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Quaker Women
by Sheila Shinn
Quaker women shared vocal ministry with men from the beginning. By 1656, the
Women's Meeting for Business had begun with Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly
Meetings established (yes, these were separate). Often, the women dealt with the
care of the poor, sick, and imprisoned described by Howard H. Brinton as "matters felt
to be a particular interest to women."
In marriage services, a Quaker woman was never required to promise "to obey" her
husband.
Friends valued education for women as well as men. Brinton calls "the coeducational
Quaker boarding school. . .a unique institution." This resulted in Quaker women
becoming leaders of social causes and change. For example, of the five women who
planned the Seneca Falls convention on women's rights (1848), four were members of
the Religious Society of Friends.
Elizabeth Haddon Estaugh, one of the earliest New Jersey Quakers, came to the
colonies in 1701, became a colonial proprietor and founded Haddonfield, NJ. She
was 21. She served as clerk of the Women's Meeting for almost 50 years. At the
bicentennial celebration, a tablet honoring her as "founder and proprietor was placed
near her grave in the Friends burying ground.
Mary Dyer defied a 1656 Massachusetts law against "the cursed sect of heretics. .
.commonly called Quakers" and was imprisoned in Boston. Two years later, by a
single vote, Massachusetts made being a Friend a capital offense. She and two of her cohorts,
determined "to look the bloody laws in the face," were sentenced to die. " The three
Quakers were led through the streets to the gallows with drums beating to prevent
them from addressing the people." She received a last minute reprieve that time, but
the next year she again was condemned and was hanged on June 1, 1660, becoming
a "witness" for freedom of conscience. In 1959, a statue was erected in her memory on
the grounds of the State House in Boston.
Laura Smith Haviland helped to form the first abolitionist society in Michigan. As an
operative on the Underground Railroad she traveled many times through Ohio,
Indiana, Michigan and into Canada to help slaves escape. In 1879, she went to
Kansas and worked with Elizabeth Comstock (another Quaker) to help the freedmen
who had moved to that state after the war. She is buried in the Friends cemetery near
Adrian, Michigan, and a statue in that town honors her work.
Maria Mitchell of Nantucket, a renowned American astronomer, was the first women
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the 1860's, she became a
Professor of Science at Vassar - one of the first in the nation. While there she fought for
salaries equal to those of male faculty members.
This list could go on and on, but all good things must end. For further reading, you
might enjoy Women of Power and Presence by Maureen Graham, Contributions of
the Quakers by Elizabeth Janet Gray, and Nine Contemporary Quaker Women
Speak, compiled by Leonard S. Kenworthy. All are in our library.
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