Swarthmore College
Friends Historical Library
500 College Ave.
Swarthmore, PA 19081-1399
(610) 328-8497
http://www.Swarthmore.edu/library/friends

Contact Person:
Pat O'Donnell, Acting Curator, podonne1@swarthmore.edu

Overview:

Swarthmore's Friends Historical Library specializes in materials by and about the Society of Friends (Quakers); due to space limitations and a religious schism resulting in two Philadelphia Yearly Meetings, the records are divided between the two institutions. For the historian of economy and society, this repository contains materials that illuminate the intersection of business and religious beliefs for Friends. Friends who operated in the business world tended to be particularly successful (this collection includes papers of the Biddles and the Whartons, for example). Friends' religious convictions influenced financial decisions heavily. Because of their interlinked and ready-made social connections, Friends enjoyed a close network of business connections in America and abroad. In addition to information about successful, and famous, businessmen, the collections house material about regional business practices, and also provide information about the more modest trades (such as leather-working in Philadelphia) and local business practices. This institution's holdings, taken with Haverford's, provide a wealth of information about economic beliefs and practices. [1]

Swarthmore is the depository for the New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore Yearly Meetings of Friends, and these minutes include comings and goings of individuals, their vital records, and detailed disciplinary activities (like penalizations for debt, etc.). The Library has general reference materials that support its primary materials, and also holds extensive runs of related periodicals from the nineteenth century to the present. Many family papers are divided between here and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (often unsystematically). Research into the larger collections requires visiting both institutions.

The Friends Historical Library's finding aids are being put on line through the PACSCL EAD project, accessible through Tripod (the combined library catalogues of Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr: www.tripod.brynmawr.edu), and the contents of major collections already exist on-line. Local printed finding aids are also available at the archives, and a main entry card catalogue provides descriptions of individual manuscripts. Another card catalogue, arranged by location, describes the manuscripts of the various Friends' Yearly Meetings.

 

COLLECTIONS OF INTEREST TO ECONOMIC HISTORIANS:

Account Books (13 boxes), are arranged alphabetically by person or organization, and although treated individually in this collection, are cross-referenced with the larger collection of family papers in which they belong. The finding aids are highly useful, as they provide details such as key names, dates, the type of book, chief commodities within, and the person's occupation. (Among occupations represented in this collection are: brick-layer, bank teller, merchant, farmer, landlord, tax collector, leather worker, handyman, surveyor, builder, coffin maker, furniture maker, metal worker, grocer, and coppersmith.) Many of these, from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, include treasurers' account books, bond and mortgage accounts, merchants' ledgers, and household accounts.

Journals: like albums and account books, this category consists of individual items; entries include author, inclusive dates of entries, type of journal, brief description of contents, and home collection, if any. While most of these seem to document travel (religious visits, especially) there are some that include business accounts. These are also useful for getting first-hand accounts of specific subjects of study, and for providing contextual information and a broader scope of social life that will illuminate studies of economic activity.

Philanthropic organizations: the Society of Friends founded a number of philanthropic organizations, mostly after the 1850s. But the records for some begin earlier, like the Grandom Institution Records (1765-1971); The Northern Association of the City and County of Philadelphia for the Relief and Employment of Poor Women Records (1841-1929); and The Richard Humphreys Foundation Records (1837-1982).

Pictures collection: extensive collection of prints, photographs, drawings, paintings, and other visual images executed by, related to, or of Quakers and Quaker life. Some of these begin quite early (18th century) and continue to the present, putting faces to names.

Yearly Meeting records: in addition to the Treasurers' Reports, which document in a detailed fashion the financial dealings of the Society of Friends (and include expenditures, income, and property investments), the records also include codes of conduct and reveal Friends' approach to members who have practiced shady financial dealings or have gone into debt. The records not only contain the bookkeeping for the Society of Friends as a whole, but also illuminate how that group dealt with its members on an individual basis.

 

Family Papers. Almost all of the family papers found here will have domestic account books and also some business records; it is best to peruse the finding aids for particular eras, relevant businesses. Only family papers whose prime emphasis is commercial, banking, craft-related, manufacturing, and finance are mentioned here. (Quotes in the descriptions come from local finding aids.)

 

Bettle Family papers (dating from 1800) 2 boxes (1 linear foot), document a prominent Quaker merchant in Philadelphia in 19th century; contains business and financial records from 1827

 

Biddle Manuscripts: papers of Owen (1737-99), his son Clement (1778-1856) and other descendants; Owen was a scientist and merchant, serving as deputy Forage Master General during the Revolutionary War; Clement was a sugar refiner and active philanthropist; Clement M. Biddle (1838-1902) was a hardware dealer

- papers contain correspondence, letterbooks; diaries of Owen

- series 2 letters are ca. 100 letters (1792-1849) containing business papers and the like, also describing religious and social conditions

- series 4 contains Clement Biddle's account book (1835-56)

 

Coffin Family papers (dating from 1797); 3 linear feet. Elijah Coffin (b. 1793) worked as a banker in the Midwest, his son Charles was also a banker. The papers here cover the 1840s-1860s

 

Ferris Family papers (dating from 1737); 13.5 linear feet: John Ferris (1710-1751) was a Quaker tanner who moved to Delaware from Connecticut in 1748; son Ziba was born in 1743 and apprenticed as a cabinet maker; one son of Ziba, John, was a cabinet maker, and another, Benjamin, was a surveyor and conveyancer

- collection includes extensive family correspondence and typical deeds, wills, marriage certificates; also business papers of Benjamin and John Ferris ca. 1780s (Benjamin's to 1867); David Ferris account books from 1838

- see also related Ferris-Wetherald papers, which contain business and legal papers from 1773, mostly deeds

 

- Fisher-Warner Family papers (dating from 1684); 8.5 linear feet: Miers Fisher (1748-1819) was a prominent lawyer, legislator, scientist and philanthropist; Benjamin Warner was a publisher and bookseller who married Fisher's daughter, Lydia, in 1814

- "The collection contains Journals (1804-1819), correspondence (1774-1818), and business papers of Miers Fisher, correspondence and business papers of Jabez Maud Fisher (1801-76). . ."

- miscellaneous business papers throughout, including journals (1814-21) of Joseph Warner, mostly about his farm in Cherry Hill

 

- John Malin George papers (from 1681);

- series 2 papers are estate accounts, 1714-1883 of the extended family: extensive numbers of wills, inventories; account books, estate administrators' accounts

- series 4 are business and financial accounts, 1734-1887: "Includes farm and daily accounts, business accounts, property transactions, bonds, receipts and checks, etc. of the George and related families."; including an impressive number of account books dating from the late eighteenth through the nineteenth centuries; farm accounts (John M. George), dating from 1822 through the 1870s; day labor accounts, harvest accounts; books of securities; account books for members of the George family including rent, mortgages, certificates of stock; bonds, checks, receipts and other financial instruments dating from the 1750s and running consistently into the 1800s

 

- Griffith Family papers (from 1754-1890); .5 linear feet; the Griffiths were involved with textile industry in Winchester, VA before the Civil War; collection contains miscellaneous financial papers, 1754-1862, family diaries and correspondence

 

- Henry Gurney Aggs Hanbury-Aggs Family papers (1718-1914); 6.5 linear feet: the Hanbury and Aggs families were prominent Quakers involved in various mercantile activities: Daniel Bell Hanbury and his son were both pharmacologists; Thomas Hanbury was a silk merchant in Shanghai in the mid-1800s

- "The Hanbury-Aggs Papers represent an important resource for the study of middle class Quaker family life in 19th century London and central England. This collection illustrates a network of mutual obligation among merchants, bankers, and manufacturers arranging apprenticeships, investing in each others ventures, serving as executors for each others estates, a network that was cemented by a complex web of intermarriages."

- includes estate papers, account books, correspondence, journals, business papers, legal papers and other family materials

 

- Maulsby-Albertson papers (1763-1884);

- series 4 contains financial papers, 1805-1874: "Some of the papers concern Jonathan Maulsby's term as postmaster at Plymouth Meeting House in the 1820s. The Albertson family operated lime kilns and sold lime, in Plymouth Township. Samuel Maulsby was a Commissioner of the Philadelphia, Germantown, and Norristown Railroad Company. The Maulsby family were also active in Norristown as merchants of lumber, coal, and iron."

- series 5 legal papers, 1763-1884 incl. deeds, indentures dating from the 1780s through the 1800s

 

- Anna Wharton Morris papers (from 1729); 68 boxes; mostly 20th-century documents, but miscellaneous correspondence dating from 18th century of Morris and related families: Wharton, Fisher, Gilpin, Lovering families are included; not much apparent business/financial material, but this collection would be useful in filling in contextual and familial links among the families; also extensive picture collection to put faces to names

 

- Painter Collection; 17 boxes

- two Painter brothers, Minshall (1801-1873) and Jacob (1814-1876), managed the family farm, which had been in the family since 1684 and was located near Lima in Middletown Township; they were both also interested in the natural sciences and language; Minshall was an excellent farmer and skilled mechanically

- manuscripts include accounts, bills and receipts, articles of agreement, bonds, inventories, mortgages, and so on - basically accounts having to do with the administration of estates, 1700-1849; executors' bills and receipts; accounts with banks and bankers, 1836-44; articles of agreement, 1700-1839; bills and receipts, 1700-1870s; stocks and bonds and insurance policies, 1811-1870s; land surveys, promissory notes, 1775-1831; miscellaneous uncatalogued account books from 1746-1870s; bank books, 1809-1870s [some located at the Tyler Arboretum Library]

- a fairly thorough paper trail of accounts and business papers relating to the family farm

 

- Moses Sheppard Papers (from 1974); 10 boxes; Sheppard was a director of: Savings Bank of Baltimore, Baltimore Fire Insurance, Baltimore and Fredericktown Railway, Maryland Penitentiary, Union Manufacturing Co., and Maryland State Colonization Society

- business papers, 1713-1862: business papers regarding partnership with John Mitchell, 1794-1819; business and legal papers regarding Tobacco Warehouse, 1820-7; notices of meetings, miscellaneous deeds

 

- Stout-Alston papers (from 1750); 4 linear feet

- "This collection of papers contains, mainly, the personal and business correspondence, business and legal papers of Quaker merchants in Delaware, Philadelphia, and Maryland, chiefly Jacob Stout of Smyra, Del., and Jonathan Alston of Leipsic, Del."

- business, legal papers and miscellaneous manuscripts

 

- Wharton papers; Joseph (1826-1909) became head bookkeeper of Waln & Leaming at the age of 21; in 1847 he, his brother Rodman, and a man named Davis began a lead business; Joseph Wharton subsequently oversaw his father's business affairs, joined with Joseph B. Matlock in manufacturing bricks, sold the brick business and was hired by Gilbert & Wetherill to manage their zinc mine; he built a successful zinc spelter in the 1850s and made his fortunes in nickel and iron works; Wharton was a financier and a philanthropist, like many Quakers; "Besides iron mining and manufacturing, other interests include coal and coke mining, glass making, copper and gold mining, menhaden fisheries, cultivation of cranberries, railroads, and banking, among others." (See also records at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

- Joseph Wharton, Business Correspondence, occupy 10 boxes and include materials related to cottonseed interests, currency, exhibitions, iron and minerals, and railroads (1847-1909); letters, cash books, journals, etc. dating from 1848 through 1909.

footnotes:

2. See Jack Eckert, comp. Guide to the Records of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Haverford College, Records Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Swarthmore College, 1989) for a detailed description of the scope of holdings between the two institutions. Please note that while Friends' Yearly Meeting records contain a wealth of information, Eckert's guide only describes the vital records contained within those records.