82Quaker History about religious matters. While she seems to have attended meeting with some regularity, and went to early meeting when it was held in nearby Salem, she almost never reflects on the state of her soul or exhorts her readers to think on their souls. All of her children married out of meeting, and became members of several Protestant denominations. One has to wonder if she was far more typical than the ministers and elders whose journals and memoirs are the foundation of so much Quaker historical writing. Emily Foster's editing is largely skillful and unobtrusive, supplying helpful identifications ofpeople, places, and things. Her work has brought a remarkable Quaker woman to life. Thomas D. HammEarlham College QuakerAesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption. Ed. by Emma Jones Lapsansky and Anne A. Verplanck. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. xiv + 394 pp. Illustrations , glossary, notes, and index. $35. In 1806, Thomas Clarkson described Quaker homes in England as possessing few artworks: "I seldom remember to have seen above three or four articles of this description in all my intercourse with the Quakers....One ofthe prints to which I allude, contained a representation ofthe conclusion ofthe famous Treaty between William Penn and the Indians of America...The second was the print of a Slaveship...The third contained a Plan ofthe Buildings of Ackworth School." Clarkson's observations sustained popular notions about the Quaker aesthetic: Quakers cultivate plainness, deploying art, dress, and architecture as "moral and elevating in tendency" and as a marker of social difference. As a visit to eBay will attest, popular conceptions of Quakers have changed little in two centuries; many sellers muddle quaint religious figures dressed plainly, cataloging them as, variously, Quakers, Shakers, and Amish. Despite the mainstream association of Quakerism with peculiarly dressed historical figures, Quaker culture has produced no unified aesthetic code, challenging both popular and scholarly efforts to investigate the Quaker aesthetic sensibility. Quaker Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption is a much needed examination ofQuaker material culture. Edited by Emma Jones Lapsansky, Professor of History and Curator ofthe Special Collections at Haverford College, and Anne A. Verplanck, Curator of Prints and Paintings at the Winterthur Museum, the volume assembles Book Reviews83 eleven essays by established scholars with expertise in Quakers and the visual arts, including J. William Frost, Carolyn J. Weekley, and Carolyn Kinder Carr. Four parts comprise the volume and suggest sub-themes: two introductory essays offer an extended preface to subsequent sections concerning Quakers as consumers, Quakers as producers, and Quakers and modernity. Numerous illustrations accompany the text, including twentyone color plates, as does a glossary of Quaker terms, which is helpful to those less familiar with the specialized vocabulary pertaining to Friends. Among the many strengths of Quaker Aesthetics is its accessibility to those unfamiliar with the topic, as well as its utility to those who are well grounded. The thoughtful sequencing of the essays lays the groundwork for the reader by placing papers that establish context before case studies. For example, J. William Frost's "From Plainness to Simplicity: Changing Quaker Ideals for Material Culture" appears second and offers both an overview ofQuakerism in America and an introduction to "plainness," the notoriously complex and slippery notion that underpins the Quaker approach to the visual arts. The subdivision ofthe volume into "consumers" and "producers" and "modernity" also groups essays helpfully, and reflects the project's grounding in material culture studies, which places the artifact (be it a building or a bonnet) in social context, which in this case includes not only Quaker customs, but also mainstream culture. Perhaps most significant are the extensive and complementary discussions of"plainness " offered by several essayists, illuminating the fact that "plainness" is less an aesthetic than a worldview. The range of topics is broad and inclusive, ranging from portraiture, meeting house architecture, plain dress, and Edward Hicks to high chests, Wyck, and historic site interpretation. Due to the quality ofthe essays, Quaker Aesthetics leaves one wishing for more. The editors explicitly state that the volume will focus on the Delaware Valley, an area intensively settled by Friends, who left extensive documentation now housed in...