An earlier version of this article was read at the Nineteenth-Century Feminist Strategies for Reform Conference held at Swarthmore College, 21 March 1993.

1. Swift, Lindsay, Brook Farm: Its Members, Scholars, and Visitors (New York, 1961), pp. 175–176;Google ScholarWhalley, Thomas, “Mobism, Sectism, and Priestcraft vs. Freedom,” Vermont Telegraph, 23 08 1843;Google Scholar“To Farmington Monthly Meeting of Friends,” Liberator, 15 03 1844;Google ScholarCapron, E. W., “The Hicksite ‘Quaker's’ Creed,” Regenerator, 8 03 1847;Google Scholar“Extraordinary Transaction,” Non-Resistant, 8 01 1840;Google Scholar“Letter from Ohio,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, 8 12 1842.Google Scholar “Hicksite” Friends were the smaller group that emerged from the split among American Quakers in the 1820s. Taking their name from the Long Island minister Elias Hicks, their best-known leader, they tended to deemphasize the authority of Scripture and the divinity of Christ, emphasizing instead the traditional Quaker doctrine of the Inward Light of Christ. Some historians have argued that Hicksite Friends were generally less prosperous and less successful in adapting to the emerging market economy than their Orthodox opponents. Others have emphasized questions of power and authority, with the Hicksites as traditional Friends resisting the encroachments of evangelical religious culture. See Barbour, Hugh and Frost, J. William, The Quakers (Westport, Conn., 1988), pp. 171–179;Google ScholarIngle, H. Larry, Quakers in Conflict: The Hicksite Reformation (Knoxville, 1986);Google Scholarand Doherty, Robert W., The Hicksite Separation: A Sociological Analysis of Religious Schism in Early Nineteenth-Century America (New Brunswick, 1967).Google Scholar

2. Walters, Ronald G., American Reformers, 1815–1860 (New York, 1978), p. 115.Google ScholarOn the origins of nonresistance, see Perry, Lewis, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, 1973), pp. 1–54;Google Scholarand Ziegler, Valarie H., The Advocates of Peace in Antebellum America (Bloomington, Ind., 1992), pp. 48–87.Google Scholar

3. Curti, Merle, The American Peace Crusade, 1815–1860 (Durham, N.C., 1929), p. 49;Google ScholarBrock, Peter, Pacifism in the United States from the Colonial Era to the First World War (Princeton, 1968), p. 378;Google ScholarZiegler, , Advocates of Peace, p. 24.Google Scholar

4. Brock, Peter, The Quaker Peace Testimony, 1660 to 1914 (York, U.K., 1990), pp. 160–161;Google ScholarBrock, , Pacifism, pp. 375–385. The basic unit of organization for Friends at this time was the monthly meeting, often made up of several congregations, or meetings. The monthly meeting received and disowned members. Two or more monthly meetings made up a quarterly meeting. The ultimate authority for Friends was the yearly meeting, which set doctrinal standards. In 1840 there were six Hicksite yearly meetings in North America: New York, Genesee (western New York, Canada, and Michigan), Philadelphia (the Delaware Valley), Baltimore (Maryland, central Pennsylvania, and northern Virginia), Ohio (eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania), and Indiana (all of Indiana and Illinois and western Ohio).Google ScholarSee Barbour, and Frost, , The Quakers, pp. 158–159;Google Scholarand Hamm, Thomas D., The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800–1907 (Bloomington, Ind., 1988), pp. xvi–xvii.Google Scholar

5. Drake, Thomas E., Quakers and Slavery in America (New Haven, 1950), p. 140;Google ScholarHewitt, Nancy A., Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822–1872 (Ithaca, 1984), pp. 105–8.Google Scholar

6. See, for example, Nicholson, Valentine, Autobiography, 4 07 1881, typescript, Valentine Nicholson Papers (Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis);Google Scholaror Cromwell, Otelia, Lucretia Mott (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 76–122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarFor abolition as a “holy” cause, see Robinson, Rowland T., “Non-Resistance,” Vermont Telegraph, 12 10 1842.Google Scholar

7. Robinson, , “Non-Resistance”;Google ScholarDavis, Benjamin B. letter, Herald of Progression, November 1845;Google Scholar“Letter from Samuel Keese,” Non-Resistant, 8 04 1840;Google ScholarBrock, , Quaker Peace Testimony, pp. 155–165.Google Scholar

8. For nonresistance and its implications, see Perry, , Radical Abolitionism. Virtually nothing has been done on Quakers and politics in this period.Google ScholarFor some speculations about Orthodox Friends, see Hamm, , Transformation of American Quakerism, pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

9. Coates, Lindley, “A Christian—Who Is He?,” Non-Resistant, 16 02 1839;Google Scholar “Non-Resistance in Ohio,” ibid., 27 April 1842; “Letter from Brother Brooke,” Regenerator, 18 April 1844.

10. Letter from Brooke, Brother; “Letter from Brother Nicholson,” Regenerator, 4 05 1844;Google ScholarBrock, , Quaker Peace Testimony, pp. 155–165.Google Scholar

11. Whalley, , “Mobism, Sectism, and Priestcraft”;Google ScholarCapron, E. W., “Ignorance vs. Knowledge,” Communitist, 12 03 1845;Google Scholar E. W. Capron letter, ibid., 11 December 1845; Nicholson, Valentine, “Law, Gospel, Creeds,” Regenerator, 8 05 1844;Google ScholarHallowell, Anna Davis, ed., James and Lucretia Mott: Life and Letters (Boston, 1884), pp. 479–487;Google ScholarHewitt, Nancy A., “The Fragmentation of Friends: The Consequences for Quaker Women in Antebellum America,” in Witnesses for Change: Quaker Women over Three Centuries, ed. Brown, Elisabeth Potts and Stuard, Susan Mosher (New Brunswick, 1989), pp. 100–101.Google ScholarAt all levels of Quaker business organization there were separate meetings of men and women, but real power on most matters lay with the men's meetings. See Hewitt, , pp. 104–105.Google Scholar Although Friends did not have pastors, they did recognize those with a “gift” for speaking in meetings for worship by “recording” that “gift in the ministry.” Elders oversaw and counseled ministers. See, for example, Discipline of the Society of Friends of Indiana Yearly Meeting (Milton, Ind., 1850), pp. 50–57.Google Scholar

12. “Non-Resistance in Ohio”; Nicholson, , “Law, Gospel, Creeds”;Google Scholar “Letter from Brother Nicholson”; Hallowell, , James and Lucretia Mott, p. 485.Google Scholar

13. Emily [Gardner] to Esther Wattles, 10 May [1846], Wattles, John O. Papers (Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland);Google ScholarMcClintock, Thomas letter, National Anti-Slavery Standard, 16 July 1840;Google ScholarBorton, Thomas letter, Pennsylvania Freeman, 16 July 1840;Google ScholarCromwell, , Lucretia Mott, p. 123;Google ScholarHewitt, Nancy, “Feminist Friends: Agrarian Quakers and the Emergence of Woman's Rights in America,” Feminist Studies 12 (1986): 27–49;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBacon, Margaret Hope, Mothers of Feminism: The Story of Quaker Women in America (San Francisco, 1986), pp. 101–136.Google Scholar

14. “Communities,” Liberator, 6 March 1841. On Mary F. Thomas, see Seigel, Peggy Brase, “Moral Champions and Public Pathfinders: Antebellum Quaker Women in East Central Indiana,” Quaker History 81 (1992): 102–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. “Reform in Human Society,” Liberator, 7 05 1841;Google ScholarNicholson, , “Law, Gospel, Creeds”;Google Scholar Esther Whinery Wattles Autobiography, n.d., Wattles Papers.

16. “Letter from John Orvis,” Non-Resistant, 14 July 1841; Collins, J. A., “Social Reform and Human Progress,” Liberator, 17 02 1843;Google Scholar“Social Reform and Human Progress,” Vermont Telegraph, 8 02 1843;Google ScholarNicholson, , Autobiography, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

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18. “Letter from Dr. Brooke, of Ohio,” Liberator, 24 03 1843.Google Scholar

19. Spain, Barbara Bendall and Anklin, Karen Richards, Skaneateles…Glimpses of the Past (Moravia, N.Y., 1987), p. 70;Google Scholar“Agents for the Non-Resistant,” Non-Resistant, 8 07 1840;Google Scholar “Letter from Brother Brooke”; Noyes, John Humphrey, History of American Socialisms (New York, 1961), pp. 314–315;Google ScholarNicholson, , Autobiography, p. 35;Google ScholarSwift, , Brook Farm, 175–176.Google Scholar

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22. Ibid., pp. 23–25; Genesee Yearly Meeting Epistle to Indiana Yearly Meeting, 1837, box 2, Evans Family Papers (Ohio Historical Society, Columbus); Sarah Brown to David Evans, 1st Mo. 8, 1846, box 1, ibid.; “New York Yearly Meeting of Friends,” Friends Intelligencer, 6th Mo. 1, 1838;Google Scholar[Plummer, John T.], “To the Non-Resistants,” Non-Resistant, 14 10 1840;Google Scholar“To George F. White, a Preacher in the Society of Friends,” Pennsylvania Freeman, 11th Mo. 10, 1841;Google ScholarCapron, E. W., “Friends in the Quiet,” Liberator, 10 02 1843;Google ScholarOrvis, John, “Letter to Rachel Barker,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, 9 03 1843.Google Scholar

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25. Hopper, Isaac T., Narrative of the Proceedings of the Monthly Meeting of New-York, and Their Subsequent Confirmation by the Quarterly and Yearly Meetings (New York, 1843).Google Scholar

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28. Hallowell, , James and Lucretia Mott, pp. 274–275;Google ScholarDugdale, , “Letter from Ohio”;Google ScholarBrooke, A., “Letter from Ohio,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, 24 11 1842;Google ScholarMcKivigan, John R., The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830–1865 (Ithaca, 1984).Google Scholar

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30. “Letter from Isaac T. Hopper,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, 18 January 1843; “The Society of Friends,” ibid., 18 June 1844; Hopper, Isaac T. letter, Pennsylvania Freeman, 30 06 1841.Google Scholar

31. Ingle, , Quakers in Conflict;Google ScholarMarietta, Jack D., The Reformation of American Quakerism, 1748–1783 (Philadelphia, 1984);Google ScholarHamm, Thomas D. et al. , “Moral Choices: Two Indiana Quaker Communities and the Abolitionist Movement,” Indiana Magazine of History 87 (1991): 145–147.Google Scholar

32. Wahl, Albert J., “Congregational or Progressive Friends in the Pre-Civil War Reform Movement”" (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 1951).Google ScholarThe Discipline was the code of regulations and conduct that defined the lives and faith of Friends. Each yearly meeting created its own, although there were few variations among them. See Bower, , “Hicksites and the Discipline,” pp. 118–119.Google Scholar

33. Dugdale, Joseph A., “Reform among the Quakers,” Centerville Indiana True Democrat, 27 03 1850.Google Scholar

34. Wahl, , “Congregational or Progressive Friends,” pp. 318–322;Google ScholarPerry, , Radical Abolitionism, pp. 231–267.Google Scholar