QUAKERS

QUAKERS. The Society of Friends was the most enduring of several religious groups to emerge out of the social and religious turmoil of the English Puritan Revolution. The movement dates its origins from 1652, when George Fox announced he had received from God a vision of "a great people to be gathered" in northwest England. The movement spread to the American colonies soon thereafter.

The core of Friends' theology was the Inner Light, or the intervention of the Holy Spirit in the consciousness of ordinary men and women. Friends, or "Quakers" (so called because of the trembling said to follow divine illumination), agreed with the Puritans that the Anglican Church had not gone far enough toward purifying itself of the external forms of the Catholic Church. But Quakers went further than the Puritans in their effort to clear the path to a direct and personal religious experience. They rejected the need for clergy or outward sacraments and adopted a plain worship style. Community worship took place not in churches, but in "meetings," during which members sat in silence until one among them felt moved by the Inner Light to speak. Quaker ethics, or "testimonies," were rooted in the belief that pride and wastefulness obstructed the path of the purifying Light. Thus they opposed ostentatious dress and other signs of social hierarchy, such as formal greetings, titles, and "doffing the hat" before superiors; insisted on fair business dealings; and refused to take oaths. The Quaker "peace testimony" against raising money or men for wars (deriving from their belief that war, too, was a manifestation of pride) evolved over time to become one of the more distinctive Quaker beliefs. Quakers believed that theirs was the only true religion and that God was working through them to turn others to the Light of Christ within and thereby remake humanity and society.

Quakers in the colonies, as in England, faced severe persecution in response to their persistent challenges to existing religious and civil authority. Between 1659 and 1661, several Quaker missionaries were hanged in Massachusetts Bay Colony because the Puritan leaders considered them a threat to their Bible Commonwealth. Persecution abated there and elsewhere in the colonies in the 1660s, but Quakerism spread most successfully in Rhode Island, which granted religious freedom, and in those areas of Long Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina where the established church was weak. When George Fox visited America (1671–1673) he helped institutionalize the colonial meeting structure, establishing "Yearly Meetings" in New England (1671) and Maryland (1672). Quakers emigrated to America in the 1670s and early 1680s in large numbers, escaping harsh persecution in England and seeking new opportunities for religious and economic prosperity. They migrated in families and sometimes Quaker communities, the majority coming from the "middling ranks" of English, Irish, and Welsh society.

Pennsylvania, founded in 1681 by English Quaker convert William Penn, was the largest haven for emigreting

Quakers. Penn, who had been granted a royal charter (probably in payment of a debt), planned Pennsylvania as a "Holy Experiment"—a peaceful community formed in obedience to God, which, if successful, would prefigure Christ's reign on earth. Although Pennsylvanians expected conformity to Quaker moral codes, the colony allowed freedom of religion. Pennsylvania was to have no militia and to maintain peaceful relations with the local Delaware Indians. The early decades of the colony were characterized by internal conflict over how best to govern and collect revenue for the colony while maintaining religious commitments. Tensions peaked in the Keithian Controversy (1691–1692), in which George Keith challenged the ministerial authority of the Quaker leaders and was disowned. Quaker society in Pennsylvania and the Delaware River region achieved stability by the 1720s. Philadelphia, or the "City of Brotherly Love," became the center of temporal and religious power in the colonies.

Beginning in the 1720s Quaker strictures on plain dress and simple living increasingly gave way to visible signs of wealth and class difference. Quakers' fair business dealings and frugal habits had made them successful businessmen. By the 1740s Quaker "grandees," or wealthy Philadelphia merchants (many of whom owned slaves), dominated Philadelphia's legislative assembly. Beginning in the 1750s, in response to a perceived fall from "first principles," reformers within the Society brought about a quietist, sectarian turn in Quaker theology and practice. They worked to foster commitment to Quakerism within the community through strengthening the family and tightening enforcement of Quaker moral codes, or "disciplines"—particularly that forbidding marriage to non-Quakers. In this same period, Quakers withdrew from political leadership of Pennsylvania and sharpened their opposition to slavery and violence against Indians. During the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the Quaker-led Assembly battled with proprietor Thomas Penn (William Penn's son) and German and Scotch-Irish frontiersmen—long embittered by the Quakers' pacifist relations with the Indians—over appropriations to fight the Delawares, who had sided with the French. By 1756 the Quakers in the Assembly were forced to resign or compromise their peace testimony. Quakers never again controlled the Assembly.

While some Quakers had criticized slavery since the time of Fox, there was no consensus against it until the time of the American Revolution. Germantown Quakers had written the first protest against slavery in the colonies in 1688, and George Keith had spoken out against slavery; but not until the sectarian turn of the 1750s did Quakers as a group begin to condemn slavery. John Woolman's antislavery tract, "Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes" (1754), rallied Quaker meetings against slavery. In 1775 Philadelphia Quakers launched the first abolitionist society in America. By 1776 Quaker slaveholders who did not manumit their slaves were disowned. During the Revolution, Quakers incurred patriot hostility because of their pacifism. In these tumultuous years Quakers had become a religious sect, seeking to reform the world they inhabited without becoming contaminated by it.

In the nineteenth century, Quakers left southern states and migrated westward, relocating to the slave-free states of the Northwest Territory, and eventually farther west. In response to the pressures of the market revolution and the evangelical revivals of the Second Great Awakening, Quakers underwent a series of schisms in the nineteenth century that brought the majority into greater conformity with the broader evangelical culture.

By the 1840s Quakers were divided into "Hicksites," "Wilburites," and "Gurneyites." "Hicksite" followers broke off in 1827, when the "Orthodox" majority disowned Elias Hicks for rejecting the Atonement, Original Sin, and other standard Christian tenets for total obedience to the Inner Light. Orthodox Friends went on in the 1840s to divide over the evangelical innovations to Quakerism of English preacher Joseph John Gurney. Gurney emphasized the importance of Scripture and justification by simple act of faith, thus adopting the more immediate "conversion" experience of evangelical Christianity over the slow process of justification by Divine Light characterizing early Quaker belief. Gurney, closely associated with leaders of the British antislavery movement, also defended abolition and other philanthropic reform activities of the kind evangelicals were actively pursuing in the nineteenth century. Five hundred "Wilburites" followed John Wilbur in separating from the "Gurneyites" in 1843, calling for a return to a more quietist vision of Quakerism. A wave of revivalism influenced by the interdenominational Holiness movement coursed through Gurneyite Meetings in the 1870s, leading to further divisions, which presaged the Fundamentalist-Modernist divide. Holiness Friends, along with some "Conservative" Wilburites and Gurneyites rejected higher criticism of the Bible, the theory of evolution, and the immanence of God in human history. More moderately evangelical Friends embraced the social gospel and theological liberalism, finding a spokesperson in American Friend editor and Haverford professor Rufus M. Jones.

Quakers in the nineteenth century, particularly of the "Gurneyite" variety, sought to partake of the broader evangelical Protestant culture without losing Quaker distinctiveness. They strengthened Quaker commitment to secondary and higher education and extended the humanitarian implications of the doctrine of the Inner Light. While they devoted themselves most energetically to temperance reform, they also supported foreign and home philanthropic mission efforts, pioneered prison-reform activities, and fought to end slavery in the South. Many Quakers held leadership positions in the abolitionist movement, including John Greenleaf Whittier, Levi Coffin, and Angelina and Sarah Grimké. Quakers also dedicated themselves to freedmen's aid after the Civil War.

In response to the total wars of the twentieth century, Quakers sought to expand their peacemaking role in creative ways. In 1917 Gurneyites, Hicksites, and Philadelphia

Orthodox worked together to create the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), modeled after British war-relief organizations, to provide conscientious objectors with alternative ways to serve their country in war—including civilian relief, reconstruction, and medical work overseas. The AFSC's youth work camps, starting in the 1930s, helped pave the way for the government's development of the Peace Corps in the 1960s. The AFSC has also assisted in arbitration efforts, defended the rights of conscientious objectors, and, back home, engaged in social welfare, prison reform, and civil rights activism.

A distinctive legacy of Quakers is their disproportionately large presence in the ranks of the early feminists. Although official Quakerism may not have abided the activities of many of these feminists, the Quaker belief that "in souls there is no sex," and the opportunities provided Quaker women to preach, hold meetings, and write epistles, gave rise to the high percentage of Quakers among the "mothers of feminism," including Angelina and Sarah Grimké, Lucretia Mott, Abby Kelley, Susan B. Anthony, and Alice Paul.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bacon, Margaret Hope. Mothers of Feminism: The Story of Quaker Women in America. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986.

Barbour, Hugh, and J. William Frost. The Quakers. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Hamm, Thomas D. The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800–1907. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988.

Marietta, Jack D. The Reformation of American Quakerism, 1748– 1783. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984.

Soderlund, Jean R. Quakers and Slavery: A Divided Spirit. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985.

SusanHaskell

See alsoAwakening, Second ; Evangelicalism and Revivalism ; Puritans and Puritanism .

Society of Friends

Sources

Radical Sect. The Society of Friends originated as a radical offshoot of puritanism that arose during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century. George Fox is usually credited as its founder and was ridiculed as a “quaker” when he told a judge to “tremble at the words of the Lord.” Quakers first settled in tolerant Rhode Island, from which they sent missionaries to proselytize in Puritan New England. They preached extemporaneously, paraded in the streets, mocked the clergy, and generally challenged both the theology and society of New England. Quakers believed that all humans possessed the “Inner Light” of Christ, which was more important than the Scriptures in ruling one’s life. They ordained no ministers, followed no formal liturgy in their worship, and recognized no sacraments. Instead they gathered and spoke at the prompting of their Inner Light, men and women alike. Believing in the equality of all people, Friends recognized no hierarchy and refused to engage in the customary rituals of deference, such as tipping their hats in the presence of their betters or referring to important people with the formal you. Instead they employed the more familiar thee and thou for everyone. They dressed plainly, eschewing any ornamentation, to signify that the material life was unimportant. As a matter of Christian principle they refused to bear arms or to take the oaths required in courts of law. The Puritans reserved the harshest penalty for these deviants and, for a time, hanged those who returned after having been banished from their colonies. In time Quakers moderated their attacks and settled down to a pious and sober Christian lifestyle that others admired.

REJECTING LUST

Ye are called to peace, therefore follow it... seek the peace of all men, and no man’s hurt... keep out of plots and bustling and the arm of the flesh, for all these are amongst Adam’s sons in the Fall, where they are destroying men’s lives like dogs and beasts and swine, goring, rending and biting one another and destroying one another, and wrestling with flesh and blood. From whence arise these wars and killing but from the lusts?

Source: George Fox, Journal, edited by John L. Nickalls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), p. 357.

William Penn. The man most responsible for creating a legitimate space for the Society of Friends and attracting them to the colonies was William Penn. He was one of the leading lights of the English Quakers and wanted to create a model colony based on their beliefs. He first joined other proprietors in founding West Jersey for Quakers and in 1681 was granted a charter for Pennsylvania (Penn’s Forest). Penn immediately traveled through Europe, inviting all to come, offering generous grants of land and guaranteeing freedom of conscience by his Frame of Government and, later, Charter of Liberties. The right to vote and hold office in the assembly was open to almost every free man, and oaths were not required. Penn also set the tone that the colony would follow in dealing with the Native Americans. He considered Indians to be descendants of Old Testament Jews who practiced a primitive Christianity and treated them with the same respect that he accorded others. He purchased land from them at a fair price, prohibited the sale of alcohol to them, regulated the fur trade, and learned their language. The lavish wampum belt that the grateful Delawares gave him can still be seen at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Although open to all, Pennsylvania was dominated by the Quakers, both in population and control of political office. As other immigrants arrived, this dominance became increasingly difficult to maintain, and the Quakers withdrew into their subculture that separated themselves from these newcomers.

Meetings. Local Friends gathered at least once a week, usually in simple meetinghouses but also in private homes and barns. The meetinghouses were plain, rectangular buildings with windows high in the walls, which were often whitewashed to heighten spiritual intensity. They were also sparsely furnished, with no pulpits, altars, or ornaments of any kind. Members arrived quietly, with men and women entering by separate doors and sitting apart. Seating was by order of arrival, not rank, except for the elders. A time of silence allowed all to turn inward and tune into their Inner Light. As the spirit moved them, people rose and spoke spontaneously—men, women, and children alike. When there seemed to be no more messages, the elders rose, shook hands, and the meeting ended. Although all possessed the Inner Light, individuals were expected to employ their unique talents in following it. Those who had a gift for speaking of the spirit and leading others to contact it were called Public Friends (ministers). These men and women traveled around, ministering to Quakers and non-Quakers alike. Likewise, at monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings men and women met separately and had different responsibilities. Men conducted the more-public business; women were responsible for charity, child rearing, marriage, and the moral conduct of the female sex.

Family and Community. Local meetings were almost synonymous with the community of extended families, for Quakers built their homes in clusters, or “loving neighborhoods,” where they could monitor behavior. Those who did not behave as charitable Christians were required to stand before the meeting, shame themselves, and be forgiven in love. Individual families also relied on spiritual love rather than authoritarian hierarchy to maintain harmony. Families were openly affectionate and oriented to their children, regarding them as innocent and incapable of sin until at least eleven years of age. Then they used rewards and reason to encourage proper behavior. Adolescence was the most dangerous time, for Friends viewed lust as a sin and premarital sex as an abomination. Young people were watched closely by the elders, prohibited from physical contact, and married within the faith and only with the consent of their parents. Quakers spent little on formal education, other than learning to read and write and to perform in practical trades. They felt that too much book learning might obscure the Inner Light. Quaker homes were large by colonial standards, reflecting their family orientation, but were as plain as their dress. Because clothes were a badge of wealth and status in these times, rich and poor dressed in somber colors with no ornamentation—not even buttons.

Keithian Schism. George Keith arrived in Philadelphia in 1688 to head a Quaker Latin school and became active among the Society of Friends. By 1691 he was accusing ministers of downplaying the importance of a knowledge of the Scriptures and Christ, not inquiring into the spiritual state of members, and refusing to discipline their flocks. He demanded that the Quakers adopt a creed, require a relation of spiritual experience of all who attended meetings, and formalize the handling of discipline and finances in local meetings. He did all of this in a loud and censorious voice. His followers even organized separate local meetings, calling themselves Christian Quakers. Other Quakers called the Public Friends condemned them and fought to keep members from joining their schism. Eventually Keith returned to England, was forced out of the Society, and became an Anglican. He returned to Pennsylvania as a missionary with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and continued to plague the Quakers.

Formalization. Keith’s charges struck a nerve among the Society of Friends, which responded by implementing much of what he advocated. Public Friends issued a statement of their beliefs which served as the orthodoxy, even though they did not force anyone to sign it. They became much more careful of whom they admitted to their meetings and more stringent in disciplining their own, especially the children. The Yearly Meeting began to circulate specific directives on what Quaker children could not do, such as wear “over long scarves” or their hair in bangs. Local meetings were directed to appoint Overseers to scrutinize behavior by asking standardized questions drawn up by the monthly meetings. Finally, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting even prepared papers on discipline and practice which all of the lower meetings were directed to follow. Special quarterly meetings were instituted where the children were to be drilled in their duties. “Weighty Friends” (wealthy and respected elders) took a greater role in all of the meetings where the Public Friends had been dominant. The lines of authority were clarified: Overseers of local meetings, monthly meetings, quarterly meetings, and finally the Yearly Meeting. Decisions made at one level could be appealed at the next.

Decline. The Great Awakening of the 1740s had little impact on the Society of Friends. The theological emphasis on predestination and emotional preaching flew in the face of Quaker understanding of the Inner Light and practice of quiet contemplation. In addition Public Friends, or ministers, began sharing responsibilities with Weighty Friends and Overseers, so New Side and New Light attacks against ministers attracted little interest. Moreover, Quakers were less concerned with attracting converts, another goal of the various revivalists in the Awakening. Friends were more concerned about increased secularization. Prosperity was taking its toll on the Quaker lifestyle as wealthy merchants built bigger homes, purchased household items of exquisite craftsmanship, and acquired larger wardrobes of the finest and most expensive fabrics, even if they were still in dark colors and sported no ornamentation. It seemed as if the countinghouses of their businesses were attracting more of their attention than the meetinghouses of their faith. Young people followed suit, engaging in more games and social activities, often with non-Quakers. Some even married outside of the faith. Although they personally refused to bear arms, Friends in office were under increasing pressure to vote for military spending to defend the western frontier from Native American attacks. Some succumbed and voted for military stores; more defied the proprietor, which caused political conflict, or withdrew from office, leaving the governance of the colony to others.

Sources

Hugh Barbour, The Quakers in Puritan New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964);

Ewin B. Bronner, William Penris “Holy Experiment”: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681–1701 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962);

Barry Levy, Quakers and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988);

Frederick B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House: The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682–1763 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948).

Quakers. The Religious Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers (so dubbed derisively by a seventeenth‐ century judge who said they quaked before the power of the Lord), has opposed war and violence from its inception, and has sought instead to do away with the causes of war and alleviate the suffering it causes.

George Fox (1624–1691), usually regarded as the founder of the Friends, preached in the 1640s, during the English Civil War, that there was a divine spark within each person, which means that all human beings are infinitely precious in God's sight and no one is justified in taking the life of another.

After the restoration of Charles II in 1660, radical religious groups stirred up rebellion, which led Friends, in 1661, to issue a declaration beginning,: “We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons….” Eventually, this Peace Testimony became fundamental to Quakerism.

In 1682, William Penn founded his “holy experiment” in Pennsylvania, based on the belief that a province that had no army, treated Native Americans as equals, and offered religious liberty could make the Peace Testimony a living reality. Penn published his Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe (1693), which offered a plan for bringing peace and justice. Although Pennsylvania was drawn into two wars between England and France, the colonists avoided deep involvement, and peace returned in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht. When the French and Indian War broke out in 1754, most of the Quaker politicians resigned from government rather than support the war.

Two decades later, at the start of the Revolutionary War, Friends took a neutral position and were persecuted by both British loyalists and American Whig revolutionaries. Quakers raised money and sent supplies to assist civilians, first in Boston in 1775, later elsewhere. In 1777, seventeen Philadelphia Quaker leaders were unfairly accused of treason and exiled to Virginia by the Whigs, but the following spring the fourteen who survived were released without trial. Several hundred Friends, including Betsy Ross, were strongly drawn to the revolutionary cause, and many of them joined the armed forces, notably Gen. Nathanael Greene from Rhode Island. When disowned by their Meetings, they organized a new group known as Free Quakers, but this group died out by the 1830s. A few Friends also joined the British cause as loyalists.

Friends turned their humanitarian efforts to opposition to slavery and other reforms, including the peace movement. When the Civil War broke out (1861), many Quakers were troubled by their desire to use the conflict as a way to end slavery, for such action ran counter to the Peace Testimony. The official position of Quakers remained unchanged, but some Friends were tolerant toward those who supported the war for the Union and emancipation and allowed members who joined the armed forces to remain. President Abraham Lincoln's government was more lenient toward conscientious objection than the Confederate government, but some conscientious objectors (COs) on both sides suffered for their refusal to fight.

After the Civil War, individual Friends were active for peace. Benjamin F. Trueblood served as secretary of the American Peace Society; Hannah J. Bailey, a New England Quaker, edited magazines for adults and children on peace education; and Albert K. Smiley sponsored the Mohonk Conferences on International Arbitration in New York.

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Quakers organized the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to assist COs and engage in relief work in Europe. The government recognized COs who belonged to traditional peace churches such as Quakers and Mennonites, but they were expected to serve in the army as noncombatants, usually in the medical corps. Many Quaker COs refused. Some were furloughed to do farm work; a few were imprisoned.

Through the AFSC, Quaker volunteers did relief work in France and Germany—eventually feeding 1 million children daily—in Central Europe, and then in Russia during the famine there. Herbert C. Hoover and other Friends raised several million dollars for such work.

Quaker organizations strongly advocated the Peace Testimony between the two world wars. In contrast to isolationists, they supported the League of Nations and conducted peace education in churches and schools; they also helped bring persecuted German Jews to the United States. However, the Friends joined other pacifist groups in opposing conscription, rearmament, and entrance of the United States into World War II.

The Selective Service Act of 1940 included a provision that COs might be assigned to do “civilian work of national importance” in Civilian Public Service units administered by the peace churches under Selective Service regulations. Some 12,000 men worked in forestry camps, agricultural projects, mental hospitals and institutions for the mentally deficient, and as “guinea pigs” in medical experiments. They received no pay and none of the benefits provided veterans of the armed forces. Deeply stirred by outrageous conditions in mental hospitals, some of the COs created the National Mental Health Foundation in 1946, and four years later this body merged with two others to create the National Association for Mental Health.

In 1947, the AFSC and the Friends Service Council of Britain received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in Europe and Asia during and after the war.

Quakers opposed the nuclear arms race and the reintroduction of conscription (1948). The Friends Committee for National Legislation lobbied in Washington, D.C., for Quaker principles.

During the Vietnam War, when antiwar feeling swept over the nation, Quakers, a tiny minority of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement, sought to prevent violence and the use of force in antiwar protests. Most young Friends of draft age opposed the war, the first time in the twentieth century that the official Quaker position matched the wartime practices of most of its members of military age. Many Friends' organizations strongly supported members who resisted conscription, and offered help to those imprisoned; at the same time, the AFSC and others provided relief and medical supplies to civilians in Vietnam during and after the war. Similarly, they opposed the Persian Gulf War and aided its civilian victims.

The AFSC and other Quaker bodies continue to support peace and humanitarian work around the world.
[See also Nonviolence; Peace and Antiwar Movements; Rustin, Bayard; Woolman, John.]

Bibliography

Mary Hoxie Jones , Swords into Ploughshares, 1937.
Mulford Q. Sibley and and Philip E. Jacob , Conscription of Conscience, the American State and the Conscientious Objector, 1940–1947, 1952.
Edwin B. Bronner , William Penn's “Holy Experiment,” 1962.
Peter Brock , Twentieth Century Pacifism, 1970.
John Ormerod Greenwood , Quaker Encounters, Vol. 1: Friends and Relief, 1975.
Lawrence S. Wittner , Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement 1933–1983, 1984.
Peter Brock , The Quaker Peace Testimony, 1660–1914, 1990.
Charles C. Moskos and John Whiteclay Chambers, eds., The New Conscientious Objection: From Sacred to Secular Resistance, 1993.
Alex Sareyan , The Turning Point, How Men of Conscience Brought About Major Change in the Care of American Mentally Ill, 1994.
Arthur J. Mekeel , The American Revolution, 1996.

Edwin B. Bronner

Society of Friends (Quakers), a religious organization that began in England in the 1640s, led by George Fox. The first Quakers arrived in North America in 1656. They were distinguished by their silent worship, their belief in the Inward Light of Christ in all people and the spirituality of the sacraments, their refusal to bear arms, their openness to women's preaching, and their antipathy to professional clergy. By 1660, Friends had won converts in New England, on Long Island, and in the Chesapeake region. They also, as in England, faced persecution, climaxing in the execution of four Friends in Boston. In the 1670s and 1680s thousands of Friends settled in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, colonies that Quakers established. By 1700, Friends were the third largest denomination in the British colonies.

After 1700, the number of Quakers remained relatively static. Nevertheless, individual Friends like John Woolman exercised considerable influence as reformers. They were early leaders of antislavery movements and defenders of the rights of Native Americans and free blacks. Friends dominated the 1848 women's rights convention, Seneca Falls, and Quaker women, notably Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony, provided much of the movement's leadership.

After 1820, American Quakerism splintered. In the 1820s, Hicksite Friends, led by Elias Hicks of Long Island, who emphasized the primacy of the Inward Light, separated from Orthodox Friends, who emphasized the divinity of Christ and the authority of scripture. In the 1840s and 1850s the Orthodox further divided into Wilburites, unbending conservatives, and Gurneyites, more open to non‐Quaker influences. After 1870 Gurneyite Friends, especially in the Middle West, gave up most of Quakerism's distinctive features and adopted a pastoral ministry.

Twentieth‐century Quakers were most visible as social activists and peace advocates, especially through the American Friends Service Committee, founded in 1917. At the end of the century, American Quakers ranged from New Age universalists to fundamentalists.
See also Colonial Era; Conscientious Objection; Fundamentalist Movement; Pacifism; Peace Movements; Penn, William; Religion; Seneca Falls Convention; Unitarianism and Universalism.

Bibliography

Hugh Barbour and and J. William Frost , The Quakers, 1988.

Thomas D. Hamm

Quakers, the religious body properly called the Society of Friends. They originally called themselves Children of Truth, Children of Light, or Friends of Truth, and received their sobriquet either because of association with highly emotional states manifested physically or because their leader once commanded a judge to “tremble at the word of the Lord.” The Society of Friends arose in England under the guidance of George Fox (1624–91), who after 1647 preached a simple personal religion, as opposed to formal worship and ceremonial. Their fundamental doctrines do not differ greatly from those of other Christian bodies, but they avoid rigid creeds, making their belief less a system than an attitude of mind. They believe that the same spirit that gave forth the Scriptures still guides men to a right understanding of them, and therefore they refuse set forms of worship and have no trained leaders. Because they declined to support the Established Church, resisted the taking of oaths, and were pacifistic, they were continually persecuted in England until the Toleration Act (1689). In America, whence they came in the 1650s, they were likewise persecuted by the Puritans because of their opposition to theocracy. They flourished nevertheless, and in 1681 the colony of Pennsylvania was granted to their leader, William Penn. They became widely known for their humanitarianism, both in their relations with the Indians and in their opposition to slavery of blacks. This attitude may be seen in the writings of John Woolman, while such Quakers as Whittier and Lucretia Mott were prominent among 19th‐century Abolitionists. Although for conscience's sake most Quakers refused to participate in the Revolutionary War, some of them, called Free Quakers, took up arms. In 1827 Elias Hicks pressed the doctrine of the “inward light” to its extreme, and split the Society of Friends into two parts, the Hicksites and the orthodox group. Another schism occurred (1845), with the Wilburites following John Wilbur in returning to what they considered the original principles of the movement. Various groups, holding to common fundamental beliefs, had over 130,000 members in 1990.

Society of Friends (Quakers), initially the most radical of the sects introduced into Ireland during and after the English civil wars. Their open defiance of secular authority, and their insistence on directly challenging the clergy of other denominations, provoked harsh repressive measures from both the Cromwellian and Restoration governments. In 1669 the society was given a more formal organizational structure by George Fox and William Edmundson. By 1701 there were 53 Quaker meeting houses and about 6,000 members. By this time Quakers were no longer seen as a threat to public order. An act of 1715 allowed them to compound for service in the militia, another in 1723 to participate in most legal proceedings without taking oaths. Their refusal to pay tithes continued to expose them to the forcible seizure of goods, but imprisonment on this score had become rare.

The first Quakers were relatively humble farmers, traders, and artisans. By the mid‐19th century, however, they had evolved into a predominantly middle‐ and upper middle‐class body, prominent in textile manufacture, shipping, and railway development, as well as in retailing. Leading Quaker enterprises included the engineering firm of Jacob & Grubb in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, the Dublin biscuit makers W. & R. Jacob, and the Bewleys, initially tea and coffee merchants, who went on to found the well‐known Oriental cafés in Dublin and elsewhere. Numbers remained small, with 2,731 members in 1901. The efforts of Irish and English Quakers such as Jonathan Pim and James Hack Tuke to organize relief works during the Famine were widely praised.

Quakers (formal name The Society of Friends) A Christian body that rejects the formal structures of creed and sacraments and usually of clergy and liturgy, emphasizing instead the individual's search for ‘inner light’. Founded by the Englishman George FOX in the 17th century, the Quakers became convinced that their ‘experimental’ discovery of God - sometimes featuring trembling or quaking experiences during meetings - would lead to the purification of all Christendom. The name ‘Quaker’ was originally a term of contempt but is now widely used.

By 1660 there were more than 20,000 converts, and missionaries were at work in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the American colonies. They continued to grow in number, despite severe penalization from 1662 to 1689 for refusing to take oaths, attend Anglican services, or pay tithes. After considerable debate, they evolved their present form of organization, with regular monthly, quarterly, and annual meetings.

In 1681 William PENN founded the American Quaker colony of PENNSYLVANIA, and Quaker influence in the colony's politics remained paramount until the American War of Independence.

Quaker a member of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement founded by George Fox c.1650 and devoted to peaceful principles. Central to the Quakers' belief is the doctrine of the ‘Inner Light’, or sense of Christ's direct working in the soul. This has led them to reject both formal ministry and all set forms of worship.

The name may refer to George Fox's direction to his followers to ‘tremble at the name of the Lord’, or from fits supposedly experienced by worshippers when moved by the Spirit, and this is suggested by a passage in his journal; however, there is a record of 1647 of the name having previously been applied to members of a foreign religious sect, a group of women who were ‘called Quakers, and these swell, shiver, and shake’. Quaker is not used by the Friends themselves, but is not now regarded as derogatory.

Members of the Society of Friends typically wore very plain clothes, and this may be referred to allusively.

Quakers (Society of Friends) A religious body which believes in the immediacy of divine revelation as mediated through the ‘inner light of Christ’ in each individual, thus rejecting all forms of dogma, sacraments (as outward symbols), and paid ministers. From its foundation in the middle of the seventeenth century by George Fox, Quakers have had a notable influence on society through their belief in community service and their passionate practice of pacifism. In 1947 the Society of Friends received the Nobel Peace Prize for the social work conducted by Quakers during the two World Wars, and for their relief work in the war-torn areas of Europe immediately after World War II. There are currently around 500,000 Quakers, half of whom live in the USA, with 30,000 living in the UK.

http://www.quaker.org

Quakers (officially Society of Friends) Christian sect that arose in England in the 1650s, founded by George Fox. The name derived from the injunction given by early Quaker leaders that their followers tremble at the word of the Lord. Quakers rejected the episcopal organization of the Church of England, believing in the priesthood of all believers and the direct relationship between man and the spiritual light of God. Quakers originally worshipped God in meditative silence unless someone was moved by the Holy Spirit to speak. Since the mid-19th century, their meetings have included hymns and readings. The largest national Quaker Church is in the USA, where it began with the founding of a settlement by William Penn in Pennsylvania (1681). Today, there are c.200,000 Quakers worldwide.

http://www.quaker.org

quakers, or Society of Friends, are said to have derived their name either from ecstatic shuddering or from George Fox's advice to Justice Bennet in 1650 to tremble at the word of the Lord. They originated during the religious tumult of the 1650s, had no formal ministry or service, and professed the principle of the ‘inner light’, a sense of the direct working of Christ. Their refusal to pay tithes, insistence upon addressing everyone as thou, refusal to doff hats to authority, and the extravagant behaviour of some of their members, shocked a hierarchical society, and they were fiercely persecuted before and after the Restoration. Quakers refuse military service but are often prominent in ambulance and medical corps.

Quak·er / ˈkwākər/ • n. a member of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement founded by George Fox c.1650 and devoted to peaceful principles. Central to the Quakers' belief is the doctrine of the “Inner Light,” or sense of Christ's direct working in the soul. This has led them to reject both formal ministry and all set forms of worship. DERIVATIVES: Quak·er·ish adj.Quak·er·ism / -izəm/ n.

Quakers. Usual name for the Society of Friends. It was first given in the mid-17th cent. to the followers of George Fox. Its derivation is uncertain: it may be derived from an occasion when, in 1650, Fox told a judge in Derby to ‘tremble at the Word of the Lord’; or from an existing women's sect; or from the ‘spiritual trembling’ experienced at meetings.

Quaker member of the Society of Friends. XVII. f. QUAKE + -ER1. ‘Shaking and quaking’ was attributed to them.

Quakers. A popular name for the Religious Society of Friends.

Quakers see Friends, Religious Society of .

Society of Friends, see Friends, Society of.

Quakers, members of the Society of Friends.

Quakers, see society of friends.

Society of Friends, see Quakers.

Society of Friends See Quakers.

Society of Friends See QUAKERS.

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