The Creation of Modern Quaker Diversity, 1830-1937

A century of splits, reunions and outward-looking conviction shaped the Society of Friends into the varied faith it is today. These essays follow Quakers from 1830 to 1937: their heavy involvement in abolition and women's rights, the growth of thriving Friends communities in the Global South, and the large-scale relief work of the American Friends Service Committee and Britain's Friends Service Council after the First World War.

Closer to home, the contributors trace the separations, particularly in the United States, that produced distinct branches of Quakerism, and the all-Quaker conferences of the early twentieth century that set its agenda. Stephen W. Angell and fellow scholars, including Thomas D. Hamm, Douglas Gwyn and Emma Jones Lapsansky, combine narrative with careful analysis. A substantial reference for historians of religion and for Friends who want to understand how their meetings came to differ so widely.