Ser.2 Founding committees and predecessor bodies to the Corporation, 1854-1868
Scope and Contents
Contains records of the bodies established prior to incorporation of the Swarthmore College, the informal meetings of Friends on the subject of education and establishment of a Boarding School, the establishment of the Friends Union Boarding School Association to plan and raise funds to accomplish the founding of the School and its successor, the Friends Educational Association, when the project expanded to include college-level education, and a listing of the first stockholders/subscribers to the Friends Educational Association. Also included is a time-line of the meetings of the Committees from the Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York Yearly Meetings (Hicksite) to the establishment of Swarthmore College as well as a listing of the Board of Incorporators and the first Board of Managers.
Conditions Governing Access
Permission to this material is restricted and requires the permission of the President of Swarthmore College or the Chairman of the Board of Managers of the College. Contact the repository for details. Where available, access is through microfilm.
Biographical / Historical
At the time of the 1827/28 Hicksite-Orthodox Separation in American Quakerism, the Orthodox branch retained control of many educational institutions, including the college preparatory schools Westtown School in Westtown, Pennsylvania, and Nine Partners Boarding School in Duchess County, New York. Haverford College was founded in Haverford, Pennsylvania, by Orthodox Friends in 1833. For a decade, members of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting Hicksite Friends had discussed the need for a boarding school to educate their children. On October 28, 1860 the first of several informal meetings to renew the discussion was held at the Baltimore home of Martha Ellicott Tyson. At this meeting, a committee was formed to support the project.
By 1861, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore Yearly Meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Hicksite) appointed members to undertake formal planning for a joint institution of higher education. The group that first met wrote a constitution to establish the Friends’ Union Boarding School Association which would plan and raise funds from the three Yearly Meetings for a school. In 1862, as the project grew to include a college-level program to train teachers for Friends schools, the Boarding School Association changed its name to, the Friends Educational Association. Current members of the Friends’ Union Boarding School Association became automatic stockholders in the Friends Educational Association. Friends from each of the three founding yearly meetings formed an Executive Committee to solicit subscriptions to the Friends Educational Association and elected a Board of Managers. Finally, on April 1, 1864, with the Act of Incorporation, by the Pennsylvania State Legislature to establish Swarthmore College, a new corporation was established. The Friends Educational Association was merged into Swarthmore College Corporation by resolution approved at the Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia on December 6, 1864.
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