Customer Reviews

Quakers and the American Family: British Settlement in the Delaware Valley

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First rate social history.

In spite of the mid-eighteenth-century crisis and subsequent decline of Quakerism in Pennsylvania after the American Revolution, the importance of domesticity in the lives of the Pennsylvania Quakers was fundamental to all other aspects of Quaker society, and has had a far-reaching impact on American family life well beyond the colonial era. Quakers (as opposed to New England Puritan emphasis on patriarchy, or the importance of public order and display for the Anglicans) intentionally created the model for the "modern" American family ideal of domesticity for the new republic. While this child-centered, economically and morally self-sufficient model thrived in Pennsylvania from 1681 until the 1750s, its influence extended well beyond the eastern seaboard colonies and the eighteenth century. It became the model for the later and larger national expansion of the American republic.

Quaker domesticity shaped Pennsylvania's tendencies towards pluralism and republicanism. But it is ironic that the universalization of the Quaker family model coincided with the decline of Quakerism and the rise of a secular republican ideology lauded by various Enlightenment philosophes. "While the separation of church and state was the dominant trend in Anglo-American society, the Quakers actually increased the conflation of Quaker church and Pennsylvania state during the eighteenth century" (p. 155). While political Whigs held Quakers and their pacifism in contempt during the American Revolution, the fall of Quaker political hegemony in Pennsylvania led to a correlation between the private virtue embodied in their form of family life, and the non-authoritarian public virtue of republican political ideology. Pennsylvania's commercial economy and "liberal" society were touted as the model for the new American republic, and it was hoped that it would spread to both New England and the South. In essence, Quaker family ideals were distilled into a source for American culture in general. "The Pennsylvania Quakers originated and established the institution of the morally self-sufficient household in American society" (p. 22). Hence, the modern, Western, child-centered, conjugal, nuclear family as idealized and desperately needed today.

My 4 instead of 5 star rating (it rates a 4.5) is based on the
minor quibble that Levy ignores the downsides of 18th century Quaker family life, and does not explain why if everything was so nurturing and "free," so many Quaker children left the fold and out-married non-Quakers, and hence were banished from the Society of Friends.

For more on the long-term national cultural influence of colonial Quakerism readers should seek out David Hackett Fisher's book, "Albion's Seed."

Exploring, in detail, the evolution of Quaker cohorts from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, Levy produces a thorough and novel study of early Anglo-American culture in eastern Pennsylvania. His premise seeks to unravel traditional arguments, which advance the belief that New England served as the primary model, and the origin, for the modern American household. Levy convincingly argues that domestic systems developed through the Quaker families, and not New Englanders, who emigrated from northwestern England. There practices, he contends, shaped the modern American familial landscape and solidified the domestic household. The study, according to Levy, "of Quaker Farmers in the Delaware Valley is chiefly the study of the origins of an influential form of domesticity in American life." (21)

The opening chapters detail the subtle, but important, distinctions between Puritans and Quakers. The former, according to Levy, focused on patriarchy and institutions while the latter emphasized the importance of women in the household, child rearing, and "sanctifying human relations and domestic arraignments in households and meetings."(50) Levy continues to develop the aforementioned arguments throughout his work, and weaves a cohesive, but sometimes dense, narrative that adequately ties Quaker family practices to those adopted by American households today.

Most interesting is Levy's discussion of land in the Quaker community, which focused on the distribution of land to Quakers children, especially their sons. According to the author, about "three hundred acres would seem to ensure to their children's households protection from `the world' and enough peace to enjoy and exemplify the `Truth.'" (137) In a somewhat whimsical follow- up, the author noted that "Puritan farmers left land and not advice." (151) The importance of land in early Quaker culture underscores the national satisfaction that American contemporaries enjoy in land ownership. The author eloquently ties the aforementioned historical landscapes together, and provides a solid argument that Quaker's at least, in some fashion, molded American interest in private land ownership.

Another fascinating aspect of this work is Levy's careful attention to the role of females in Quaker communities. According to the author, women provided a pivotal familial dynamic which was central to the progression of Quakerism. In short, he noted that the Quaker social order "needed expert, hard- working female vessels of seemingly meek purity to embody and communicate `holy conversation' in intimate and public relations." (221) The evidence presented by the author is compelling, that Quaker woman shaped the nuclear family, and thus shaped contemporary American households.

The illustrations in the work supplement, and enhance the author's thematic concentration on Quaker domesticity, especially the oil and canvas sketches by Edward Hicks and Thomas Hillborn. The statistics, while adequate, are less supportive to the author's conclusion and their placement, along with the footnotes, at the end of the work prove to be a minor distraction to the reader.

This work is appropriate for both the colonial novices and experts, and those who have an appreciation for genealogical and religious studies. A really well written and well argued work that lends credence to the hypothesis that the modern American household was shaped more by the Quakers than the Puritans.