This Side of the Grave: Navigating the Quaker Plainness Testimony In
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This Side of the Grave Navigating the Quaker Plainness Testimony in London and Philadelphia in the Eighteenth Century Patricia C. O’Donnell For observant members of the Society of Friends in greater London and Philadelphia during the eighteenth century, navigating the Quaker plainness testimony involved material culture choices that might be viewed by non-Quakers as concealing motives of frugality or blurring class lines or as violating standards of decency and propriety. This was particularly true of coffins, which were carried through the streets from home to burial ground followed by family and friends. On this public stage, Quaker coffin choices satisfied the requirements for plainness while at the same time they demonstrated family values and fulfilled societal expectations. N THE SIXTY-FIVE YEARS since Frederick B. that Quakerism contains “a number of contradic- Tolles published his seminal work on Philadel- tory values: equality and separateness; intellectual I phia’s Quaker mercantile elites, Meeting House preciousness and anti-intellectualism; an emphasis and Counting House, scholars continue to explore on excellence and a focus on humility; and an ap- how the plainness testimony was manifested in ma- preciation for high quality workmanship coupled terial culture. Tolles’s thesis—that the Quaker aes- with a ban on ostentation.”3 Clearly these contra- thetic consisted of “the best sort, but plain”—was dictions complicate any discussion of the Quaker based primarily on the written record, not on the plainness testimony. objects themselves.1 Scholars studying Quaker ma- Quaker-owned coffins offer potential for re- terial culture since Tolles have struggled to find searchers to understand Friends’ conceptions of groups of objects with adequate provenance in or- plainness. At funerals, societal expectations for a der to explore the ways in which Quaker plain style ceremony and accoutrements honoring the fa- was manifested. Quaker Aesthetics, edited by Emma mily’s status came into potential conflict with the Lapsansky and Anne Verplanck, examined the ma- Quaker plainness testimony. The coffin drew atten- terial culture of Friends from Philadelphia and the tion from observers at eighteenth-century funeral Delaware Valley in more depth.2 Lapsansky wrote processions. As public artifacts, coffins were the subjects of contemporary comment, some evidence Patricia C. O’Donnell is archivist at Friends Historical Library, of which survives in archives today. In Quaker Swarthmore College. Aesthetics, both Susan Garfinkel and Bernard L. The author would like to acknowledge the professionalism and sig- Herman emphasized the fact that the plain object nificant editorial suggestions of Winterthur Portfolio editors Elizabeth Milroy and Amy Earls. Christopher Densmore, Curator of Friends cannot be viewed apart from the context of its pro- Historical Library, read over the essay several times and made helpful duction and use.4 Coffins tend to have provenance, suggestions. And last, but definitely not least, she is indebted to her at least in terms of place. This provenance in turn colleagues and family, including Susanna Morikawa, Ann Upton, Aaron Wunsch, Jerry Frost, Barbara Chapin, and Chas O’Donnell. can be linked to practices that could vary from one 1 Frederick Barnes Tolles, “‘Of the Best Sort but Plain’: The ” 11 4 1959 499 Quaker Esthetic, American Quarterly , no. ( ): . 3 Emma Jones Lapsansky, “Past Plainness to Present Simplicity,” 2 Emma Jones Lapsansky and Anne A. Verplanck, eds., Quaker in Lapsansky and Verplanck, Quaker Aesthetics, 3. Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Con- 4 “ 2003 Bernard L. Herman, Eighteenth-Century Quaker Houses in sumption (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ). the Delaware Valley and the Aesthetics of Practice,” 188; and Susan B 2015 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Garfinkel, “Quakers and High Chests: The Plainness Problem Re- Inc. All rights reserved. 0084-0416/2015/4901-0002$10.00 considered,” 50, both in Lapsansky and Verplanck, Quaker Aesthetics. This content downloaded from 130.058.065.013 on June 29, 2017 08:56:15 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 30 Winterthur Portfolio 49:1 monthly or yearly meeting to another. This is why by archival and archaeological evidence on coffins funerary objects provide good material evidence during this time period. The organizational struc- of accommodation to Friends’ testimonies. ture and beliefs of the Society of Friends pro- Consider, for example, the letter written by vide the necessary background for understanding David Cooper, an overseer and elder of Woodbury the plainness testimony. Further documentation Friends Meeting, on the occasion of a child’s burial from Quaker coffins made in the London area and at the meeting house in New Jersey on February 16, Delaware Valley demonstrates how Friends’ coffins 1783. He was so concerned about indecorous be- differed from those of other Protestants. The ten- havior that he wrote to scold the child’s parents even dency for London-area Friends to select polished in their bereavement. Cooper was shocked to see coffins with few fittings and for Delaware Valley four female bearers in the funeral procession, only Friends to select gable-lidded coffins shows two one of whom was a Quaker, dressed in white with ways that members of these yearly meetings navi- powdered hair and without bonnets. Friends avoided gated the potential conflicts between plainness powdered hair as superfluous, and Quaker women and status. were expected to cover their heads modestly. Although non-Friends wore white if the deceased was a young, unmarried girl, Quakers avoided it A “Decent Funeral”: Eighteenth-Century British both as contemporary fashion and as specific and Mid-Atlantic Protestant Funerals mourning attire.5 He went on to say: During the eighteenth century in England and its Respected Friends,—I attended the burial of your inno- cent child on Sixth-day last, and was much affected, as I Middle Atlantic colonies, the final journey from believe every solid Friend present also was, with the man- deathbed to grave was structured and correlated ner of carrying it to the grave; so different from the plain- with class and status. The collective ritual as under- ness and simplicity into which our principles lead. I need stood by Protestants on both sides of the Atlantic not remind you that we profess to be a plain self-denying had several distinct elements, including prepara- people, called to bear a testimony against the vain and tion of the body in the home, the funeral proces- foolish fashions of the world. These never appear more sion, the religious service, and interment. Although idle and inexcusable than at funerals, when our minds this essay deals primarily with the second element, ought to be impressed with a most solemn and awful all were essential to a so-called decent funeral. While sense of our own mortality, and the sense of uncertainty the origins of the symbolic aspects of the ritual had in which we exist. This would leave us carefully to avoid been long forgotten, they were nonetheless essen- anything like pride, pomp or show on these occasions. I did think the occasion called for some remarks of this sort tial to what was perceived as proper and appropri- at the grave, but was fearful it could not well be borne. As ate. Standards of propriety and respectability were however it is a subject of conversation among Friends, and understood by all in the wider community, and which perhaps none may be kind enough in a proper a family was judged by its ability to do right by its manner to acquaint you with, I thought both friendship departed member. For all classes of society, the dis- and duty required it from me, and in this way, as verbal play was expected to be appropriate to the family’s conversation is sometimes misapprehended.6 status. Anything less was shameful; anything more This essay presents archival evidence on what was pretentious and prideful. constituted a “decent” funeral among eighteenth- Contemporary sources, both published and pri- century British and Mid-Atlantic Protestants, followed vate, give a sense of what was considered overly pride- ful. For example, in 1797 in Charleston, South 5 Phillis Cunnington and Catherine Lucas, Costume for Births, Carolina, the City Gazette published a cautionary tale Marriages, and Deaths (London: A. and C. Black, 1972), 192. The about the poor widow of a day laborer in England. yearly meetings continued to warn against pride in the form of “Yet the worst thing they had to say of her, was that epistles to constituent meetings. “The Minutes of the Yearly Meet- ing of Women friends held at Philadelphia ye 24th of ye 7th Month she was proud; which they said, was manifested by 1729. It is the desire of this Meeting that our Epistle in 1726 the manner in which she buried her husband. Res- Against pride be frequently Read in our Severall Monthly & Quar- olute, as she owned she was, to have the funeral, terly Meetings of Women friends & all friends are desired Carefully to Maintain the Testimony of our Ancient friends Against Wareing and every thing that related to it, what she called [sic] Black or Black & White Cloaths at Burialls.” decent, nothing could dissuade her from having 6 Letter from D. C. to ___ and wife, February 16, 1783, tran- handles to his coffin, and a plate on it, mentioning scribed in “Notices of David Cooper,” Friends’ Review 15,no.45 his age.”7 In 1807 Philadelphia diarist Elizabeth (July 12, 1862): 707. Friends’ Review and other Quaker publica- tions regularly published the memoirs and writings of exemplary Quakers. 7 City Gazette and Daily Advertiser (Charleston, SC), May 17, 1797, 2. 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