Project MUSE®: Quaker History - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/394
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Quaker History.daily12026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 1 (1906) through current issue Latest Articles: Quaker HistoryTWOProject MUSE®Quaker History1934-15040033-5053Latest articles in Quaker History. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Fox and Penn: Comparing their Significance, Conversions, and Sermons
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987280
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George Fox and William Penn stand out as the most prominent seventeenth-century Friends and their lives, teachings, and accomplishments remain worthy of celebration.1 This article will contrast the recent commemorations of these two men, look at what historians emphasize about them, particularly in accounts of their conversions, and finally analyze their divergent approaches in 1674 and 1694 in dealing with Quaker dissidents first in the Wilkinson-Story Controversy and then with George Keith. Because the evidence used in this section is based on sermons taken down without the permission of either man, at issue is reliability and what can be learned from these allegedly first-hand sources.In 2024 the joint meetings
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/394/image/coversmallFox and Penn: Comparing their Significance, Conversions, and Sermons2026-04-02text/htmlen-USFox and Penn: Comparing their Significance, Conversions, and Sermons2026-04-022026TWOProject MUSE®695722026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-02"Render a Satisfactory Account": Records of the Society of Friends in North America to 1827
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987281
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Although genealogical investigators whose ancestors were members of the Society of Friends have long recognized the utility of Quaker records, many other researchers still fail to recognize the potential of using these rich and too often untapped historical resources in a variety of academic inquiries. But even genealogists have often misunderstood or misinterpreted the evidence. This essay will attempt to both elucidate terminology and process as well as to reveal broader possibilities for study, particularly aimed at young social science scholars as well as at genealogists. For the sake of brevity, I have limited this text to Quaker practice in North America prior to 1827.During Quakerism’s earliest days in the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/394/image/coversmall"Render a Satisfactory Account": Records of the Society of Friends in North America to 18272026-04-02text/htmlen-US"Render a Satisfactory Account": Records of the Society of Friends in North America to 18272026-04-022026TWOProject MUSE®716172026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-02Vichy and the Quakers: Humanitarian Aid, Neutrality and Compromise
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987282
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On January 17, 1942, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) European Director Howard E. Kershner (1939–1942) wrote to his colleagues in Philadelphia about the relief program the organization was providing to internment camps in the south of France under Vichy rule. While Kershner noted that “these people” [referring to Jews] were suffering terribly, he wrote that “there are many French people [i.e., non-Jews] specially, children, adolescents and old people who are suffering almost as bad,” adding “we can no longer take food from French children to give [to] them.”1 Despite his sentiment, under Kershner’s leadership the AFSC provided more direct relief to the Jewish concentration camps in unoccupied France than
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/394/image/coversmallVichy and the Quakers: Humanitarian Aid, Neutrality and Compromise2026-04-02text/htmlen-USVichy and the Quakers: Humanitarian Aid, Neutrality and Compromise2026-04-022026TWOProject MUSE®695832026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-02American Quaker Resistance to War, 1917–1973: Law, Politics, and Conscience by Isaac Barnes May (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987283
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Isaac Barnes May’s concise encapsulation of American Quakers’ peace testimony from World War I through the Vietnam War is a terrific book for readers seeking a clear, accessible overview of Quakers’ diverse positions on U.S. involvement in 20th-century wars. American Quaker Resistance to War, 1917–1973 centers specifically on how observant Friends wrestled with their faith’s identity-defining moral injunction to be peace-makers. This principle emerged from their belief that Divine light existed in all people, implying that violence against humans might be akin to violence against God. Founder George Fox publicly refused to be a party to war, setting the principle of making a peace witness into motion. However, May
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/394/image/coversmallAmerican Quaker Resistance to War, 1917–1973: Law, Politics, and Conscience by Isaac Barnes May (review)2026-04-02text/htmlen-USAmerican Quaker Resistance to War, 1917–1973: Law, Politics, and Conscience by Isaac Barnes May (review)2026-04-022026TWOProject MUSE®111632026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-02The Politics of Service: American Quakers and the Emergence of International Humanitarian Aid 1917–1945 by Daniel Maul (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987284
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World War I saw the creation of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which would go on to provide food aid and other relief to millions of people in Europe during the interwar period. The Politics of Service: American Quakers and the Emergence of International Humanitarian Aid 1917–1945 by Daniel Maul, a Professor of History at the University of Oslo, offers a detailed history of the Quaker organization’s international efforts from its beginning until the end of the Second World War. The book was initially published in German in 2021. Maul positions the book as a contribution to the history of humanitarian relief, but also as a work of scholarship that will “take religion seriously” by understanding the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/394/image/coversmallThe Politics of Service: American Quakers and the Emergence of International Humanitarian Aid 1917–1945 by Daniel Maul (review)2026-04-02text/htmlen-USThe Politics of Service: American Quakers and the Emergence of International Humanitarian Aid 1917–1945 by Daniel Maul (review)2026-04-022026TWOProject MUSE®83772026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-02William Penn: A Radical, Conservative Quaker by J. William Frost (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987285
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J. William Frost has spent a lifetime studying William Penn, and this wonderful book is the fruit of those many years of careful study. To his credit, rather than trying to cover every aspect of this “enigmatic Quaker founding father” (pp. xvi-xvii), Frost restricts his focus to “Penn’s religious faith and his roles within the Society of Friends” (p. xv). As he rightly points out, Penn’s many biographers (this reviewer included!) have given less attention to his religious experience and roles within the Society of Friends than to his public persona, political activity, and importance to the emergence of religious liberty. Frost’s de-emphasis on Pennsylvania gives this book a laser focus on Penn the Quaker, which
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/394/image/coversmallWilliam Penn: A Radical, Conservative Quaker by J. William Frost (review)2026-04-02text/htmlen-USWilliam Penn: A Radical, Conservative Quaker by J. William Frost (review)2026-04-022026TWOProject MUSE®103802026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-02Recent Scholarship in Quaker Studies
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987286
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Earlham College received the NEH’s Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan Grant in 2021.1 As part of this grant, they began digitizing the Friends United Meeting Collection and making the digitized items available online.As Jenny Freed, Director of Special Collections and Archives of Earl-ham College, writes, there are several subcollections on the Friends United Meeting’s digital site. The subcollection that is currently available and still being added to is Board of Missions. Because of the volume of material, the metadata was added at a folder level, matching the collection’s finding aid, rather than at an item level. Item-level information may be added in later if staffing permits.The
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/394/image/coversmallRecent Scholarship in Quaker Studies2026-04-02text/htmlen-USRecent Scholarship in Quaker Studies2026-04-022026TWOProject MUSE®456462026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-04-02