Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections

Location:

370 Lancaster Ave Haverford, PA 19041

Hours/Access Policy:

Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.

Link to Website:

http://www.haverford.edu/library/special/

Contact Information: Institutional: 610-896-1161; [email protected] Individual: John Anderies, Head of Special Collections, [email protected]

Overview:

Haverford College was founded as a Quaker institution (1833) and has from its beginning collected primary source materials that document the history and living traditions of the Society of Friends (Quakers). Haverford Special Collections includes the world-renowned Quaker Collection, College Archives, rare books and manuscripts, and fine art. Together with Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, Haverford serves as the joint repository of the records of Philadelphia and Baltimore Yearly Meetings and their constituent monthly meetings.

Civil War Collection:

Haverford has no Civil War collection, per se, but meeting records, institutional records, and family and personal papers document individual Quakers as well as Quaker organizations during the Civil War.

Collection Highlights, or of Interest (Significant Collections):

Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends (Orthodox) records, 1673-1979. Ms. Coll. 1116. Includes Minutes and statistics of Baltimore Yearly Meeting and all of its subsidiaries in Maryland and Virginia. Also, material concerning Friends in Barbados and Europe, conscientious objectors, the Separation of 1827-1828 [a major division of the Society of Friends into the Orthodox and Hicksite groups], slavery, reconstruction in the Southern states after the Civil War, Indians, Quaker education, memorials extracts from the Journal of Thomas Story, the letter book of Robert Pleasants, and records of the Lynch family.

Samuel Bunting Haines letters, 1862-1863. Ms. Coll. 950 (40 items). These letters were written primarily from army camps in Virginia and Maryland during the Civil War, mostly to his mother, Deborah Bunting Haines, and a few to his father, Josiah Lippincott Haines.

Hallowell Family papers, 1858-1933. Ms. Coll. 950 (1 box). This collection contains the letters of Edward Needles Hallowell, primarily to family members, mostly from the Civil War battlefield. Hallowell (1837-1871) was a Quaker moved by conscience to participate in the Civil War to help eradicate slavery.

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Meeting for Sufferings and Representative Meeting records. Ms. Coll. 1250. 23 linear ft. Representative Meeting traces its origins to the Meeting for Sufferings, a body appointed by PYM in 1756 to raise and administer relief to Friends. As the Yearly Meeting grew larger in size, the responsibilities of the Meeting for Sufferings widened to embrace all general operations of the Yearly Meeting; including the supervision and dissemination of religious publications, maintenance of statistical information on meetings and membership, and administration of bequests from Friends and trust funds from discontinued meetings.

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers collection, 1800-1911. Ms. Coll. 806 (3 boxes). A collection relating to the work of anti-slavery advocate and worker Nathanial Peabody Rogers, and the circle of others involved; including John Greenleaf Whittier, William Lloyd Garrison, and Susan B. Anthony. There are a number of issues of the Herald of Freedom of which Rogers was the editor.

Sharpless-Kite family papers, ca. 1748-1875. Ms. Coll. 1111 (4 boxes). Letters, accounts, diaries, and journals of members of the interrelated Sharpless and Kite families; including the papers of Joshua Sharpless (1746-7-1826), letters of Mary Kite (1792-1861), and the papers of Edward G. Smedley, ca. 1836-1908, dealing with his experiences as a conscientious objector during the Civil War, 1863-1866.

Taylor Family papers, 1755-1930. Ms. Coll. 962 (16 boxes). Papers relate to the 19th-century Quaker Shoemaker and Taylor families of Burlington, NJ and Philadelphia, and their westward movement to begin a business in Ohio. They deal also with such varied topics as surveying, sheep raising, the Contraband Relief Commission, establishment of Bryn Mawr College and the Friends' Asylum mental hospital. Prominent correspondents are Abraham Merritt Taylor, Joseph Wright Taylor, Isaac Shoemaker, Charles Shoemaker, and Thomas Wistar Jr.

Taylor Family papers, 1846-1929. Ms. Coll. 1179 (3 boxes). Correspondence, papers and photographs, records. Includes letters of Elihu Burritt (1810-1879) and others, on Quakers and African Americans and slavery, Also papers of Francis R. Taylor (1884-1947) on Quakers, African Americans and peace; and George Washington Taylor (1803-1891) papers and Free Produce Association records relating to Taylor's work for free-produce labor. [Free produce refers to a movement to oppose slavery by purchasing only goods produced by non-slave, paid labor, and to boycott slavery-derived products.]

Wheeler-Smith papers, 1814-1936. Ms. Coll. 817 (2 boxes). The collection consists primarily of letters to and from Woodbury C. Smith; his father, Samuel Smith; and his wife, Helen Wheeler Smith. They principally relate to the Civil War, discussing issues such as war news, contrabands, politics, both local to Massachusetts and national. There is a letter from Dorothea Dix as Superintendent of Women Nurses. There are slavery documents, field inspection and narrative reports from battlefronts in South Carolina and Florida, a map of Charleston Harbor, a photograph of the Raymonds and Helen Wheeler Smith, and a gold $1 coin from 1874.

Winston-Clark papers, 1814-1900. Ms. Coll. 1165 (5 boxes). Approximately 500 letters (also a few clippings, poems, and other items) of the related Clark and Winston families of Virginia and Indiana. Letters discuss family and friends, the small schools that many members of these families began in the midwest, as well as comments on politics, slavery, religion, education, etc.

William H.S. Wood papers, 1860-1887. Ms. Coll. 1026 (2 boxes). The collection is a compilation of materials by William H.S. Wood (1840-1907) toward the writing of a book on Quakers and the Civil War, including information from John B. Crenshaw (1820-1889) and Francis T. King (1819-1891).

Split By Subject Areas:

Home Front/Civilians

The African-American Community

The Medical Contribution

Militaria and Diaries

William Morrison Coates diary, 1860s. Ms. Coll. 910A.

Julia Wilbur papers, 1843-1908. Ms. Coll. 1158 (4 boxes). Civil War era diaries of Julia Wilbur, a teacher and Contraband relief worker.

Lincoln in Philadelphia http://news.haverford.edu/blogs/special/2011/02/22/lincoln-bows-to-the-students-assembled-at- the-haverford-station/

Anti-Slavery Society Literature (printed): Philadelphia Female Anti-slavery Society. American Anti-Slavery Society. Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. Association of Friends for Advocating the Cause of the Slave and Improving the Condition of the Free People of Color.

Periodicals: The African observer [Philadelphia, Pa.], 1827-1828. The Non-slave-holder, Philadelphia, Pa. , 1846-1854.

Tracts: Anti-slavery tracts, 1784-1858.

Reference Sources: Manuscript Inventories and Finding Aids

Quaker and Special Collections Finding Aids http://www.haverford.edu/library/special/aids/

Historical Newspaper Collection Index http://www.haverford.edu/library/special/aids/newspaper/newspaperindex.pdf

Bibliographical References / Research Tools:

Antislavery newspapers and periodicals, edited by John W. Blassingame and Mae G. Henderson, Boston : G. K. Hall, 1980. For more information see: http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/record=b1881501~S10

The Black abolitionist papers, C. Peter Ripley, ed., Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1965-1992. For more information see: http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/record=b1881341~S10

Quakers and Slavery Website: http://trilogy.brynmawr.edu/speccoll/quakersandslavery/