Joseph Wharton: Quaker Industrial Pioneer (review)

44Quaker History thropic activities of the Cadburys and Rowntrees. The Frys never succeeded on quite the same scale and tend to get submerged in her account. She argues it was genuine concern for workers and not just economic self-interest that led both the Cadburys and the Rowntrees to establish model communities at Bournville Village and at New Earswick. And, it was more conscience than capital gain that led them both into newspaper ownership, and thus into Liberal politics in the 20th century. The tensions between Quakerism and industrial capitalism molded the chocolate conscience. Should Joseph Rowntree advertise even though he regarded it as an unjustified business expense? Should the Cadburys print racing forecasts in their popular newspaper even though they disapproved of betting? Should Quaker firms use cocoa produced under conditions of virtual slavery? Should Laurence Cadbury sell the News Chronicle! The chocolate conscience was more often bitter than sweet. Although not unerring, the chocolate conscience was enduring, as Gillian Wagner shows in her final chapters on the trust makers and their legacies. The Bournville Village Trust lives on, and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and Social Services Trust continue to play important roles in British philanthropy today. Gillian Wagner's book is a readable introduction to a complex question rather than a systematic analysis of it. It is lightly documented and leaves many issues to be explored—the relationship between Liberalism and Quakerism, for example . Her topical approach by family and subject creates some chronological confusions. Yet, Gillian Wagner has posed an interesting question and suggested some enlightening answers. Historians of Quakerism and of industrialism would do well to follow her example of exploring the Quaker conscience at work in the modern economy. Whitesburg, KentuckyJudi Jennings Joseph Wharton: Quaker Industrial Pioneer. By W. Ross Yates. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1987. 413 pp. $49.50. Yates's interest in Joseph Wharton lies in this nineteenth-century Quaker's contribution to the industrialization of America, and he considers Wharton's Quaker ties important enough to figure in his subtitle. Wharton was a birthright Quaker who remained a member of meeting all of his life. He married a Quaker and raised his family within the tradition. A home-loving individual, Wharton seldom moved beyond his nurturing circle of Friends, although he played an important role in politics, traveled, and became the friend of men like Andrew Carnegie. Yates believes Wharton's ethical behavior—in an age when industrialists often pursued profit without regard to moral values—stemmed from Quaker beliefs. In his early years Wharton wrote poetry in which spiritual themes played some role and in his later years he composed one theological pamphlet, The Creed in the Discipline (1892). He sought to prove that a tenet concerning the Trinity was for Friends a relatively recent introduction into the discipline, therefore spurious (p. 347). The larger question remains whether Wharton was a successful industrialist because of his Quaker background, which Yates deems important, or whether he placed his Quaker values above the concern of acquiring substantial personal wealth through the creative and energetic pursuit of business. First of Book Reviews45 all, it is important to note that Wharton came from a well-to-do Hicksite family in which both parents followed the vocation of the ministry. He was raised by parents generous in both their wealth and their time, and he admired those parents, particularly his mother, Deborah. Still, Wharton's own positions on issues often appear to be expedient. His family were strong abolitionists; Joseph deplored slavery but the position he adopted as a youth, of allowing southerners to make up their own minds about the morality of their slave system, allowed him to continue to sell his nickel and zinc in southern states. He appears to have had few pacifist leanings, so nothing deterred him from major expansion in his zinc works in order to feed the military expansion of the north. "He would make zinc for shells; use the profits to buy bonds; and contribute money to the support of soldiers and their families" (p. 110) even when this distressed his mother, who was a pacifist. Yates makes the valuable point...