Annual Meeting, 1947 Friends Historical Association

ANNUAL MEETING, 1947 FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION THE ANNUAL MEETING of Friends Historical Association took place at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, on the Parkway at 26th Street, at 8 p. m. on Eleventh Month 24, 1947. The address of the evening by Marion Nicholl Rawson, on "Art and the Quakers," was a tribute by a specialist in the history of art and the handicrafts to the number of Friends who had been eminent artists and craftsmen. As illustrations, there were original paintings of Edward and Thomas Hicks, lent by the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. After the lecture Friends visited the Museum's special exhibition of costumes, "A Pageant of Fashion," which in addition to having several examples of Quaker dress included pastel portraits of Joseph John and Eliza P. Gurney, by Amelia Opie, lent by Haverford College, and the Swarthmore College portrait of Lucretia Mott by William H. Furness. At the brief business meeting which preceded the lecture, President William W. Comfort informed the Association of the resignation of the Treasurer, I. Thomas Steere. The following minute of appreciation was adopted : We the members of Friends Historical Association wish to express our appreciation and thanks to I. Thomas Steere who has acted as Treasurer of this organization for the last twenty-four years and who now wishes to resign. Thomas Steere joined the Association in 1923 and in that same year was elected as a member of the Board of Directors and then named Treasurer. During his term of office the membership has grown from about four hundred members to over six hundred and fifty, and the work of recording the payment of dues and handling the accounts of the Association has made greater demands each year upon his time and energies. His faithful and conscientious work has been greatly appreciated by the members of Friends Historical Association, who wish to join in expressing to Thomas Steere their regret at his resignation and their gratitude to him for his long years of service. 14 MIDWINTER DINNER15 For the three-year term expiring in 1950, Horace Mather Lippincott , Susanna Smedley, E. Virginia Walker, William Mintzer Wills, and Edward Woolman were elected to the Board of Directors. At a special meeting of the Directors held immediately after the Annual Meeting, William Mintzer Wills was elected Treasurer of the Association. THE SIXTH ANNUAL midwinter dinner meeting of Friends Historical Association took place at The Whittier, Fifteenth and Cherry Streets, Philadelphia, on Second Month 25, 1948, at 6:30 p. m. President William W. Comfort presided over the gathering of seventy-five members and guests, introducing the new Treasurer, William M. Wills, and speaking with appreciation as he did so of the twenty-four years of faithful service by the retired Treasurer, I. Thomas Steere. The theme of the evening was "The Quaker Lawyer," a particularly interesting one in view of the testimony which Friends have held against going to law with each other, and the disinclination which individual Friends have sometimes had, particularly in the early part of the last century, to go into the law at all. Hubert R. Taylor, of Philadelphia and Cheltenham, reviewed the legal training and careers of prominent early Pennsylvania Friends, from William Penn, David Lloyd, James Logan, and John Kinsey, to Nicholas Wain, and added a twentieth-century postscript to the effect that he felt that fewer young Friends now seemed to be preparing for the law than was the case in the past generation, when law and business attracted a considerable number of Friends, particularly in the Philadelphia neighborhood. William Taylor, Jr., of Media, spoke on the subject, "A Quaker Lawyer Defends the Law," addressing himself to current conceptions and misconceptions of the nature of law, of evidence, and of justice, and reminding Friends that the law, while less desirable than love as a rule for getting along with each other, is better than violence and war, which are the last alternatives men seek when both love and law break down. The flowers which decorated the tables, arranged as at previous dinners by Dorothy G. Harris, of the Friends Historical Library Vol. 37, Spring 1948 16 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION at Swarthmore, were...