Motherhood -- United States -- History

Letters from Hicksite Quaker Anna Betts to members of her family. Topics include religion, wedding invitations, and daily life.

Lydia Barton Cooke was a Philadelphia Quaker who joined the Hicksites in 1828. Diary entries include prayers, poems, descriptions of domestic duties, social calls from family and friends, Quaker meetings, and discussions of the health of her husband and children. Cooke's diaries also feature religious reflections, potentially concerning the separation between Orthodox and Hicksite.

Amy Fenimore was a Quaker from Philadelphia. Her diary entries largely focus on prayers and religious reflection, and many describe Quaker meetings, and births, deaths, and marriages within the Quaker community. Entries during the years 1832-1833 discuss the Hicksite-Orthodox Quaker separation.

The letterbook of Sarah Logan Fisher includes personal correspondence. The majority of letters are written to Fisher's family members, including her brother, Charles Fisher, and her cousin, Mary Arch, as well as a number of unnamed cousins. Letters largely concern family and friends, and births, deaths, and marriages within the Quaker community.

Anne Moore was a Quaker minister from 1738 to 1783. Journal entries detail her travels as a Quaker minister to Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, parts of New England, and England. Entries also provide descriptions of Quaker meetings, visits from Friends, and Moore’s reflections on religion and advice for her children.

Margaret Hill Morris was a colonial Quaker woman who lived outside of Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War. The entries detail Morris’s experiences during the early years of the war, including her fears for her family, the movement through her town of various military groups, and her treatment of the sick and injured at surrounding military camps.

Katherine T. Paxson was a Quaker author and poet. Journal entries describe Quaker meetings, prayers and religious reflection, attendance at writing conferences and workshops, as well as visits with family and friends, and daily housework.

The commonplace books of the Shoemaker family include advice, reflections, excerpts of letters, prose, poetry, and excerpts organized by topic, including matrimony, happiness, pleasure, and character.

This collection includes three bound volumes of handwritten transcriptions and extracts of Ann Head Warder’s diaries, originally written between 1786 and 1789. The transcriptions were written by later family members during the 19th century. Diary entries describe Ann’s voyage to America and her travels within New York and Pennsylvania, including people she met, Quaker meetings she attended, and social calls made during her travels.

Ann Cooper Whitall's diary entries focus on descriptions of Quaker meetings, illnesses within her family and community, reflections on religion and the perceived failure of Whitall’s community to live up to its ideals, and discussions concerning effective child-rearing practices.