Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia; Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES121 The glimpses that are afforded to Carey's quite extraordinary aunt, Hannah Whitall Smith, are significant in the final analysis of Miss Thomas' career situation as this book concludes the portrayal of the formative portion of her life. How effectively H. W. Smith influenced her headstrong niece in the period immediately preceding the opening of Bryn Mawr College is clearly shown in the publication of Smith's letter of advice to Carey Thomas and the carefully phrased but remarkably tactful yet confident letter which follows in which Miss Thomas offers her services to Dr. James E. Rhoads. Altogether these two portraits, the one of "Mr. Gummere" and the other of "Aunt Hannah," give a fresh new dimension to an appreciation of Carey Thomas. There is little doubt that in her childhood and young adult life Miss Thomas felt constrained by much that she had to accept in the particular Quaker milieu in which she grew up. The vigorous yet intemperate view which emerges in her comments and indeed strictures on the culture of Victorian Orthodox Quakerism in Baltimore prepares the reader for many struggles ahead to reach accommodation with the Quaker trustees who with her shared the fortunes of the nascent college. For specifics on these struggles , however, we cannot count on this volume, since it closes widi her triumphant return from abroad with valuable doctorate in hand, ready to take on the world of scholarship. In her long years of service to Bryn Mawr College, M. Carey Thomas maintained an increasingly tenuous relationship with the Society of Friends. This was done not from any sense of need for a religious framework for her own life, it seems clear, but rather from the practical realization that the aims of the founding Quaker, Joseph W. Taylor, as implemented by the Board of Trustees, must be respected, though subject to adaptation as time advanced. Intellectual excellence could not yield to any form of religious orthodoxy. Miss Thomas attended worship at Haverford Monthly Meeting on occasion, but never brought her membership there from Baltimore . Ultimately, she decided to formally resign from Baltimore Monthly Meeting and from the Society of Friends in 1927. Haverford, PennsylvaniaBarbara L. Curtis Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia; Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership. By E. Digby Baltzell. New York, NY, The Free Press, 1979, xii+585 pp. $19.95. E. Digby Baltzell has written a book that uses the history of Boston and Philadelphia to make a point on leadership. He says that the United States needs leadership and has been losing it, nay, turning against it. He describes Boston as a place where it has been nurtured and Philadelphia as one where it has been stifled. He uses information mostly about the lives of Boston Brahmins and Proper Philadelphians but also includes passages on the lower rungs of the social ladder. One chapter, for instance, argues that Roman Catholicism in the two cities absorbed the traits of their upper classes. Professor Baltzell is a sociologist and after the manner of his kind leads off with theoretical propositions, mainly from Max Weber. They concern society, class, authority, the function of beliefs, and so forth, but not change 122QUAKER HISTORY or continuity over time. In brief, Baltzell is convinced that the beliefs and values people hold determine the character of their society and that the rich and powerful largely give the beliefs and values to the whole. He says that Puritanism spawned hierarchical, authoritarian, intellectual, and communal values, while Quakerism bred egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, antiintellectual , and individualist values; that these values shaped early Boston and Philadelphia, creating contrasting social syndromes. He presents evidence to show that they have persisted ever since. The qualities attributed to Puritanism produce "class authority," which means dominance of society by a group of leaders who are conscious of their collective position at die top of a hierarchy and imbued with a sense of responsibility to lead not only in economic and governmental power but also in all aspects of culture. They have class pride, pride in the public institutions they found and lead, pride in individual achievements that build lasting monuments of civilization. They enjoy the...