From the time of their first arrival in Puritan New England in the 1650s, the Society of Friends exerted an influence in America far out of proportion with their numbers. Forming the bulk of the founding European population in Pennsylvania and West Jersey during the 1680s, the Quakers directly contributed to the shape of provincial and national affairs for over a century, slowly revolving away from the circles of political power following the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars. Their influence, however, continued to be felt indirectly through their organizing ability and reformist zeal, manifested in their crucial roles in the antislavery, women's rights, Indian rights, prison reform, and temperance movements.

The history of religion in America is a well documented area at the Clements Library, and the Quaker penchant for expressing themselves in the written word, and their industry in publishing, make them among the best represented denominations in the Library's holdings.

Scope and contents:

The Quaker Collection consists of miscellaneous letters, diaries, and documents relating to the religious and social history of the Society of Friends. With the strong connection of Friends to various social causes, the Quaker Collection offers insight into many aspects of American reform and, more generally, into the intellectual and social life of the nation during the 18th and early 19th century. At the same time, the collection useful for documenting the convulsive changes internal to American Quakerism in the 19th century, particularly the social and doctrinal disputes that culminated in the Hicksite and Wilburite schisms.

Among the more important individual items in the Quaker Collection are two accounts of Quaker presence at Treaty negotiations held at Easton, Pa., in 1760 and 1761, between the government of Pennsylvania and the Six Nations and other Indians. The delicacy of these negotiations, the nature of Quaker-Indian interaction, and the role of Quaker women in the Society and in political affairs emerge in the journals in a complex and richly textured way. The collection also includes an early (1707) manuscript copy of the death warrant of William Leddra, the last of four Quakers (including Mary Dyer) executed in Massachusetts Bay colony for their religious beliefs, a land grant signed by William Penn, and representative letters from important Quakers.

Related materials:

Several manuscript collections at the Clements provide additional documentation of Quaker lives in America. The Humphry Marshall Papers offers valuable insight into the religious, personal, and "professional" life of a self-trained Quaker botanist of the 18th century, as well as the struggles Quakers endured during the American Revolution. The William Logan Fisher Papers also offers insight into the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary struggles of Friends, and includes some particularly interesting materials relating to disputes within the Quaker meetings at Lynn and New Bedford (Mass.) in the 19th century. Josiah Harmar and Nathanael Greene were both born into Quaker families, but left the Society to participate in the military.

Quaker reform activity is well exemplified in the Weld-Grimké and Elizabeth Comstock Papers. Converts to the Society, the Grimké sisters were among the earliest female antislavery advocates to address "promiscuous assemblies" (the audience including men and women), but were expelled when Angelina Grimké married Theodore Dwight Weld, a non-Quaker. A Pennsylvania Quaker, Cornelia Hancock served as a nurse during the Civil War.

The Warder-Haines, Foulke Family, Mifflin family, Penn-Gaskell, and James B. Price Papers all revolve around members of the Society and their families.

Provenance:

Acquired variously.

Recat. 7/98 rsc

Subject index to the Quaker Collection

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