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Quaker Studies Volume 10 | Issue 2 Article 7 2006 From the Hicksites to the Progressive Friends: The Rural Roots of Perfectionism and Social Reform among North American Friends Christopher Densmore Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/quakerstudies Part of the Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, and the History of Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Densmore, Christopher (2006) "From the Hicksites to the Progressive Friends: The Rural Roots of Perfectionism and Social Reform among North American Friends," Quaker Studies: Vol. 10: Iss. 2, Article 7. Available at: http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/quakerstudies/vol10/iss2/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Quaker Studies by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 242 QUAKER STUDIES QUAKER STUDIES 10/2 (2006) (243-255] ISSN 1363-013X 62. See Memoirs ofSarah Stephenson, p. 122; Dudley, E., The Life of Mary Dudley, London: Pri­ vately printed, 1825, p. 135. Ruth Follows was greatly disappointed on not finding Esther Tuke at home when she visited Yorkshire in 1775: 'William Tuke from York met us, and with him we went to his house; his worthy wife was then at Scarborough labouring in her allotment [i.e. ministry] and no small cross it was to us not to have her company'. Memoir ofRuth Follows, p. 87. 63. Memoirs ofElizabeth Dudley, pp. 103-13, pp. 155-74. 64. See Bacon, M.H., Mothers ofFeminism: The Story ofQuaker Women in America, Philadelphia, PA: Friends' General Conference, 1986, pp. 33-41. 65. Bacon, 'London Women's Yearly Meeting'. 66. The women parted company at Yearly Meeting in 1785, afterwhich Jones described herself FROM THE HICKSITES TO THE PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS: as 'a lonely dove without its mate'. Memorials ofRebecca Jones, pp. 68-101. 67. Memorials �fRebeccaJones, pp. 102-104, 340-43, 348-49 and 351-52. THE RURAL ROOTS OF PERFECTIONISM AND 68. Memorials ofRebeccaJones, pp. 83-84 and 123. SOCIAL REFORM AMONG NORTH AMERICAN FRIENDS 69. Ibid., pp. 111-16 and 123-34; 'Minute Book of Pickering Women's Monthly Meeting, 1781-93', Hull University Library. 70. See 'Copies of letters from Sarah Tuke Grubb, 1785-90, mainly to Rebecca Jones. Copied Christopher Densmore by her sister, Mabel Hipsley', Tuke 13, Tuke Papers, Borthwick Institute; Letters of RebeccaJones to Ann Alexander [and others], Port. 15 (3-15), LSF. Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, USA 71. Port. 15 (4), LSF. 72. When Alexander departed for New York Jones wrote, 'We parted in the love of our heav­ enly Father, and my prayers are for her preservation every way, as for my own soul'. Memorials of RebeccaJones, pp. 311-16. ABSTRACT 73. 'Balby Monthly Meeting Minute Book, vol. 4: 1777-95'; 'Balby Monthly Meeting Minute Book, vol. 6: 1806-14', Sheffield City Archives. In the 1840s and 1850s, North American Friends endured a series of localized separations. This 74. Tylor, C. (ed.), Memoir and Diary ofJolm Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel, London: A.W. paper examines the Progressive Friends separations in Genesee Yearly Meeting in 1848, centered in Bennett, 1859, pp. 159-381. the 'burned-over district' of New York State, and in WesternQuarterly Meeting of Philadelphia 75. Backhouse, S., Memoir ofJames Backhouse, by his Sister, York: Sessions, 1870, p. 32. Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) in 1852-53. Both separations had roots in the controversy among 76. 'Minute Book of Brighouse Women's Monthly Meeting, 1818-25', Carlton Hill MSS. Friends over appropriate anti-slavery activities and both challenged the existing structures of the Brotherton Library. Religious Society of Friends. These separations were both radical and rural, and mark a distinct 77. Some thoughts on the influence of evangelicalism on Quaker thinking on gender are change from the earlier deference of Friends towards the leadership of London and Philadelphia offeredin Plant, 'Gender and the Aristocracy of Dissent', pp. 74-82. Yearly Meetings. 78. Gurney,JJ., Obsetvations on the Rel(r;iousPeculiarities ofFriends, London: Arch, 1824, pp. 224- 25. 79. Ellison, M., 'Further Thoughts on Leeds Friends and the Beaconite Controversy',Journal of KEYWORDS Friends' Historical Sodety 57 (1992), pp. 57-75. 80. Some thoughts on the influenceof evangelicalism on Quaker thinking on gender are offered Progressive Friends, anti-slavery, perfectionism, come-outerism, Genesee Yearly Meeting, Phila­ in Plant, 'Gender and the Aristocracy ofDissent', pp. 74-82. delphia Yearly Meeting (Hicksite), AUTHOR DETAILS In the 1840s and 1850s the Religious Society of Friends in North America under­ went a series of divisions. Wilburite or Conservative Friends separated from the Helen Plant is Helen Plant received a doctorate in History from the University of Orthodox yearly meetings of New England, New York and Ohio to defend the York in 2000, and subsequently worked as a lecturer and researcher at Leeds Metro­ 'ancient testimonies' of the Religious Society of Friends fiom what they perceived to politan University. Since 2004 she has worked for an educational research and be the theological innovations ofJosephJohn Gurney and others. At the same time, development charity. She has published widely on women and religious dissent in and often in the same localities, Progressive or Congregational Friends separated from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. the Hicksite yearly meetings of Indiana, Ohio, Genesee, New York and Pennsyl­ vania in reaction to the perceived institutional conservatism of the Society and in Mailing address: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, 92 Regent Road, order to make common cause with non-Quakers in the reforms of the day, particu­ Leicester LE1 9PG, England. Email: [email protected]. larly in the Garrisonian wing of the anti-slavery movement. Unlike the earlier Hicksite-Orthodox controversy that resulted in the division of most of the North American yearly meetings in 1827-28, the Wilburite and Progressive divisions, 244 QUAKER STUDIES DENSMORE FROM THE HICKSITES TO THE PROGRESSIVE FRIENDS 245 though concerning issues which troubled Friends nationally, were local, rural and or Canada), which separated from the main body of the Methodist Episcopal Church episodic. Sympathies for the conservative Wilburite position or the Progressive posi­ in the 1840s and 1850s, and smaller groups of Presbyterians and Baptists who felt that tion, seen by some modem Quaker historians as proto-liberal, were widespread the existing churches were being faithful in their social testimonies, particularly, among Friends, yet actual divisions were limited. In the course of this paper, I briefly though not exclusively, concerningslavery and abolitionism. The term has also been discuss the Congregational Friends separation from Genesee Yearly Meeting in applied to the Progressive Friends. The paradox is that the religious 'come-outers' Upstate New York in 1848 and the Progressive Friends separation from Philadelphia who were very much a part of the landscape of the 'burned-over district', and par­ Yearly Meeting (Hicksite) in 1852-53 and then comment on the implications of ticularly the anti-slavery and woman's rights movements, were not coming out of the these events for understanding factionalism among Friends. world to find a refuge in sectarian religion, but coming out of the churches; that is, rejecting the existing denominational structures so that they could engage themselves PERFECTIONISM AND COMEOUTERISM IN THE BURNED-OVER DISTRICT more fully in the work of reforming the world. 3 'Christian Primitivism' was a reaction to the innovations in the evangelical Protes­ The 1848 schism in Genesee Yearly Meeting took place in a region noted for a tant churches in early nineteenth century, specifically to the rise of tract societies, number of religious and social experiments. The annual sessions of Genesee Yearly missionaries and theological schools. The Christian Primitives shared with the Come­ Meeting-encompassing the Hicksite meetings of central and western New York outers a sense that the existing churches were filled with human inventions that State, Upper Canada (Ontario) and Michigan-were held at Farmington, New hindered the growth of true religion and holiness. This was the message of several York, six miles from Palymra, New York, the birthplace of Church of Latter Day periodicals published in the burned-overdistrict in the 1820s: Plain Trnth(Rochester Saints (Mormons) in the 1820s and twelve miles from Hydesville, New York, the and Canandaigua), the Free Meeting Advocate (Auburn) and Priestmift Exposed (Lock­ birthplace of Modem Spiritualism in 1848. Other religious or social experiments of port). These publications railed against theological schools, tract societies, missionar­ the era included the community established by ex-Quaker Jemima Wilkinson, ies, priests (anyone who preached for hire) and Calvinists in general. To paraphrase, known to her followers as 'The Public Universal Friend', two Shaker communities, the message was 'Stop sending Bibles. If we want them, we will buy them ourselves'. the perfectionist and sexually experimental Oneida Conmmnity, and a number of To a casual reader, some of the articles may have appeared anti-religious, though the short-lived Fourerist conmmnities in the 1840s. In the 1830s and 1840s,
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