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Bean, Cox, Brinton, and Cary family papers

 Collection
Identifier: HC.MC-1349

Scope and Contents

This collection contains papers and documents from the Bean, Cox, Brinton, and Cary families. There are subseries of Joel Bean's, Howard H. Brinton's, and Anna Cox Brinton's materials. Significant Joel Bean documents include autobiographical writing such as Reflections of Childhood and a 1906 letter from Joel Bean to Rufus Jones. Anna Cox Brinton Materials include lecture recordings and writings from her time with the AFSC. Howard H. Brinton material include lecture recordings, published and personal works, correspondence, and sections from his autobiography. Other materials in the collection include various kinds of family documents, such as personal correspondence, marriage certificates, poetry books, a photo albums.

Dates

  • Creation: 1782 - 2000

Creator

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research use.

Use Restrictions

Standard Federal Copyright Law Applies (U.S. Title 17)

Biographical / Historical

Joel Bean (1825-1914) was born in New Hampshire to John and Elizabeth Bean. Following his education at Friends Boarding School in Rhode Island, he moved to West Branch, Iowa to teach from 1850-1861. There he met Hannah Elliot Shipley Bean (1830-1909), daughter of prominent Philadelphia Quakers Lydia and Tom Shipley, who had attended Westtown Boarding School and taught at Friends Select School and at Mary Anna Longstreth's School for the Higher Education of Girls. Hannah Shipley Bean had two siblings, Catharine Morris Shipley and Samuel Richards Shipley. The two married in 1859 and then did Quaker missionary work in Hawaii (then called the Sandwich Islands) from 1861-1862 and in Europe from 1872 to 1873. Joel became clerk for the Iowa Yearly Meeting in 1967, but when the couple returned from Europe they moved to San Jose, California because of their disagreements over the revivalist movement within the Iowa Meeting. In California they helped to create the College Park Association of Friends. To the shock of the surrounding Quaker community, the two were disowned by the Iowa Yearly Meeting in 1898, but then were taken in by the New England Yearly Meeting as ministers. They had two children: Lydia Shipley Bean, born in 1860, and Catharine Elizabeth Bean, born in 1865.

Lydia Shipley Bean (1860-1922) married Charles Ellwood Cox in 1884. Charles Cox (1854-1930) graduated from Haverford in 1880 and moved to California, where he met Lydia Bean, to become a mathematics professor at Stanford University and a prominent Quaker and public figure in the San Jose area. The couple had three children, two of which survived to adulthood: Anna Shipley Cox, born in 1887, and Catharine Morris Cox, born in 1890.

Catharine Elizabeth Bean (1865-1964) graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1889. She married Isaac Milton Cox in 1891 and had two children, Joel Bean Cox and Mary Morris Cox. The family moved to Hawaii due to Isaac’s poor health. She taught at the Punahou School and helped Anne Rice Cooke to establish the Honolulu Academy of Arts for which she served as director from 1927 to 1928.

Anna Cox (1887-1969) attended Westtown Boarding School and then received a PhD from Stanford in 1917. She joined the Philadelphia Meeting in 1918 and two years later was appointed to the AFSC child feeding program concentrated in northern Poland. She became a minister in the Society of Friends in 1928. In 1921 Cox married Howard Haines Brinton. Born in 1884 to two Quakers, Edward and Ruthanna Brown Brinton, Howard H. Brinton (1884-1973) earned a B.A. and M.A from Haverford College in 1904 and 1905 respectively. He then received another M.A. from Harvard University and a PhD from University of California in 1924. He taught at multiple institutions such as Friends Boarding School in Ohio and Pickering College. He also worked as a mathematics professor, dean, and acting president of Guilford College from 1915 to 1919. At the American Friends Service Committee Brinton worked as secretary and publicity director and as director of the child feeding program in the Plebiscite area of Upper Silesia in northern Poland, presumably where he met Anna Cox. He became a minister for the Society of Friends in 1927. Both Anna Cox Brinton and Howard H. Brinton were prominent Quakers who involved themselves in various programs and educational institutions. Both taught at Mills College, where Anna also served as dean of the faculty, and then at Earlham College. They became permanent directors of Pendle Hill in 1936 and both taught lectures and produced pamphlets there. They also worked with the AFSC in Asia, with Anna serving as the AFSC Commissioner for Asia beginning in 1948 and both representing the AFSC in Japan from 1952 to 1954 providing post-war relief. Anna also served as a member of the AFSC Board of Directors from 1938 to 1952 and served as president of the Friends Historical Association in the 1960s. Howard served as a lecturer at many institutions including Haverford College, Bryn Mawr College, and Harvard University, and authored several books including Creative Worship (1930), Divine Human Society (1938), Friends for 300 Years (1952), and more. Howard and Anna had four children: Edward, Catharine, Lydia, and Joan.

Catharine Cox (1890-1984) graduated with a PhD from Stanford University and became a professor of clinical psychology at the Yale Medical School. She also worked with Yale's Institute of Human Relations. After World War I she volunteered with the American Friends Service Committee to help provide war relief to German citizens. She married Walter Miles, another psychologist, in 1927 and had one daughter, Anna Miles Jones.

Catharine Morris Brinton (1924-2016), daughter of Howard and Anna Brinton, married John Richard Cary in 1951. She attended Westtown Boarding School and graduated from Antioch College. In 1945 she worked in the AFSC unit in the Pennsylvania Hospital and following the war she volunteered with the AFSC for their war relief efforts in Germany. After she and Cary married they moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania where Catharine taught at Haverford Friends School and Richard taught at Haverford College. The couple had four children: Margaret, Ruth, Joan, and Callie.

Sourced from: https://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/5012bean https://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/hcmc-1189 https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KZV7-GSS/lydia-richards-1789-1885 https://ysnews.com/news/2016/06/catharine-cary

Extent

2.214 linear ft. (5 boxes, 5 volumes)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

This collection contains papers and documents from the Bean, Cox, Brinton, and Cary families.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged by series by family generation and then chronologically.

Acquisition

Gift of Ruth Cary, Margaret Cary, Callie Cary-Devine July 2022.

Related Materials

Other manuscripts on this topic: Howard Haines Brinton and Anna Shipley Cox Brinton papers (MC 1189), Anna S. Cox Brinton family papers (MC 1228), Joel Bean papers (MC 950-017)

Processing Information

Processed by Campbell Adams, October 2023.

Title
Bean, Cox, Brinton, and Cary family papers
Author
Campbell Adams
Date
October, 2023
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

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