The 1939 Annual Meeting

Volume 29, No. 1 Spring Number, 1940 Bulletin of Friends* Historical Association THE ANNUAL MEETING of Friends' Historical Association was held in the meeting house at 20 South Twelfth Street, Philadelphia, on Second-day, 11 mo. 27, 1939, at 8.15 p. m. At the business meeting the President and Treasurer presented their annual reports, and the members elected the Directors listed on the opposite page. The Directors later met for a brief organization meeting, and re-elected the officers. The President's report of the Association's activities during the year referred to the usual two issues of the Bulletin, and the special publication of the fourth general index, covering volumes 21 to 25 inclusive. These indexes make the entire contents of the Bulletin readily accessible to research workers, and hence make the Bulletin especially attractive to libraries. The President referred also to the summer meeting of 5 mo. 20, 1939, held at West Chester. An interesting possibility of the Association's acquiring its independent headquarters in Philadelphia through rental of a part of the old Free Quaker Meeting House at Fifth and Arch Streets was mentioned ; but it had appeared to the committee appointed to look into the matter that the terms proposed were beyond the Association's means. Announcement was made of the death of one of the Association 's Directors, William I. Hull, on 1 1 mo. 14, 1939. A memorial minute was passed, as follows: WILLIAM ISAAC HULL (1868-1939) A Memorial Minute FOLLOWING a long career of teaching at Swarthmore College, and after having written extensively on American history, international relations, and the promotion of peace, William I. Hull was currently engaged in enterprises of particular interest to Friends. He was preparing 3 4 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION a history of Swarthmore College, and he was nearing the half-way point in a monograph series on the history of Quakerism in Holland. Years of research lay behind these monographs, which had recently begun to come from the publishers almost annually. They included essays on William Sewel, the Dutch Quaker historian, on the rise of Quakerism in Amsterdam, on William Penn and the migration of Dutch Friends to Pennsylvania, and on Penn's life and his early biographers. Rich in welldocumented detail, these published volumes gave promise of still further original contributions to the story of Quakerism in Holland. In addition to this program of research and writing in Quaker history, William Hull recently devoted himself to reorganizing and expanding the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. His sudden death on Eleventh Month 14, 1939, cut short these three projects, which, to a large degree, only he could complete. Our friend and fellow-member joined the Friends' Historical Society in 1919, and became a Director of the present Friends' Historical Association in 1935. The Directors and Members of the Association adopt this minute to record their appreciation of the life and work of William I. Hull and to express their deep sense of loss in his death. At the close of the business meeting, Janet Payne Whitney, the speaker of the evening, gave a delightful talk on "The Pleasures of Research," telling us how, in the preparation of her life of Elizabeth Fry, she had steeped herself in contemporary diaries and letters, many of them unpublished, and in the published records of manners and events of the time, till she felt herself competent to judge of the credibility of reports not technically verifiable, and to explain actions and events of which the motives and causes have not always been clear; so that the audience understood how she had been able to interweave established fact with the whisperings of a lively but informed and restrained imagination into a very charming and reliable biography. The meeting was followed, as usual, by a collation in the upper room, where those present could admire the magnificent old tie-beams used in the framing of the roof, which were uncovered some years ago during alterations. The Index to volumes 21-25 of the Bulletin has been printed, and will be sent gratis to those who will write to the Secretary asking for a copy. ...