Cover image for A Vivifying Spirit: Quaker Practice and Reform in Antebellum America By Janet Moore Lindman

A Vivifying Spirit

Quaker Practice and Reform in Antebellum America

Janet Moore Lindman

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$119.95 | Hardcover Edition
ISBN: 978-0-271-09265-2

$32.95 | Paperback Edition
ISBN: 978-0-271-09266-9
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284 pages
6" × 9"
6 b&w illustrations
2022

A Vivifying Spirit

Quaker Practice and Reform in Antebellum America

Janet Moore Lindman

“Lindman’s pairing of textured descriptions of pious practices with accessible accounts of how the Society of Friends changed over time makes her book an excellent introduction to the history of Quakerism in 19th-century America, a study I would recommend students new to the field to consult first.”

 

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  • Bio
  • Table of Contents
  • Sample Chapters
  • Subjects
American Quakerism changed dramatically in the antebellum era owing to both internal and external forces, including schism, industrialization, western migration, and reform activism. With the “Great Separation” of the 1820s and subsequent divisions during the 1840s and 1850s, new Quaker sects emerged. Some maintained the quietism of the previous era; others became more austere; still others were heavily influenced by American evangelicalism and integration into modern culture.

Examining this increasing complexity and highlighting a vital religiosity driven by deeply held convictions, Janet Moore Lindman focuses on the Friends of the mid-Atlantic and the Delaware Valley to explore how Friends’ piety affected their actions—not only in the evolution of religious practice and belief but also in response to a changing social and political context. Her analysis demonstrates how these Friends’ practical approach to piety embodied spiritual ideals that reformulated their religion and aided their participation in a burgeoning American republic.

Based on extensive archival research, this book sheds new light on both the evolution of Quaker spiritual practice and the history of antebellum reform movements. It will be of interest to scholars and students of early American history, religious studies, and Quaker studies as well as general readers interested in the history of the Society of Friends.

“Lindman’s pairing of textured descriptions of pious practices with accessible accounts of how the Society of Friends changed over time makes her book an excellent introduction to the history of Quakerism in 19th-century America, a study I would recommend students new to the field to consult first.”
“[This] book provides an intimate look at Quaker life during the antebellum period, which should be considered essential reading for scholars of the Religious Society of Friends.”
“Overall a meticulously researched study of American Quakerism spanning the antebellum era, it is a significant contribution to Quaker History, the development of the early Republic, religious studies, and women’s history, with attention to the role of Quaker female leadership in nineteenth-century social reform.”

Janet Moore Lindman is Professor of History at Rowan University. She is the author of Bodies of Belief: Baptist Community in Early America and coeditor of A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Author’s Note: Dating System of the Religious Society of Friends

Introduction: Practical Friends

Part 1: Seed Time

1. “Inward and Outward Consolation”: Quaker Piety

2. “To Cultivate Tender Minds”: Educating Children

3. “The Solemn Close”: Rituals of Death

Part 2: Fruitless Exercise and Distress

4. “A Dividing and Separating Spirit”: The Hicksite Schism

5. “Contentions, Divisions, and Subdivisions”: Gurneyites v. Wilburites

6. “Practical Righteousness”: Reforming Friends

Part 3: A Work of Redemption

7. “In the Advancement of Piety”: Quaker Manuscript and Print Culture

8. “Tokens of Remembrance”: Friends, Memory, and History

Conclusion: American Quakerisms

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Download a PDF sample chapter here: Introduction