The Bethany Mission for Colored People: Philadelphia Friends and a Sunday School Mission

The Bethany Mission for Colored People: Philadelphia Friends and a Sunday School Mission Martha Paxson Grundy* The beginning of the Bethany Mission for Colored People, a Sunday School for imparting literacy and religious education to African Americans in Philadelphia from the 1850s to the 1930s, is a bit uncertain. It probably began with meetings in 1 854 in a carpenter shop atNineteenth and Hamilton Streets just north ofthe Philadelphia city limits.1 This was a mixed area of industry and workers' homes. It was not the city's poorest black and immigrant area.2 Late in 1 857 the Mission was moved one block north to the northwest corner ofNineteenth and Spring Garden Streets.3 Bethany Missiontookup its permanent location in 1 869 at 1 527-29 Brandywine between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets, on two lots purchased from Christ's Evangelical Reformed Church (which fronted on Green Street). A brick building was constructed, which still stands. On the ground floor were classrooms. Above them was a large high-ceilinged meeting room with three tall windows facing Brandywine. At the time Brandywine between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets was unpaved and served as an alley for the homes on the south side of Green Street. Bethany's immediate neighbors were back yards, stables, a carpenter shop, and lumber storage sheds. Across the street were more stables. Residences lined Spring Garden, and there were short blocks ofrow houses on Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets. The larger neighborhood included lumber yards, iron works, and other industrial concerns, as well as residential areas.4 In time, the old Central High School, the BaldwinLocomotive Works, the U.S. Mint, and Wills' Eye Hospital, as well as typical brick row houses grew up in the area.5 Over time Bethany's block ofBrandywine Street changed very little. Today there are still no buildings at the east end ofthe block. The original buildings remained, though their usage has changed. Bethany Mission's object was "the moral and religious education and general elevation of the colored people by means of a Mission Sabbath School and by all other means compatible with the Charter." Article III said itwasnottobe denominational, but"strictlyunion, andnoreligious services shall be permitted that are ofa sectarian nature." Such ecumenical cooperation was comfortable for Gurneyite Friends, but very suspect forWilburites. Hicksite Friends tended to cooperate with non-Quakers on social reforms but were separatist in religious matters.6 * Martha Paxson Grundy is Clerk ofthe Cleveland Friends Meeting. She received a Ph.D. in American History from Case Western Reserve University. Her research on Bethany Mission was undertaken with the assistance ofa Gest Fellowship at the Quaker Collection at Haverford College. The Bethany Mission for Colored People5 1 Bethany's scholars ranged from quite young children to the elderly. The teachers, too, came from a wide age range, from Lydia Balderston who was eight years old when she accompanied her father to help out at the Mission in 1857, to this same Lydia, aged 87 when Bethany was laid down in 1936. The superintendent tried to keep accurate attendance records, noting the perennial gap between the number officially enrolled and the average class attendance. Othermission sabbath schools also had high absentee rates. For thirty-one months in the mid-1860s the average enrollment of Bethany Mission was 141. Average attendance for thirty-five months, including several First Days when severe weather considerably reduced the numbers, was alittle over 98 eachweek. Attendance tendedto be heavierinthe winter, and it gradually increased each year. By 1874 there were over 400 pupils. The following yearthere were 490 andneedwas expressed foranew, larger house. However, by 1884 when enrollment was still over 400, it began a steady decline. In 1886 there were 401 pupils and27 teachers. In 1890 there were 320, consisting of 106 male and 214 female scholars, and 25 teachers: seven male and eighteen female.7 What forces swelled and then reduced the energies ofthe Bethany Mission is the subject ofthis study. For eighty years the Bethany Mission for Colored People provided Friends and others with an organization through which they could reach out to help African Americans with literacy, religious education, and a variety ofconcrete assistance programs. Although never formally under the...