. The fact that Quakers were changing was ignored as the popular perception idealized a plain-dressed, old-fashioned representative of a national purity, piety, and unity.

The most striking images of Quakers included plain speech, abolitionism and women's rights, pacifism and war, plain dress (in the form of the Quaker bonnet), and the infamous Quaker Oats man used in advertising oatmeal. The plain speech testimony seemed to acquire new and greater significance in the broader culture at the same time Quakers were abandoning the witness. Plain speech became an attractive and admirable anachronism, signifying an imagined set of old-fashioned values. The Quaker witnesses for reformism and pacifism were reshaped to suit opposing purposes. Plain dress and appearance became the attractive and malleable image of a religious sectarian, as authors, artists, and entrepreneurs fashioned a normative and vaguely religious referent for American moral superiority.

Bibliography

• Abbott, Margery Post et al. Historical Dictionary of the Friends (Quakers). Scarecrow Press, 2003. 432 pp.
• Barbour, Hugh, and J. William Frost. The Quakers. Greenwood Press. 1988, 412pp; historical survey, including many capsule biographies online edition
• Barbour, Hugh. The Quakers in Puritan England (1964).
• Benjamin, Philip. Philadelphia Quakers in an Age of Industrialism, 1870-1920 (1976),
• Braithwaite, William C. The Beginnings of Quakerism (1912); revised by Henry J. Cadbury (1955) online edition
• Braithwaite, William C. Second Period of Quakerism (1919); revised by Henry Cadbury (1961), covers 1660 to 1720s
• Brock, Peter. Pioneers of the Peaceable Kingdom (1968), on peace Testimony from the 1650s to 1900.
• Bronner, Edwin B. William Penn's Holy Experiment (1962)
• Connerley, Jennifer. "Friendly Americans: Representing Quakers in the United States, 1850-1920." PhD dissertation U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 2006. 277 pp. Citation: DAI 2006 67(2): 600-A. DA3207363 online at ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Davies, Adrian. The Quakers in English Society, 1655-1725. Oxford U. Press, 2000. 261 pp.
• Doherty, Robert. The Hicksite Separation (1967), uses the new social history to inquire who joined which side
• Dunn, Mary Maples. William Penn: Politics and Conscience (1967)
• Frost, J. William. The Quaker Family in Colonial America: A Portrait of the Society of Friends (1973), emphasis on social structure and family life
• Frost, J. William. "The Origins of the Quaker Crusade against Slavery: A Review of Recent Literature," Quaker History 67 (1978): 42-58,
• Hamm, Thomas. The Quakers in America. Columbia University Press, 2003. 293 pp., very well reviewed overview of both historical and current conditions
• Hamm, Thomas. The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907 (1988), looks at the impact of the Holiness movement on the Orthodox faction
• Hamm, Thomas D. Earlham College: A History, 1847-1997. Indiana U. Press, 1997. 448 pp.
• Hewitt, Nancy. Women's Activism and Social Change (1984).
• Ingle, H. Larry Quakers in Conflict: The Hicksite Reformation (1986)
• Ingle, H. Larry. First among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism. Oxford U. Press, 1994. 407 pp.
• James, Sydney. A People among Peoples: Quaker Benevolence in Eighteenth-Century America (1963), a broad ranging study that remains the best history in America before 1800
• Jones, Rufus M., Amelia M. Gummere, and Isaac Sharpless. Quakers in the American Colonies (1911) to 1775 online edition
• Jones, Rufus M. Later Periods of Quakerism, 2 vols. (1921), covers England and America until World War I.
• Jones, Rufus M. The Story of George Fox (1919) 169 pages online edition
• Jones, Rufus M. A Service of Love in War Time: American Friends Relief Work in Europe, 1917-1919 (1922) online edition
• Jordan, Ryan. "The Dilemma of Quaker Pacifism in a Slaveholding Republic, 1833-1865," Civil War History, Vol. 53, 2007 online edition
• Kennedy, Thomas C. British Quakerism, 1860-1920: The Transformation of a Religious Community. Oxford U. Press, 2001. 477 pp.
• Larson, Rebecca. Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775. Knopf, 1999. 399 pp.
• Nash, Gary. Quakers and Politics: Pennsylvania, 1680-1726 (1968),
• Rasmussen, Anne Marie Bak. A History of the Quaker Movement in Africa. British Acad., 1995. 168 pp.
• Russell, Elbert. The History of Quakerism (1942). online edition
• Smuck, Harold. Friends in East Africa (Richmond, Indiana: 1987)
• Trueblood, D. Elton The People Called Quakers (1966)
• Tolles, Frederick B. Meeting House and Counting House'; (1948)
• Tolles, Frederick B. Quakers and the Atlantic Culture (1960)
• Vlach, John Michael. "Quaker Tradition and the Paintings of Edward Hicks: A Strategy for the Study of Folk Art," Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 94, 1981 online edition
• Yarrow, Clarence H. The Quaker Experience in International Conciliation (1979), for post-1945

Primary sources

• Gummere, Amelia, ed. The Journal and Essays of John Woolman (1922) 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

External links

• primary sources and older secondary books
• more primary sources and older secondary books

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