Irish Quakers Research Articles

Romanticism and the Letter, ed. by Madeleine Callaghan and Anthony Howe

Reviewed by: Romanticism and the Letter, ed. by Madeleine Callaghan and Anthony Howe Mary A. Waters (bio) Romanticism and the Letter Edited by Madeleine Callaghan and Anthony Howe Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, xv + 272 pp. ISBN 9783030293093, $119.00 hardcover. According to editors Madeleine Callaghan and Anthony Howe, their collection Romanticism and the Letter serves to correct a prevailing fallacy that, after an eighteenth-century zenith of fine epistolary prose, the nineteenth century "ushered in a decline in letter writing" that was soon to become "absolute" (1). In consequence, they observe, scholarship has preoccupied itself with mining Romantic letters for their biographical content, treating them as a transparent source of information that is only secondarily the business of the literary critic. In fact, Callaghan [End Page 97] and Howe argue, "it is difficult, if not impossible, to assert a meaningful distinction between an author's letters and their literary productions" (9). The fifteen essays that follow this introduction offer a variety of critical approaches to the correspondence of a range of authors to demonstrate that "the correspondence of the Romantic period constitutes a major literary achievement in its own right" (14). The chapters work together to break down generic distinctions, especially between poetry and letters. Taken as a whole, the volume's essays pose questions that seek to correct what contributor Andrew Bennett describes as the "under-developed" state of epistolary theory (220). They tease out aesthetic individuality and power, explore the creation and performance of an authorial self, describe the cultivation of intimacy and an illusion of proximity, and portray a dynamic publishing culture that was constituted and held together by correspondence. In the volume's introduction, Callaghan and Howe survey the social and physical transformations that affected every aspect of Romantic epistolary communications, from government censorship to improvements in roads and mail vehicles to the uncertainty of international communication in the face of political instability. While this overview gestures toward the increasing number of digitized editions as a chance to consider the material qualities of letters in their manuscript form, this is an opportunity that, for the most part, the volume's contributors overlook. Instead, most work from standard print editions, with only Jane Stabler and Susan J. Wolfson addressing the physical as well as aesthetic qualities of their subjects' correspondence. Wolfson moves from reading William Wordsworth's The Prelude as a "quasi-letter" to Coleridge into noting the qualities that make Dorothy Wordsworth's journals a "proto-letter" for William (65, 67). Meanwhile, the sophisticated and lively poetics of Dorothy's actual letters portray her mountain adventures in terms of spirited agency and imaginative vigor. While Wolfson's discussion considers cancellations, scratch outs, and the transition of ideas and content from correspondence to print, Jane Stabler offers the most detailed consideration of the physical in exploring what Byron's manuscript correspondence reveals about the materiality of the letters for both composer and recipient. Characterized in general by the exuberant excess that marks his major poetry, Byron's epistolary style, like his poetics, develops over time, reworking content and shifting in style between correspondents and occasions to "create a being more intense as it writes" (181), an intensity reflected not only in his style but in his use of paper, pen, and ink as well. The volume's opening chapters concern themselves with two opposing aspects of Romantic literary culture as they are revealed through correspondence. Mary O'Connell surveys letters between several major authors and their booksellers to expose the changing relationships between authors and their reading public, as well as the contours of the Romantic book trade at a time of increasing commercialization. Stephen C. Behrendt, meanwhile, situates the letters exchanged between the Irish quaker Mary Leadbeater and the Irish writer Melesina Trench as reciprocal gifts, circulating literary writing and critical commentary to cement a symmetrical [End Page 98] relationship that mirrors the place-centered literary salon. From here, the volume turns to the correspondence of the first generation of major Romantics. Opening with the commonplace that Wordsworth is a disappointing letter writer, Oliver Clarkson explores how Wordsworth's letters and other prose works expose the contours of disappointment, including frustration with an unappreciative reading public and...

In Memoriam

In Memoriam Emma Lapsansky-Werner, J. William Frost, and Charles Cherry Memorial Minute for Hugh Stewart Barbour Emma Lapsansky-Werner Hugh Stewart Barbour of Sleepy Hollow, New York, departed this life on January 8, 2021, at the age of 99. Born in Beijing, China on August 7, 1921, Hugh was the son of George Brown Barbour, a geologist renowned for his study of Chinese stratigraphy, and his wife, Dorothy Dickinson Barbour–a religious-education teacher at Hartford Theological Seminary. Inspired by the lives of his parents—who, shortly after their marriage, were dispatched by the London Missionary Society to Peking, China where they worked with the Famine Relief Commission—Hugh Barbour pursued a long and prolific intellectual and religious career as Professor of Religion at Earlham College and Professor of Church History at Earlham School of Religion. Like his parents, Hugh was a "hands-on" intellectual, serving on the Friends Historical Association publications committee, and on the editorial board of Quaker History, as well as contributing articles and book reviews to Quaker History. Often collaborating with colleagues to synthesize his extensive knowledge into texts for undergraduate and popular audiences, Hugh also teamed up with archivists and librarians to democratize access to Quaker documents. Not one to hide in an academic ivory tower, Hugh has been described by one admirer as "concerned for the contemporary world of Friends, [devoting] vast chunks of time to Indiana Yearly Meeting, and to Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting, as well as to Friends United Meeting, Friends General Conference, and Friends World Committee for Consultation. He was convinced that Friends of all types could find common ground, which sometimes [End Page 138] led him to witness in unlikely places, like the Realignment Conference in Des Moines in the early 1990s." While Google Scholar documents more than 16,000 instances of Hugh's scholarly contributions to, and intersections with, a larger scholarly community—including several widely-cited articles in Quaker History—Hugh's friends, protégés, students, colleagues and admirers also remembered his "encyclopedic knowledge of an extraordinary range of topics," and his broad grasp of "the totality of Quaker history." Awarded his doctorate in 1952, from Yale University, for his dissertation on "The Early Quaker Outlook Upon 'the World' and Society, 1647–1662," the devoted-and-distinguishedscholar Hugh published continuously—independently and collaboratively—for the next six decades. But Hugh was not only a distinguished scholar. Those who knew him celebrated his teaching, his personal kindness, and his way of being "an extraordinarily generous person, always willing to share his time, books, and suggestions for research." Beloved by his students (who often were the children of his former students!), one observer noted: "and yes, [he was loved for] his endearing absent-mindedness." The community of scholars-of-religion was much enriched by Hugh Barbour's sojourn on this earth. Hugh is survived by Sirkka, his wife of more than 60 years; by his daughters Elisa, Celia and Maida; and by three grandchildren. [End Page 139] Memorial Minute for Kenneth Carroll J. William Frost Kenneth Lane Carroll (1924–2021) will be remembered as a scholar of the Bible, an historian of Quakers, and a longtime supporter of Friends Historical Association for which he served as board member, vice-president, and president from 1989 to 2012. He endowed the Carroll prize given every three years for the most significant article in Quaker History and in his will left collections of books and archives to the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College and the Maryland Room of the Talbot County Free Library. His scholarship, expressed in books and dozens of articles, eschewed broad interpretations as he focused on important topics including the history of Friends on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, John Perrot, antislavery and early Irish Quakers. He also rescued individuals and topics from obscurity: Thomas Loe, Robert Southeby, the Nicolites, Elizabeth Hooten, Quakers in Venice. Born in Easton, Maryland, Carroll learned about the rough side of life early because his father became sheriff and the family lived in the same building as the jail. In his autobiography (2017), he tells of how his father saved a prisoner from a lynch mob. As a young man, he worked...

Irish Quaker Identities: Complex Identity in the Religious Society of Friends

Abstract This work is a sociological study of Quakers, which investigates the impact that sectarianism has had on identity construction within the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland. The research highlights individual Friends’ complex and hybrid cultural, national and theological identities, mirrored by the Society’s corporate identity. This publication focuses specifically on examples of political and theological hybridity. These hybrid identities resulted in tensions that impact on relationships between Friends and the wider organisation. How Friends negotiate and accommodate these diverse identities is explored. It is argued that Irish Quakers prioritise ‘relational unity’ and have developed a distinctive approach to complex identity management. It is asserted that in the two Irish states, ‘Quaker’ represents a meta-identity, which is counter-cultural in its non-sectarianism, although this is more problematic within the organisation. Furthermore, by modelling an alternative, non-sectarian identity, Quakers in Ireland contribute to building capacity for transformation from oppositional, binary identities to more fluid and inclusive ones.

Reconstitution of an Irish Quaker Meeting from Friend’s Records—A Critical Appraisal

This paper presents the results of a very detailed assessment of the accuracy and reliability of the archival records covering a period of 236 years, from 1678 to 1914, for members of the former Newgarden and Carlow Meetings, located in County Carlow, as a prelude to creating a computer-generated artefact (called a Reconstitution Model) from the data. While it was clearly demonstrated that the sources have many shortcomings, they are diverse and when reviewed in a global sense it was often the case that shortcomings in one source were compensated for in another. The Model is an amalgamation of all sources of data (Quaker and non-Quaker) and, while the verification process revealed some possible deficiencies, they are not serious enough to invalidate the Model or conclusions generated from the Model. Thus it may be used with some degree of reliability as a tool to explore and elaborate on a range of issues pertaining to the Meeting. For purposes of illustration Meeting population dynamics are discussed and analysed together with probable reasons for its eventual failure. Since the records for the Carlow Meeting are fairly typical of those available for other Irish Meetings there seems to be no impediment to applying the methods and approach described in this paper to explore and compare the internal dynamics and demographies of other Meetings.

Announcement: Irish Quaker records on Findmypast.ie

Announcement: Irish Quaker records on Findmypast.ie

The Rolt Memorial Lecture 2007 Technological Change as a 'Colonial' Discourse: The Society of Friends in 19th-Century Ireland

This lecture re-examines the considerable contributions made by Irish Quakers to technological development in the UK, during the 19th century, and argues that these were the result of a collaboration of social equals, and not the product of a 'colonial discourse'. In the latter, it is assumed that as the essential relationship between Ireland and Britain was that of 'colony' and 'metropolitan state', in other words one of inequality. However, the discipline of industrial archaeology, as will be demonstrated here, allows us to present a very contrary view to the notion that Ireland's net contribution to the technological pool of British industry could ever be considered to have been to have been the product of a 'colonial' and therefore subordinate relationship.

:Protestant Identities: Religion, Society, and Self-Fashioning in Post-Reformation England

Introduction Muriel C. McClendon and Joseph P. Ward Part I. Passion and Practice: 1. Different kinds of speaking: symbolic violence and secular iconoclasm in early modern England David Cressy 2. Conversion and its consequences in the life and letters of Nicholas Sheterden Thomas R. Holien 3. The kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of England, and the kingdom of Traske David R. Como Part II. Diffusion and the Limits of Appropriation: 4. The mental world of Sir Richard Berkeley J. Sears McGee 5. 'Prudentia ultra Sexum': Lady Jane Bacon and the management of her families Felicity Heal and Clive Holmes 6. 'Good works' and social ties: helping the migrant poor in early modern England Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos 7. Godliness, commemoration, and community: the management of provincial schools by London Trade Guilds Joseph P. Ward 8. Remembering the Puritan past: John Walker and Anglican memories of the English civil war Burke W. Griggs Part III. Religion and Locality: 9. Reconsidering the Marian persecution: the urban context Muriel C. McClendon 10. The 'Great Persecution' reconsidered: the Irish Quakers and the Ethic of suffering Richard L. Greaves 11. Local politics in restoration England: religion, culture and politics in Oliver Heywood's halifax John Smail 12. 'Born of My Land': identity, community and faith among the Welsh in early modern London Katherine W. Swett 13. Separate Spheres? ideology and practice in London gender relations, 1660-1740 Robert B. Shoemaker Notes Index.

Articles and Publications

Articles and Publications by Barbara E. Addison and Mary Ellen Chijioke Those seeking abriefintroduction to British Quaker historywill be interestedin Alastair Heron's latest publication, The British Quakers, 1647-1997 : Highlights of Their History (Kelso, Scotland: Curlew Productions, 1997). It consists ofthe introductory chapter to his book, Quakers in Britain: A Century ofChange, 18951995 (see Quaker History 85.1 (Spring 1966): 66) extended by a précis ofthe rest ofthatbook. Thebookretains Heron's strongviews aboutthe currentstate ofBritish Quakerism. For those not having access to large Quaker research collections, The Old Discipline: Nineteenth-Century Friends' Disciplines in America (Glenside, Pa.: Quaker Heritage Press, 1999) provides the text of selected published books of discipline of the early nineteenth century. Also popular in style are three biographies of famous Quakers: The Clouded QuakerStar: JamesNayler, 1618-1660,by Vera Massey (York, England: Sessions Book Trust; Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1999); Patricia L. Hudson's article on William Penn, "Penning a Legacy" (American History 32:6 (January/ February 1998): 16-19); David Sox's John Woolman: Quintessential Quaker, 1 720-1 772 (Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press; York, England: Sessions Book Trust, 1999), which follows the chronology ofthe Journal. Maurice Jackson gives amore scholarly overview ofthe intellectual background ofWoolman's contemporary and colleague in "The Social and Intellectual Origins of Anthony Benezet's Antislavery Radicalism" (Explorations in Early American Culture: Supplemental Issue ofPennsylvania History 66 (1999): 86-1 12). While both were widely read in the intellectual trends of their day, Woolman wrote primarily for Quaker and American audiences, while Benezet addressed the wider world, having a special impact on the origins of the British antislavery movement. A number of recent works deal with Quakerism outside the Anglo-American sphere. Sheila Spielhofer's "Reflections on an Eightieth Birthday" (The Friend 158.2(14January2000): 7-8) describes the beginnings oftheViennaQuakerGroup in 19 19 with a mix offoreign reliefworkers and convinced Austrians. In her paper, "From Pastoral to Non-Pastoral: Quaker Experience in Japan" ([Yamanashi, Japan?: Yamanashi Women's Junior College?], 1999) Tetsuko Kawahara Toda describes the process by which Japanese Quakers, who had been introduced to programmed Quakerism by Orthodox Philadelphia Friends, turned to silent worship to cope with the spiritual stress ofWorld War II and its aftermath. In "? Was a Stranger, and Ye Took Me In': Charity, Moral Economy, and the Children of Peace" (Canadian Historical Review 80.4 (December 1999): 624-640), Albert Schrauwers attributes the ethical basis ofthis Canadian splinter sect's culture to its Quaker roots. Recent works related to the history of the peace testimony are similarly international in scope. Douglas Glynn examines Irish Quaker reactions to the 1798 70Quaker History Uprising in his work, Friends and 1 798: Quaker Witness to Non-violence in 18th Century Ireland (Dublin: Historical Committee ofthe Religious Society ofFriends in Ireland, 1998). Ronald Watts deals primarily with British Friends in his discussion of "Quakers and the Boer War" (The Friends Quarterly 32. 1 (January 2000): 35-41). In "Remembrances ofa German Prisoner ofWar in England" (TheFriends Quarterly 32.1 (January 2000): 22-35) consisting of extracts from his book originallyin German, HeinzKammerrelates his experienceswhile aprisonerofwar in England, 1944-48, which led him to Quakerism. Two new books document the experiences of World War II conscientious objectors and their families: Dear Heart: Letters to andfrom Two Conscientious Objectors, written by Donald and Betty Rodger, edited by F. Rodger and M. Lawson (Sheffield, England: the editors, 1997), reproduces the correspondence between a British Friend imprisoned for refusing alternative service andhis young wife; Margaret Hope Bacon's Love is the HardestLesson: A Memoir(Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill Publications, 1999) is the story ofa differentyoung wife, whojoined her husband to work in a statepsychiatric institution where he was doing his alternative service. In a story ofnonviolence in Americanpublic affairs, Daniel Levine's description ofBayardRustin andthe Civil Rights Movement (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000) emphasizes Rustin's political life, dealing only briefly with Rustin's religious crisis after 1953 and ignoring his continuing Quaker activities. Daniel K. Richter's article, '"Believing That Many ofthe Red People Suffer Much for the Want of Food': Hunting, Agriculture, and a Quaker Construction of Indianness in the Early Republic" (Journal...

Reuben Harvey: Irish Friend of American Freedom

Reuben Harvey: Irish Friend of American Freedom Sheldon S. Cohen* In its "Notes and Documents" section for April 1964 The William and Mary Quarterly printed an article by Ernest J. Moyne entitled, "The Reverend William Hazlitt: A Friend of Liberty in Ireland during the American Revolution." The subject of the article, Hazlitt (1737-1820), whose sons William and John became respectively a noted essayist and an artist, was a nonconformist English cleric. He had moved to the Irish town of Bandon in 1780 from his pastorate in Maidstone, Kent. In Bandon, Hazlitt presided over a dissenter congregation until his temporary departure for America in April 1783.' Professor Moyne's article notes that during his career in western Ireland, the Reverend Mr. Hazlitt had displayed special sympathy for the rebel cause in America, and most particularly, for several hundred American captives who were incarcerated nearby within the bleak, cramped confines of a prison in the seaside village of Kinsale. Here, the author provides a concise picture of Hazlitt's benevolent and occasionally extralegal activities on behalf of the rebel prisoners, as well as his protests against alleged maltreatment by prison staff and the supervisor John How; and he also notes that these services went unrecognized by the American government. For all these worthy points, however, the article consigns a mere footnote to the role of Reuben Harvey.2 Harvey, an Irish Quaker, had promoted the American cause and had aided American detainees at Kinsale well before Hazlitt, and, unlike the parson he did receive significant recognition from the United States for his services. In light of these facts, as well his inauspicious contemporary anonymity, Reuben Harvey should merit some measure of historical redress. This article seeks to reconstruct Harvey's efforts on behalfofthe American prisoners detained in Britain and Ireland. Reuben Harvey was born on September 29, 1734 in Youghal, County Cork, the son of Susanna and Thomas Harvey. The Harveys had apparently arrived in Ireland originally as part of the Cromwellian forces dispatched there during the tumultuous religious developments that had marked the Commonwealth period in seventeenth-century Britain. In Ireland the family was numbered among the many nonconformists won over to the Society of Friends through the travels andexhortations ofGeorgeFox.3Reuben's great grandfather, Henry Harvey, had been a landowner in County Kildare, but like several members of the Society, his grandfather Thomas moved to Dublin where there was a larger Quaker community. Thomas's occupation in the city was listed as alinen draper. Reuben's father, alsonamed Thomas, ?Sheldon S. Cohen is a professor in the History Department, Loyola University of Chicago. Reuben Harvey: Irish Friend of American Freedom23 had settled with his family in Youghal, where he became a successful merchant and was named a freeman of the town in 1738.4 The eldest of twelve children, Reuben Harvey spent his youth in Youghal. He was made a freeman of the town in 1 755, but a few years later departed forCork City, the largestcommunity in the county. Quakerismhad appeared in the city during the mid-1650s, spreading to other communities in the county. In Cork City's Grafton Street Meeting William Penn was formally converted through the preaching of Thomas Loe, a Quaker missionary in 1678.5 During these early years of residence in the city, Quakers had endured their share of arbitrary arrests, fines, imprisonment, and other forms of hostility experienced by their fellow sectarians throughout Britain. Yet despite the intermittent vexations and other inequities, as well as serious civil strife in the county from 1689 to 1692, most Quakers in the community held fast to their principles of nonresistance and inner discipline offered to them through their monthly meetings. The ensuing years of monarchical rule under King William III, Queen Anne, and especialy those of the first Hanoverians produced a softening of sectarian tensions that in turn provided considerable religious toleration to Protestant dissenters throughout Britain. This moderating sectarian climate provided spiritual relief to Quakers in Ireland, and it also offered them broad new secular avenues for economic prosperity—a fact particularly evidenced by the considerable number of Quakers living in Cork City.6 The actual reasons for Reuben Harvey's removal to Cork...

God's Other Children: Protestant Nonconformists and the Emergence of Denominational Churches in Ireland, 1660-1700 (review)

64Quaker History The issue of textual integrity is particularly significant for the speeches which have rarely been reprinted without abridgement. Finally, this collection is perhaps most noteworthy for Gordon's extensive array of supporting materials. The introductory notes on biography and editorial policy are extremely helpful without overwhelming the primary material. The index is very thorough and will make this volume particularly useful to those scholars interested in specific individuals or issues. However , the annotations to each entry are the most useful addition even for readers ofthe microfilm collection. Gordon and her editorial assistants have painstakingly researched all names and events in order to make these texts as clear as possible. Each annotation itself is carefully documented adding further to the heuristic value of this collection. The only limitation of this volume is its subtitle, "In the School of AntiSlavery ," which is needlessly misleading. Although both SBA and ECS did emerge from the context ofanti-slavery reform, SBA in particular was more influenced by temperance activity as these documents make clear. In addition, the subtitle overlooks three important aspects of Gordon's selection : 1) the wealth of family information provided, 2) the inclusion of documents accentuating SBA and ECS 's general concern for women exhibited throughout their other reform activities, and 3) the transformation of the women's rights movement during the Civil War. In sum, Volume I of the selected papers of SBA and ECS has been worth waiting for and readers interested in these two leaders specifically or the women's rights movement generally will find themselves eagerly awaiting the next installment. This collection is itself a major contribution to scholarship and will be a significant aid to scholars in the future. E. Claire IerryMacMurray College God's Other Children: Protestant Nonconformists and the Emergence ofDenominationalChurchesinlreland, 1660-1700. By Richard L. Greaves. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. xii + 472 pp. Appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $55. Richard L. Greaves has written or edited more than twenty books on Elizabethan and Stuart religious and political history. It is thus especially gratifying that this eminently qualified scholar has ventured into the relatively underexplored field of Protestant Nonconformity in Ireland 1660-1700. His study focuses on structural and historical elements and the religious life that energized them. He contends that, whereas English Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists suffered near-catastrophic decline in this period, Scottish Presbyterians and Friends survived in Book Reviews65 appreciablenumberslargelybecausetheyevolvedinto"protodenominations" incorporating both an institutionalized authority and an agency structure. His argument complements the conclusion of H. Larry Ingle (FirstAmong Friends) that George Fox's major achievementlay in the circumscription of the movement's early individualism through the development ofan institutional structure that provided the discipline and unity required for survival in Restoration England. Greaves traces the fortunes of Nonconformity in general in this period but concentrates on the activities of the two protodenominations. In the chapters devoted solely to Quakers, the treatment is both sympathetic and detailed. Irish Friends are seen to espouse theirvalues steadfastly in spite of persecution, while developing structures to regulate the movement of individuals and families to new locations, to provide self-censorship in publication, to furnish appropriate education for their children, and to enforce standards of conduct in such varied activities as dress, house furnishing, attendance at meetings, marriage, and occupational choices. The author's observation of occasional failures in these matters adds a realistic dimension, as manufacturers and traders have to be regularly reminded not to engage in business transactions at national meetings, a Friend is admonished for contending for truth while drunk, some are disciplined for sexual offenses, and others are warned not to yoke themselves unequally in marriage in terms of age "and otherwise." At appropriatepoints , theEnglish and Irish experiences are compared: early Irish polity was not identical to that in England, and unlike their English counterparts Irish Quakers rarely provided charity to people of other faiths. This substantial volume, winner of the American Society of Church History's Outler Prize, occupies a significant place beside the earlier related works of Sean Connolly and Phil Kilroy. There is not much more one could hope for in Greaves' book, except perhaps maps, illustrations, and most importantly a bibliography. But cost-conscious...

A Biographical Dictionary of Irish Quakers (review)

64Quaker History concern for others, as evidenced by Morris' donating much of her harvests to charities in her final years. Food and gardeninghistorian Clarissa F. Dillon's essay takes bare-boned entries and shows they form an "exceptional picture ofplants and practices" (52) of a working garden. Morris grew vegetables and herbs (like many Quaker women, she was noted for her healing abilities) and maintained careful (albeit brief) records of her efforts. Though Morris' garden was by no means typical, Dillon is able to use it as a starting point to saliently discuss gardening practices of the period. Webster and Dillon's essays, along with a helpful glossary and discussion of individual plants, make this slight book valuable to both historians of the period and of gardens. Timothy CrumrinConner Prairie Museum A Biographical Dictionary ofIrish Quakers. By Richard S. Harrison. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997. 123 pp. Bibliography, index. Cloth. "Modern" Irish history can be said to begin in the seventeenth century, when Gaelic Ireland finally gave way after a long onslaught that had begun with the Normans. As the old Gaelic order collapsed, Ireland entered into the period often called the "Protestant Ascendancy." While Quakers were a distinct minority in this new political and social reality, from the beginning they played a significant role in shaping the emerging Anglo-Irish culture. From the beginning, this small but tightly-knit Quaker community achieved remarkable commercial success, especially in the textile and baking industries. But, their greater contribution to Irish history has been more a consequence ofQuakermorality than ofcommercial acumen. At key moments in modern Ireland's contentious, too often tragic history, Quakers have consistently raised the voice of conscience, perhaps most notably during the famine which devastated Ireland during the mid-nineteenth century. Richard Harrison's dictionary offers sketches of a wide range of Irish Quakers, nearly 300 entries, mostly eighteenth and nineteenth century figures. This most democratic ofdictionaries has the charm, and some ofthe failings, of a family album compiled by a loving uncle. The pure scholar may be disappointed by the anecdotal quality of many entries, but the novelist will recognize a kindred spirit in Harrison's obvious delight in recounting the eccentricities ofhis subjects. His entries are sometimes more mini-stories than documented history. In any given entry, we are apt to hear a conversation or share in someone's private thoughts. Book Reviews65 With refreshing honesty, Harrison tells us that "in some cases the sheer delightofa story hasbeen itsownjustification forinclusion." Healso admits that some ofthe collection "reflects the quirkiness ofmy own mind." While some may wish that he had concentrated more on those Quakers who played roles on the largerstage ofIrish history, Harrison's instinctis to include "the possibly insignificant and ephemeral—but human—detail." The happy result is that we meet a delightful cast ofcharacters. Consider these lads: William Glynn, who "was said to be able to be silent in several languages." Or, Peter Doyle, who "liked reading in bed but one night fell asleep leaving a lighted candle which set fire to his bed-clothes; he was saved, but became more concerned about the shortness of life." And, Abraham Abell, who "being afraid of death he tried sleeping between two skeletons for a while"; a great reader, he "would sometimes tie one of his legs to a chair so that he would not fall asleep as he read through the night." Readers should accept Harrison's dictionary on its own terms. His portraits are almost always on a domestic scale, the human face ofhis people and the daily nature of their lives being the source of his greatest joy in recounting their lives. The village grocer is apt to be given equal treatment with those who, to quote his introduction, "might be considered more significant on some bigger scale." For example, it's not clear why there is an entry for an eleven-year old child, Joseph Harris, "whose bravely-borne and agonizing death of measles occurred in 1800." A drawback to Harrison's attraction to the anecdote is that lives lived on the larger and riskier stages tend to be blurred in with those ofpurely quirky interest. That aside, one comes away from...

Articles and Publications

Articles and Publications by Mary Ellen Chijioke and Patricia A. Silva There is a very rich range of recent new literature in Quaker history, includingreligioushistory, social activism, and theprivate lives ofFriends— and how these interact. Two articles provide brief overviews ofthe full span of Quaker religious history. In "Changing Patterns of Koinonia and Authority," (Friends Quarterly 30.6. (1997): 285-297), Jim Wickens examines the state of communion, fellowship, way of life, self-image, and authority in five periods of Quakerism. His analysis pinpoints authority and identity as the central problems of twentieth-century Quakerism. Warren Steinkraus presents an historical review in his contribution on "Quaker Mysticism" in Mysticism and the Mystical Experience, edited by Donald H. Bishop (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1995; pp. 110-132). There is a wide range of works on regional Quaker history. As a by product ofhis extensive research on Irish Quakers and business, Richard S. Harrison has producedABiographicalDictionary ofIrish Quakers(O\\b\m; Portland: Four Courts Press, 1997). At the time ofher death, Marjorie Sykes was combining her personal experience with her considerable intellectual skills to write a seminal history of Quakerism on the Indian subcontinent. It has been completed and edited by Geoffrey Carnali as An Indian Tapestry: Quaker Threads in the History ofIndia, Pakistan & Bangladesh, from the Seventeenth Century to Independence (York: Sessions, 1997). Margaret Hope Bacon has provided a very useful concise history of American Quakerism in her article, "On the Verge: The Evolution of American Quakerism," in America's Alternative Religions, edited by Timothy Miller (Albany, NY: State University ofNew York, 1995), pp. 6976 . She concludes that, despite its evolution from an alternative to a mainstream religion, Quakerism retains some ofits outsider characteristics. Elsewhere in North America, Jason Michael Yaremko includes information on Quakers in his Ph.D. dissertation on American Protestant missions in Cuba, 1898-1935. There is a great deal of recent material on seventeenth-century Quakerism . Two books cover early Quakerism in the context of regional dissent: Friends appear in the second and third volumes of John Breay's lawyerly work, Light in the Dales: The Agrarian Background to the Rise ofPolitical and Religious Dissent in the Northern Dales in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1996); and Phil Kilroy's Articles and Publications67 work onProtestantDissentand Controversy in Ireland, 1660-1714 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1994) includes a chapter on controversies between Quakers and other dissenters. A third article, "Un masaniello Quachero: James Nayler" (Revista di storia e litteratura relgiosa (Firenze) 33.1 (1997): [67]-91), by Stefani Villano, discusses the impact of Nayler's life on Italy. Seventeenth-century Quakers provoked varying reactions in continental Europe. In his article, "Pierre Bayle, Benjamin Furly and Quakerism," (in De l'humanisme aux lumières, Bayle et le protestantisme, ed by M. Magdelaine et al. (Paris: Universitas; Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1996), 623-633) William H. Barber discusses contacts between Pierre Bayle and Benjamin Furley after the Huguenot philosopher moved to Rotterdam in 1681. It is uncertain what influence Quakers may have had on Bayle, but it is clear that they were considered beyond the pale by the Dutch. In discussing "A Quakerin Jan Steen" (Notes in the HistoryofArñA.2 (Winter 1950): 30-34), B. Wind demonstrates how this explains the apparent discrepancy of a sober Quaker appearing among licentious figures in Steen's allegorical painting of licentiousness, Beware ofLuxury. Seventeenth century Quaker missionary activities are seen from a Mennonite perspective in Michael Dennis Driedger's Ph.D. dissertation, "Mennonites ? Heretics? Obedient Citizens?: Categorizing People in Hamburg and Altona, 1648-1713" (Queens University at Kingston (Canada), 1996). The volume and range of recent research into Quaker women's religious activity in the seventeenth century is reflected in current publications. In Hidden inPlain Sight: QuakerWomen's Writings, 1650-1700(Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 1996), Mary Garman and others in the Quaker Women Research Group at Earlham have edited a selection of 36 of the 200 items they included in their microfilm. In his article " 'And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy': Gender and Culture in Early Quaker Biblical Interpretation" (in Text and Experience: Towards a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible, ed. by Daniel Smith-Christopher. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press...

Marginal Religion, Marginal Women

Marginal Religion, Marginal Women J. William Frost (bio) Cristine Levenduski. Peculiar Power: A Quaker Woman Preacher in Eighteenth-Century America. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1996. x + 171 pp. Epilogue, notes, bibliography, and index. $34.95. Susan Juster. Disorderly Women: Sexual Politics and Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994. x + 224 pp. Index. $37.50. Elizabeth Ashbridge (1713–1755) is the only eighteenth-century Quaker woman minister whose life story bears resemblances to fictional heroines like Moll Flanders and Pamela, though without any seduction scenes. Ashbridge, born Sampson, the only child of a prosperous English family, eloped at age fourteen with a poor weaver who died five months later. Her father, a ship’s doctor who had been absent most of Elizabeth’s life, refused to allow her to come home, so she went to live with Irish Quaker relatives. Five years later, Elizabeth met a gentlewoman who turned out to be a shady character and attempted to kidnap her. Her passage to America was marked by Ashbridge warning the captain of a threatened mutiny, but her service brought no escape from what may have been an illegal indenture. Instead, she was overworked, ill fed, and almost stripped and beaten when she told a fellow servant of her supposedly religious master’s ill use (perhaps a sexual advance). Because she was a good singer and dancer, she debated becoming an actress. Instead, after buying the last year of indenture through the profits of skilled needlework, she married an itinerate schoolteacher named Sullivan whom she did not love. From childhood Ashbridge had been religious, wishing to have been a boy so she could be a minister. Raised an Anglican, she had debated and then rejected becoming a Roman Catholic in Ireland, and now engaged in a religious search, visiting many denominations. In spite of her antipathy to Quakers, when welcomed on a visit to Quaker relatives in Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Sullivan found spiritual unity with Friends. Her husband, however, was abusive in his opposition. In time, the Sullivans both became schoolteachers in Mount Holly, New Jersey and she seemed on the way to [End Page 213] converting her husband. Instead, in a drunken fit, he joined the army, but later in the West Indies refused to fight as a conscientious objector. The army disciplined him so severely that he became unfit for service and was returned to the military hospital at Chelsea, where he died. The widow Elizabeth Sullivan continued to teach school and pay off her debts. Here the written narrative ends, although Sullivan lived another twelve years in which she became an influential Quaker minister who traveled in order to preach the faith and married Aaron Ashbridge, a wealthy Pennsylvania farmer. She died on a religious journey to England. Her journal, with a testimonial from her meeting and husband, was published in 1774 and went through several editions. The heart of Cristine Levenduski’s book is an analysis of Ashbridge’s diary that was recently reprinted in a critical edition with an introduction by Daniel Shea in Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives and has been widely anthologized. 1 Levenduski says Ashbridge’s autobiography offers a “synecdoche” into being a widow, an immigrant, an indentured servant, a wife, and a Quaker—all vulnerable and “marginal” roles in early America. The diary is allegedly even more revealing than that of her more famous contemporary and probable acquaintance, John Woolman, because it departs from the normal format of a Quaker journal. And Levenduski is right that Ashbridge’s personality and sense of self is most unusual: she was an educated, opinionated woman, who accepted responsibilities for her troubles and yet was victimized by others. The journal makes her both conscious actor, sensitive to her class and poverty, and passive recipient of God’s grace. She sought family stability and a “father,” but made decisions that brought neither. In a sense she was even responsible for her husband’s death, for he accepted the Quaker position on war. She also defied patriarchy as a daughter and a wife. Through all her wanderings, depressions, and persecutions Ashbridge engaged in a religious search that brought her...

Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in Demographic Transition, 1650–1900. By Richard T. Vann and David Eversley. Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time 17. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xix + 281 pp.

Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in Demographic Transition, 1650–1900. By Richard T. Vann and David Eversley. Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time 17. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xix + 281 pp. - Volume 64 Issue 4

Richard T. Vann and David Eversley, Friends in life and death: the British and Irish Quakers in the demographic transition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.) Pages xix + 281. £35.00/$549.40.

Richard T. Vann and David Eversley, Friends in life and death: the British and Irish Quakers in the demographic transition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.) Pages xix + 281. £35.00/$549.40. - Volume 10 Issue 1

Richard T. Vann and David Eversley, Friends in life and death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650–1900. NY: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 281 pp. (Reviewed by Raymond D. Irwin)

Richard T. Vann and David Eversley, Friends in life and death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650–1900. NY: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 281 pp. (Reviewed by Raymond D. Irwin)

Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650-1900

Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650-1900

Richard T. Vann and David Eversley. <italic>Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650–1900</italic>. (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time, number 17.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1992. Pp. xix, 281. $49.50

Richard T. Vann and David Eversley. Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650–1900. (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time, number 17.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1992. Pp. xix, 281. $49.50 Get access Vann Richard T. and Eversley David. Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650–1900. (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time, number 17.) New York: Cambridge University Press. 1992. Pp. xix, 281. $49.50. Lloyd Bonfield Lloyd Bonfield Tulane University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 98, Issue 4, October 1993, Page 1249, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/98.4.1249 Published: 01 October 1993

Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650-1900.

Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650-1900.

Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650-1900 (review)

Friends in Life and Death: The British and Irish Quakers in the Demographic Transition, 1650-1900 (review)