Guide to the Records of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (review)

110Quaker History mentally disturbed; their familial relationships, their attitude toward prayer, their own sense of the relation between personal guilt and the judgment of the Meeting. This is unfortunate, for given the vast amount of material in Quaker archives, there is surely a wealth of literary evidence that would open up this world for the reader. Nevertheless, Charles Cherry has provided us with an immensely interesting account of the leaders of the movement, if not of the patients themselves, and his book will be a valuable addition to libraries of both scholars and non-scholars interested in the history of psychology and religion. Rutgers UniversityPhyllis Mack Guide to the Records ofPhiladelphia Yearly Meeting. Compiled by Jack Eckert. Philadelphia: Haverford College, Records Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Swarthmore College, 1989. xix, 288 pp. Paper, $20. American historians working on many facets of American life and culture have found Quaker records increasingly of value for research. Because of their view of the church as a gathered community and their sense of making history by preaching, migration, and settlement, they early saw the importance of keeping historical records. Hence Quakers have produced more records and more detailed records than most other American denominations except possibly the Moravians. To make the official records of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and its constituent quarterly and monthly meetings available for research, the present volume was projected in 1986. Essentially it is a finding list of the records available at the two official yearly meeting depositories—the Quaker Collection at Haverford College and the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. That there are two archival centers for the yearly meeting reflects the fact that from 1827 to 1955 there were two rival yearly meetings, the so-called Orthodox and the so-called Hicksite yearly meetings following the disastrous theological and organizational split of 1827. Thus Haverford, founded by the Orthodox wing, houses the official records of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting from its foundation in 1681 until the schism of 1827, and the records of the Orthodox yearly meeting from 1827 until the reunion of 1955, when the present united yearly meeting was founded. Swarthmore College, founded by the Hicksite branch, houses the records of the Hicksite yearly meeting from 1827 to 1955, and the records of the united yearly meeting since 1955. The yearly meeting committee records are likewise divided between the two depositories—those of the Indian Committee and the Japan (Missionary) Committee being housed at Haverford, with the archives of the Friends Peace Committee , the Meeting for Social Concerns, and the Young Friends Movement at Swarthmore . Finally, the record books of the various monthly meetings are for the most part divided between the two depositories. Where original record books are retained by the monthly meeting, microfilm copies are usually available at the official depositories. The bulk of the book (pp. 1-245) contains an alphabetical listing of all quarterly and monthly meetings that make up the yearly meeting, with the types, dates, and location of their existing records. Variant names for the meetings are listed in the index to the book. The concise, competent introduction (pp. v-xix) traces the genesis of the project , outlines the structure of the yearly meeting, with descriptions of preparative, Books1 1 1 monthly, indulged, particular, independent, united, quarterly, and half-yearly meetings, and gives a rundown of the varied types of records kept by Quaker meetings. It is important to note that the two Philadelphia-area colleges are now also the official depositories for the records of Baltimore Yearly Meeting and Virginia Yearly Meeting. Finally, instruction is given on the policies involved in using the records for research at the two official archives. Hidden at the back of the book (they should perhaps more appropriately have been placed at the front) are the lists of the vast body of records kept officially by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (pp. 246-264). This includes a variety of minute books, committee records, including in the case of the Indian Committee some personal papers and journals of individual members of the committee, and records of Charleston Monthly Meeting, 1719-1786, identified in the index only as Charleston, South Carolina, with no explanation of why these particular records...