By Mimi Fuchs

This Sunday, records from the oldest Quaker meeting in Philadelphia came to Haverford. The College celebrated the acquisition with the event “The Affairs and Service of Truth” at the Quaker and Special Collections of Magill Library.
The Quaker Collection currently holds over 35,000 printed volumes documenting the history of the Society of Friends over the past 400 years. This includes more than 700 manuscript journals that document a variety of topics, from international politics at the time, to the founding of Haverford College.
This recently acquired collection includes documents from the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia, with records dating back to 1664.  Covering a wide range of topics, from property disputes and deeds involving notable people such as Benjamin Franklin and William Penn, to the organization of Quaker meetings at the time, this collection shines light onto various aspects of significant Quaker history. Along with the collection, Haverford received the desk of Anthony Benezet, the famous abolitionist and educator.  
Previously, the records of the Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia were stored in the Arch Street Vault in Philadelphia.  The Arch Street Vault held over 728 cartons of papers, spanning over 300 years of historical data.  There was no electricity in the vault and no real organization of the records, making them virtually inaccessible to scholars hoping to find specific documents.
Over the past year, these records were moved to Haverford College, where they were categorized and labeled.
Emma Cox ’09, who was responsible for organizing the records and uploading extensive outlines to the library’s website, said that the task of organizing these records was “daunting to say the least.”  The online outline enables students and other researchers to have access to material that was previously hidden from the public.  
On Sunday, around 50 people came together to celebrate the transition of these documents from the Arch Street Vault to Haverford College. Emma Lapskanky-Werner, Professor Emeritus of History, and Maurice Jackson, a professor at Georgetown University, spoke about the various research opportunities this new collection will allow.
Lapsanky-Werner said that these documents are “not just for scholars, not just for students, but for everybody.”
Jackson said that access to these documents creates a “chance for some wonderful research papers.”
The Quaker Collection is currently located in Magill Library, but access to the indices is available to the public online at tripod.haverford.edu.

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