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"Hamm has simply produced the best book on Quaker history in recent years." -- Quaker History ..". will stand as one of the most important works in the field." -- American Historical Review
"The Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer prize essay of the American Society of Church History."
The Quakers in America is a multifaceted history of the Religious Society of Friends and a fascinating study of its culture and controversies today. Lively vignettes of Conservative, Evangelical, Friends General Conference, and Friends United meetings illuminate basic Quaker theology and reflect the group's diversity while also highlighting the fundamental unity within the religion. Quaker culture encompasses a rich tradition of practice even as believers continue to debate whether Quakerism is necessarily Christian, where religious authority should reside, how one transmits faith to children, and how gender and sexuality shape religious belief and behavior. Praised for its rich insight and wide-ranging perspective, The Quakers in America is a penetrating account of an influential, vibrant, and often misunderstood religious sect. Known best for their long-standing commitment to social activism, pacifism, fair treatment for Native Americans, and equality for women, the Quakers have influenced American thought and society far out of proportion to their relatively small numbers. Whether in the foreign policy arena (the American Friends Service Committee), in education (the Friends schools), or in the arts (prominent Quakers profiled in this book include James Turrell, Bonnie Raitt, and James Michener), Quakers have left a lasting imprint on American life. This multifaceted book is a concise history of the Religious Society of Friends; an introduction to its beliefs and practices; and a vivid picture of the culture and controversies of the Friends today. The book opens with lively vignettes of Conservative, Evangelical, Friends General Conference, and Friends United meetings that illuminate basic Quaker concepts and theology and reflect the group's diversity in the wake of the sectarian splintering of the nineteenth century. Yet the book also examines commonalities among American Friends that demonstrate a fundamental unity within the religion: their commitments to worship, the ministry of all believers, decision making based on seeking spiritual consensus rather than voting, a simple lifestyle, and education. Thomas Hamm shows that Quaker culture encompasses a rich tradition of practice even as believers continue to debate a number of central questions: Is Quakerism necessarily Christian? Where should religious authority reside? Is the self sacred? How does one transmit faith to children? How do gender and sexuality shape religious belief and behavior? Hamm's analysis of these debates reveals a vital religion that prizes both unity and diversity.
Shows how the Quakers shaped the basic distinctive features of American life from the days of the founders and the colonies through the Revolution and up to the civil rights movement; also points out how Quaker values like freedom, equality, straightforwardness, and spirituality can be seen in modern day peace advocates.--From publisher description.
The Religious Society of Friends and its service organization, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) have long been known for their peace and justice activism. The abolitionist work of Friends during the antebellum era has been well documented, and their contemporary anti-war and anti-racism work is familiar to activists around the world. Quaker Brotherhood is the first extensive study of the AFSC's interracial activism in the first half of the twentieth century, filling a major gap in scholarship on the Quakers' race relations work from the AFSC's founding in 1917 to the beginnings of the civil rights movement in the early 1950s. Allan W. Austin tracks the evolution of key AFSC projects such as the Interracial Section and the American Interracial Peace Committee, which demonstrate the tentativeness of the Friends' activism in the 1920s, as well as efforts in the 1930s to make scholarly ideas and activist work more theologically relevant for Friends. Documenting the AFSC's efforts to help European and Japanese American refugees during World War II, Austin shows that by 1950, Quakers in the AFSC had honed a distinctly Friendly approach to interracial relations that combined scholarly understandings of race with their religious views. In tracing the transformation of one of the most influential social activist groups in the United States over the first half of the twentieth century, Quaker Brotherhood presents Friends in a thoughtful, thorough, and even-handed manner. Austin portrays the history of the AFSC and race--highlighting the organization's boldness in some aspects and its timidity in others--as an ongoing struggle that provides a foundation for understanding how shared agency might function in an imperfect and often racist world. Highlighting the complicated and sometimes controversial connections between Quakers and race during this era, Austin uncovers important aspects of the history of Friends, pacifism, feminism, American religion, immigration, ethnicity, and the early roots of multiculturalism.
Donna McDaniel and Vanessa Julye document three centuries of Quakers who were committed to ending racial injustices yet, with few exceptions, hesitated to invite African Americans into their Society. Addressing racism among Quakers of yesterday and today, the authors believe, is the path toward a racially inclusive community.
How can the simple choice of a men’s suit be a moral statement and a political act? When the suit is made of free-labor wool rather than slave-grown cotton. In Moral Commerce, Julie L. Holcomb traces the genealogy of the boycott of slave labor from its seventeenth-century Quaker origins through its late nineteenth-century decline. In their failures and in their successes, in their resilience and their persistence, antislavery consumers help us understand the possibilities and the limitations of moral commerce. Quaker antislavery rhetoric began with protests against the slave trade before expanding to include boycotts of the use and products of slave labor. For more than one hundred years, British and American abolitionists highlighted consumers’ complicity in sustaining slavery. The boycott of slave labor was the first consumer movement to transcend the boundaries of nation, gender, and race in an effort by reformers to change the conditions of production. The movement attracted a broad cross-section of abolitionists: conservative and radical, Quaker and non-Quaker, male and female, white and black. The men and women who boycotted slave labor created diverse, biracial networks that worked to reorganize the transatlantic economy on an ethical basis. Even when they acted locally, supporters embraced a global vision, mobilizing the boycott as a powerful force that could transform the marketplace. For supporters of the boycott, the abolition of slavery was a step toward a broader goal of a just and humane economy. The boycott failed to overcome the power structures that kept slave labor in place; nonetheless, the movement’s historic successes and failures have important implications for modern consumers.
Explores the second period of the development of Quakerism, specifically focusing on changes in Quaker theology, authority and institutional structures, and political trajectories.
When Americans today think of the Religious Society of Friends, better known as Quakers, they may picture the smiling figure on boxes of oatmeal. But since their arrival in the American colonies in the 1650s, Quakers’ spiritual values and social habits have set them apart from other Americans. And their example—whether real or imagined—has served as a religious conscience for an expanding nation. Portrayals of Quakers—from dangerous and anarchic figures in seventeenth-century theological debates to moral exemplars in twentieth-century theater and film (Grace Kelly in High Noon, for example)—reflected attempts by writers, speechmakers, and dramatists to grapple with the troubling social issues of the day. As foils to more widely held religious, political, and moral values, members of the Society of Friends became touchstones in national discussions about pacifism, abolition, gender equality, consumer culture, and modernity. Spanning four centuries, Imaginary Friends takes readers through the shifting representations of Quaker life in a wide range of literary and visual genres, from theological debates, missionary work records, political theory, and biography to fiction, poetry, theater, and film. It illustrates the ways that, during the long history of Quakerism in the United States, these “imaginary” Friends have offered a radical model of morality, piety, and anti-modernity against which the evolving culture has measured itself. Winner, CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book Award
A vigorous, innovative, compelling introduction to Quakers, fully global in reach, and utilizing the best Quaker scholars from every continent.