Author: CFHA

  • Eighth Lecture in Quakerism in the Atlantic World with Erin Bell

    Join us Saturday, April 23rd, for the eighth lecture in CFHA’s Quakerism in the Atlantic World series. The previous lectures have provided wonderful opportunities for Quaker scholars and historians to generously share their research and delve into the diverse facets of Quaker history. We’re very much looking forward to our next speaker, Dr. Erin Bell, who will present on her chapter, “’Mrs. Weaver Being a Quaker, Would Not Swear’: Representations of Quakers and Crime in the Metropolis, ca. 1696-1815.”

    The virtual series runs every second Saturday. All lectures will take place at 0900 Pacific / 1200 Eastern / 1700 UK on ZoomFollowing the chapters of the volume, each short lecture will run for thirty minutes and include a discussion period at the end. All are welcome to attend the lectures and are we encourage you to share the registration link with friends and colleagues who will find the series of interest. Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cfha-lecture-series-quakerism-in-the-atlantic-world-tickets-241366051357

    Erin Bell is a senior lecturer in the Department of History, College of Arts, at the University of Lincoln, UK. She has a particular interest in the different experiences of male and female Friends, and in considering how mainstream attitudes towards other religious communities related to and informed attitudes toward and depictions of Quakers. She also works on the representation of the past in factual television programming and is a member of the Lincolnshire Area Meeting. In addition to her book History on Television, co-authored with Ann Gray (2013), she has published widely on representations of Quakers in popular culture and the law in the early modern period. She is currently working, with Richard Allen, on Quaker Networks and Moral Reform in the North East of England.

    Erin’s chapter explores how Quakers were represented in accounts of London crime, particularly in Old Bailey Proceedings and Ordinary’s Accounts. She compares the experiences of Quakers with other religious minorities, notably how they were affected by inherited prejudice and their history as a criminalised minority.

  • Walking Wheel Discovery Project

    We are excited to share this guest post by Todd Farrell. Todd’s interest in walking wheels and their creators led him to contact CFHA, where he graciously accepted the invitation to share his Walking Wheel Discovery Program research with us on the blog.


    Having obtained a walking wheel in 2020, I wanted to determine the maker. This was a seemingly easy question, but not one with an easy answer. I dove into research and found information from various sources about makers including Quakers and their history.

    Figure 1 – The wheel that began the Walking Wheel Discovery Project

    Walking wheels were a staple of the pioneer household in the late 1700s and 1800s. Often referred to as wool, or great wheels, they were used to spin wool. The spinner stepped back and forth as they were spinning the wool, which gave the wheels their name. Historical references note spinners that worked in the English textile industry in Yorkshire and Lancashire walked the equivalent of 30 miles a week[1]. Walking wheels vary in diameter, turnings, styles and tension type, and number of legs.

    Relatively little has been written on the Canadian makers and the various wheels they made. In the United States, Shakers were known for their high-quality wheels, which were generally stamped with the name of the maker[2]. Makers marks (name and/or location) are not very common in Ontario or Canada. Markers marks can be found in various forms including paper, stencil, stamping, etching or carving on parts of the wheel housing.

    Inventions or patents were also created. These inventions are unique designs or mechanisms which were submitted to regulatory bodies. Some of these patents, with patent claim, description and drawings, can be found online for Canada[3] and the United States[4]. In Ontario, some patent wheels look like walking wheels, with an added treadle and moving arm with spindle. This removed the need for the spinner to walk. Pivot location varied, from the bottom (lever action), the top (pendulum), and side (horizontal). Not all inventions connected to spinning developed from the walking wheel. Hand crank and other varieties of spinning wheels also were patented.

    One of the first patent wheels I read about was made by Thomas Wright, a Norwich Quaker. He was a machinist who patented a lever action spinning wheel that he called the New Dominion Spinning wheel (Fig 2).

    Figure 2 – Patent 3276, June 16, 1869, the New Dominion Spinning Wheel, Thomas Wright, Milldale, Oxford County, South Norwich Township.                                              

    Spinning wheel makers are sometimes noted as such, but they can also be noted as sash maker, grain cradle maker, chair maker, cabinet maker, mechanic, turner, carpenter, farmer, coffin maker, carriage or wagon maker, wheel wright and more.

    Other Quaker makers have also documented before. Donald G. Anger wrote about Daniel Abell, a cabinet maker affiliated with the Pelham, Norwich, and Yarmouth sites[5]. Another Quaker maker, Michael McKay, was affiliated with Norwich and Yarmouth Quakers[6]. He was a cabinet maker as well, but marked his name and location and on the bench of his wheels.

    I document Canadian wheel styles, collecting online photos from sales (Facebook, Kijiji, Maxsold, and past and present auctions) combined with researching collections in museums and online portals like Ravelry. This information is cross referenced with census and gazetteer information and township histories, identifying known makers and locations.

    Finding many wheels for sale, all in the same style as a known 1800’s maker, increases the chances that it was made by that maker. Some of the wheels sold in Ontario were made in the United States or other provinces and have travelled. With time and research, the Canadian wheels will be determined.

    To date, I have found over 85 Ontario makers, 40 Canadian patent spinning wheel makers, and evaluated 1,000 wheels. My work has focused on Ontario makers, but I also collect photos and information on other Canadian makers and wheels, with research continuing.

    As for the first wheel I purchased that started my quest, the same wheel has been sold across Ontario with a large cluster sold in Grey County which has many makers.

    I may never know who made my wheel or some of the other wheels found in Ontario. Documenting walking wheel makers and their styles are important to raise awareness of the wheels, the makers, and this key part of our history.

    If you have a walking wheel, please share a photo to [email protected]. I would love to hear about it.


    [1] Patricia Baines, Spinning Wheels: Spinners and Spinning (London: Batsford, 1977), 252.

    [2] D. Pennington and M. Taylor, Pictorial Guide to American Spinning Wheels. (Sabbathday Lake, Maine: Shaker Press, 1975), 100.

    Judith Buxton-Keenlyside, Selected Canadian Spinning Wheels in Perspective: An Analytical Approach (Ottawa: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, 1980), 336.

    [3] Library and Archives Canada. https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/patents-1869-1919/Pages/search.aspx

    [4] United States Patent and Trademark Office. www.uspto.gov/patents/search

    [5] Donald G. Anger, Daniel Abell of Malahide (1784-1868): Quaker Cabinet-Maker on the Talbot Road (Toronto, 2014). A section of Anger’s book was published under the same title in The Canadian Quaker History Journal 80 (2015): 1-26, available at https://www.cfha.info/journal80p1.pdf

    [6] Canada, Quaker Meeting Records, 1786-1988  https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60521/

     

  • Seventh Lecture in Quakerism in the Atlantic World, with Jon Mitchell

    Join us Saturday, April 9th, for the seventh lecture in CFHA’s Quakerism in the Atlantic World series. The previous lectures have provided wonderful opportunities for Quaker scholars and historians to generously share their research and delve into the diverse facets of Quaker history. We’re very much looking forward to our next speaker, Dr. Jon Mitchell, who will present on his chapter, “Three Methods of Quaker Worship in Eighteenth-Century Quakerism.”

    The virtual series runs every second Saturday. All lectures will take place at 0900 Pacific / 1200 Eastern / 1700 UK on Zoom (If you are in the UK and have attended the previous lectures, please note sessions are returning to the previous time of 5pm). Following the chapters of the volume, each short lecture will run for thirty minutes and include a discussion period at the end. All are welcome to attend the lectures and are we encourage you to share the registration link with friends and colleagues who will find the series of interest. Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cfha-lecture-series-quakerism-in-the-atlantic-world-tickets-241366051357

    Jon Mitchell was awarded a PhD in 2018 in Theology and Religious Studies from the School of Philosophy, Religion and the History of Science, University of Leeds, UK. His dissertation was titled ‘Religious Melancholia and the York Retreat, 1730-1830’ . He lives in Brighton, UK and is currently looking for academic work.

    Jon Mitchell’s examination of three methods of Quaker worship in this period reveal that the practice of silence in Quaker meetings was not always the same, both within meetings and between meetings. As eighteenth-century Quakers sought a relationship with to the Divine that echoed the confident experience of early Friends, they adopted and adapted Christian contemplative practices used by other Christians. These practices were themselves shaped by the theological context in which they were formed, giving rise to theological or doctrinal diversity in the transatlantic Quaker world.


    CFHA is dedicating this lecture series to Gordon Thompson in recognition of his enthusiasm for sharing Quaker history as a way to keep us connected during the pandemic. We rejoice in Gord’s tremendous contributions to CFHA. Always mentioning the great accomplishments and potential for CFHA, our Association is so much stronger because of Gord’s leadership and many contributions.

  • Sixth Lecture in CFHA’s Series, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, with Geoffrey Plank

    Join us Saturday, March 26th, for the sixth lecture in CFHA’s Quakerism in the Atlantic World series. The previous lectures have provided wonderful opportunities for Quaker scholars and historians to generously share their research and delve into the diverse facets of Quaker history. We’re very much looking forward to our next speaker, Dr. Geoffrey Plank, who will present on his chapter, “Quakers, Indigenous Americans, and the Landscape of Peace.”

    The virtual series runs every second Saturday. All lectures will take place at 0900 Pacific / 1200 Eastern / 1600 UK on Zoom (If you are in the UK and have attended the previous lectures, please note the recent time change). Following the chapters of the volume, each short lecture will run for thirty minutes and include a discussion period at the end. All are welcome to attend the lectures and are we encourage you to share the registration link with friends and colleagues who will find the series of interest. Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cfha-lecture-series-quakerism-in-the-atlantic-world-tickets-241366051357

    Geoffrey Plank is a professor of early modern history at the University of East Anglia, UK. His research examines early modern debates over conquest, settlement, warfare, and slavery in the context of transatlantic imperialism. He is interested in the ways in which the European colonization of the Americas affected ordinary lives, and has studied a variety of groups, including French- and English-speaking colonists, Scottish Highlanders, Quakers, and Native Americans. His books include John Woolman’s Path to the Peaceable Kingdom: A Quaker in the British Empire (2012); Quakers and Abolition (2014, with Brycchan Carey); and Quakers and Native Americans (2019, with Ignacio Gallup-Diaz). He is also the author of many chapters and articles on eighteenth-century Quakerism. 


    CFHA is dedicating this lecture series to Gordon Thompson in recognition of his enthusiasm for sharing Quaker history as a way to keep us connected during the pandemic. We rejoice in Gord’s tremendous contributions to CFHA. Always mentioning the great accomplishments and potential for CFHA, our Association is so much stronger because of Gord’s leadership and many contributions.

  • Fifth Lecture in CFHA’s Series, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, with Richard C. Allen

    Join us Saturday, March 12th, for the fifth lecture in CFHA’s Quakerism in the Atlantic World series. This series has provided a wonderful opportunity for connection and dialogue, and we’re greatly looking forward to our next speaker, Dr. Richard C. Allen. He will present on his chapter, “Industrial Development and Community Responsibility: The Harford Family and South Wales, c.1768-1842.”

    The virtual series runs every second Saturday. All lectures will take place at 0900 Pacific / 1200 Eastern / 1700 UK on Zoom. Following the chapters of the volume, each short lecture will run for thirty minutes and include a discussion period at the end. All are welcome to attend the lectures and are we encourage you to share the registration link with friends and colleagues who will find the series of interest. Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cfha-lecture-series-quakerism-in-the-atlantic-world-tickets-241366051357

    Dr. Richard C. Allen is a Hon. Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University, Canberra, and a Visiting Fellow at Newcastle University. He is also a former Reader in Early Modern Cultural History at the University of South Wales and currently supervises doctoral students at the University of Birmingham. A former Fulbright Professor, he has published extensively on Quakerism, migration, and identity.

    His works include Quaker Communities in Early Modern Wales: From Radicalism to Respectability (2007), and the co-edited Irelands of the Mind (2008); Faith of Our Fathers: Popular Culture and Belief in Post-Reformation England, Ireland and Wales (2009); The Religious History of Wales: A Survey of Religious Life and Practice from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day (2013), and with Rosemary Moore and Specialist Contributors, The Quakers, 1656–1723: The Evolution of an Alternative Community (2018). His most recent publication is The Welsh Society of Philadelphia, 1798–1839 for the South Wales Record Society/Pennsylvania State University Press (2021), a comprehensive study of this philanthropic society from its earliest existence in the early eighteenth century to the post-Revolutionary organisation that exists today. He is currently completing Welsh Quaker Emigrants and Colonial Pennsylvania, and co-authoring, with Erin Bell, Quaker Networks and Moral Reform in the North East of England. He has a patient wife and a forgiving cat.

     


    CFHA is dedicating this lecture series to Gordon Thompson in recognition of his enthusiasm for sharing Quaker history as a way to keep us connected during the pandemic. We rejoice in Gord’s tremendous contributions to CFHA. Always mentioning the great accomplishments and potential for CFHA, our Association is so much stronger because of Gord’s leadership and many contributions.

  • Gordon Thompson passes, January 14, 2022

    We are deeply saddened by the recent passing of our dear friend and Co-Chair of CFHA, Gordon Thompson. Gordon was a tireless advocate for CFHA and provided dedicated leadership which furthered the mission of CFHA.

    Below is a link to Gordon’s obituary, which includes a link to the recorded memorial service.

    https://www.roadhouseandrose.com/memorials/kenneth-thompson/4826434/index.php

    Gordon Thompson, August 26, 1950 – January 14, 2022

    As part of last year’s Founders and Builders series, CFHA published a blog about Gord and his incredible work with CFHA. Gord served as chair for many years, wrote countless articles for the Canadian Quaker History Journal and The Meetinghouse, served as The Meetinghouse Editor, singlehandedly organized many Annual General Meeting tours, and was wholeheartedly committed to sharing the story of Quakers in Canadian history. In the past year, he lead the Friendly Fridays sessions, and served as co-chair with Jeffrey Dudiak. Gord’s unwavering dedication to the CFHA has ensured its continual growth and success. To read the full article on Gordon, please see the original post:

    https://cfha.info/2021/06/founders-and-builders-series-gordon-thompson/

  • Register for the Fourth Lecture in CFHA’s Series, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, with Emma Jones Lapsansky

    Join us Saturday, February 26th, for the fourth lecture in CFHA’s Quakerism in the Atlantic World series. We have had a wonderful series so far, and are excited to welcome our next speaker, historian and curator Emma Jones Lapsansky. She will present on her chapter, “Family, Unity, and Identity Formation: Eighteenth-Century Community Building.”

    The virtual series runs every second Saturday. All lectures will take place at 0900 Pacific / 1200 Eastern / 1700 UK on Zoom. Following the chapters of the volume, each short lecture will run for thirty minutes and include a discussion period at the end. All are welcome to attend the lectures and are we encourage you to share the registration link with friends and colleagues who will find the series of interest.

    Emma Jones Lapsansky is Emeritus Professor of History and Curator of the Quaker Collection at Haverford College, near Philadelphia, PA, where she continues to teach and to consult with students and with scholars who visit Haverford’s Quaker Collections.

    After a one-year break in her undergraduate education to work in the Mississippi civil rights movement with the Delta Ministry of the National Council of Churches, she received her BA in History from the University of Pennsylvania, and her doctorate in American Civilization from the same institution. Her research interests and publications include Quaker history, African-American history and especially the intersection between the two, as well as Pennsylvania history, the American West, and various aspects of American social and material-culture history.

    Some of her recent publications include Quaker Aesthetics (2003, with Anne Verplanck); Back to Africa: Benjamin Coates and the American Colonization Movement (2005, with Margaret Hope Bacon), and many articles and chapters in Quaker history. With Gary Nash and Clayborne Carson, Lapsansky has authored Struggle for Freedom, a college text on African American History, the third edition of which appeared in 2018. She is also a co-author on the Pearson Education high-school American History text. Lapsansky frequently consults to museums and to pre-collegiate curriculum developers on enriching and enlivening public history and classroom history presentations, as well as to authors seeking editorial and/or research advice. She is currently at work on two projects: a history of a Bryn Mawr Quaker family; and a study of a mid-twentieth-century Philadelphia multi-cultural intentional community.

    In Quakerism and the Atlantic World, Lapsansky’s chapter points to the long eighteenth century as the period during which the aspirations of early Friends and the quest for human perfection were codified. Through this process, Quakers formed an identity based on a shared set of ideals that endures to this day.

    Register for the fourth lecture here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cfha-lecture-series-quakerism-in-the-atlantic-world-tickets-241366051357


    CFHA is dedicating this lecture series to Gordon Thompson in recognition of his enthusiasm for sharing Quaker history as a way to keep us connected during the pandemic. We rejoice in Gord’s tremendous contributions to CFHA. Always mentioning the great accomplishments and potential for CFHA, our Association is so much stronger because of Gord’s leadership and many contributions.

  • New Transcription: Oswego Monthly Meeting (Women), 1799 – 1817

    We’ve updated our transcriptions page with a new upload: Oswego Monthly Meeting (Women) 1799 – 1817.

    Thank you to Swarthmore College Archives for providing images of the minute book, first scanned in 1950, and to Carman Foster, who transcribed the minutes.

    Established in 1799, Oswego Monthly Meeting was originally set off from Nine Partners MM. The meeting separated during the Hicksite-Orthodox schism of 1827-28, and both factions are the predecessors of active meetings: Bulls Head-Oswego (Hicksite, name changed in 1980) and Poughkeepsie Monthly Meeting (Orthodox, name changed in 1870).

    Many names in this transcription will be familiar to those who have read the Upper Canadian meeting minutes, including Dorland, Bull, Haight, Hoag, White, Moore, Palmer, and Clapp. Mentions of the Upper Canadian meetings are found in Deborah Clapp’s 1800 certificate of removal to Canada, Mahitable Bull’s removal to Adolphustown in 1803, Ruth Christy’s removal to Adolphustown in 1803, and Phoebe (nee Barker) Blount’s removal to Adolphustown in 1814 after her marriage to Cornelius Blount. Further removals to Upper Canada include Huldah Wilcox to Pelham Monthly Meeting in 1815.

    Photo of Oswego Monthly Meeting House, built 1790. Photo from Alson D. Van Wagner’s “A Short History of Oswego Monthly Meeting,” Bulls Head-Oswego Monthly Meeting, Clinton Corners, NY, 1986.
  • Register for the Third Lecture in CFHA’s Series, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, with Andrew Fincham

    Join us Saturday, February 12th, for the third lecture in CFHA’s Quakerism in the Atlantic World series. Our speaker is Quaker scholar Andrew Fincham who will discuss his chapter, “Friendly Advice: The Making and Shaping of Quaker Discipline.”

    The virtual series runs every second Saturday. All lectures will take place at 0900 Pacific / 1200 Eastern / 1700 UK on Zoom. Following the chapters of the volume, each short lecture will run for thirty minutes and include a discussion period at the end. All are welcome to attend the lectures and are we encourage you to share the registration link with friends and colleagues who will find the series of interest.

    Register for the third lecture here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cfha-lecture-series-quakerism-in-the-atlantic-world-tickets-241366051357

    Andrew’s chapter challenges the historiography of homogenous eighteenth-century Quaker Discipline through a detailed comparison of London Yearly Meeting’s and Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s Discipline manuscripts.

    Andrew Fincham is a researcher in the school of Philosophy, Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, UK, seeking evidence and explanations for the causal relationship between business success and ethics. His doctoral thesis addressed the ‘Causes of Quaker Commercial Success 1689-c.1750’, which applied Social Network Theory to account for the importance of Quaker Discipline.

    Recent publications have engaged with ethics and corporate social responsibility, the evolution of transatlantic Quaker discipline, the nature of the ‘Wigan Diggers’, and business management history. His research is concerned with understanding the links between Quakers, their values, and commercial success, and their implications for responsible corporate governance.

    His current areas of interest include a revision of eighteenth century Quaker historiography, and an exploration of counter-arguments to Max Weber’s ‘Protestant Ethic’. His innovative statistical model of Quaker populations 1680-1800 was shortlisted for the 2019 Michael K. O’Rourke Research Publication Award.


    CFHA is dedicating this lecture series to Gordon Thompson in recognition of his enthusiasm for sharing Quaker history as a way to keep us connected during the pandemic. We rejoice in Gord’s tremendous contributions to CFHA. Always mentioning the great accomplishments and potential for CFHA, our Association is so much stronger because of Gord’s leadership and many contributions.

  • New Transcription: Nine Partners Monthly Meeting, 1769 – 1779

    We’ve updated our transcriptions page with a new upload: Nine Partners Monthly Meeting (Men), 1769 – 1779.

    Thank you to Swarthmore College Archives for providing images of the minute book, first scanned in 1950, and to Carman Foster and Randy Saylor, who transcribed the minutes.

    This minute book details the beginning of Nine Partners MM, first set off from Oblong MM by Purchase Quarterly in 1769. With this new inclusion, CFHA’s online transcriptions of Nine Partners MM now stretch from 1769 to 1811, with records of testimonies, marriages, and removals from 1769 to 1897.