Building, arch street Meeting House, a quaker place of worship, also a little bit about quakers. A lot of our visitors dont know much about the religion before they get here, which is an interesting issue. You go on a tour of perhaps the catholic church, one of those historic cathedrals, people usually have sort of background knowledge. And we have found our visitors dont. We answer a lot of questions about whether or not quakers are puritans so we do basic education. The arch street Meeting House is the largest quaker Meeting House in the United States and maybe the world. We are looking into it. The land that the properties built on seeded in 1701 by william penn. The property outside his first fairground in pennsylvania. Im sure we will get to that later. At the beginning of our tours that we normally do with visitors and school groups, we have them look around the space. It is outside the norm. We have people look around and let us know what is different here versus other historic religious sites they have been to. A lot of times, they notice there arent stainedglass windows, large golden candles, or even a place for a priest, or deacon to stand and give a sermon, or Something Like that. Thats because quakers worship in a way that is different from most folks. Its a christian religion. On a typical sunday, the this is still an active congregation that meets here for worship. What happens now and what happened to hundred years ago is pretty similar in philadelphia. Silenceather and sit in for an hour. Historically, people gather in this space, that would be quakers that youve heard of from history, such as susan b anthony, william penn, Lucretia Mott they would mean meet in buildings similar to this. They would sit in silence for one hour. If anybody in the group, congregation felt the desire to stand up and share a message, if they felt moved to speak, they could rise from the silence and share what they had to share. A question we get often is, what would the quakers have said during worship . We like to throw it back to history because it is easier at a site like this to say when susan b. Anthony had a message, it was probably related to womens rights and suffrage because that is what she was fighting for and on her mind. Lucretias sermons relate to abolition and freeing slaves. Today, it can vary. Adults and children are treated with equality as well. I have been to meetings where children will stand up and give messages. It can be really moving to hear what they have to say about their experiences. In 1814, we know that there were 600 adult members of the meeting that worshiped here. We can tell by the law of averages that they would have had children. Sunday,on a typical this room would have been filled with 600 or so adult sitting down here. They probably had a few kids each. Would haveupstairs been filled with 1200 people here. It would have been filled to the rafters with quakers. Nowadays when we have worship, theres about 60 to 70 people. Back in 1814 when the children did worship, they were seated upstairs. The boys would have been sat on that side of the room. On those benches. The girls wouldve been on the opposite side. They were separated by a big piece of wood. It is not up there any longer but it would have been in the center and would have separated them. There were also adults up there, making sure they were behaving appropriately in the space. Another thing thats really interesting, quakers they say that they are the original recyclers. If it was broken they would fix it. We have an example of this called a modesty panel. It is an extra piece of wood that would have shielded the view of their ankles as they walked up the steps to go to their area for worship. One thing that i really like to tell visitors, but they dont get to see a lot, because theyre not going to upstairs, theres graffiti. Its carved into the wood. It is predominantly on this side of the room were little boys would have been worshiping. It dates back ive seen i think the earliest i have seen is from 1819 and appears to be in times new roman font. Times change, but not everything changes. Another thing a lot of people ask us about our the benches in general. You can see this room is filled with benches. They dont all look the same. Some of them have the wide slats at the back. Other ones are a lot more narrow, basically just this part, not this part. We have done a lot of work looking at the benches and the construction. We have learned that most of them were built with just the top slat. The bottom panel was added for comfort later. When the building was built in 1804, they had to sell off other quaker Meeting Houses in order to afford to create such a large building that they did. They just took the benches from the other Meeting Houses and brought them here. The earliest we have is thought to have been from 1685. That is in a space where quakers currently worship. They can go and sit on these if they feel the desire. As you can also see on these benches, there are these questions. Cautionushions. These are the original cushions that were here in 1804. They have been recovered. This pattern is not the original material on the outside. What is exciting for visitors to hear is that the original horsehair is inside. When you touch them, we ask the children to guess whats in there. It feels like and sounds like a when you switch it. They are magnificent and creative. It is usually an adult that says horsehair. Another thing we like to point out when talking about the architecture of the space as i mentioned earlier, during quaker worship, everyone sits in silence. It became obvious hearing was an issue. If you are a large Meeting House like this one, it is so big that they want everyone to hear everyones message to the person back there needs to be able to hear what the person appear was saying and they need to figure out how to do that. This was before microphones. Between aese letters member of the monthly meeting of friends of the lid off yet and benjamin latrobe, an architect a lot of people know of. They were discussing this issue , how do we solve this and improve the acoustics of the space . He came up with what is at the front of this room, its i have read dissertations that scholars have written about this particular feature because some other sites have it as well and it has been called a sounding board or a sounding panel. That is supposed to the curved nature of the piece is supposed to make it so that the shoots the of it voices out throughout the entire building and makes it easier to hear. I have heard other people describe it as it gathers voices as well. It works in two ways. We need to do a lot more research on this particular piece. So this room, which we know as the west room, was used as the joint place where men and women had worship. There is also another space identically as large that used to be outfitted with benches, but they were taken out in the 1930s, when men and women started to meet together for all the functions of this building. They no longer needed separate spaces. As a multipleed purpose space and where we have some of our exhibits currently under construction. I would love to take you over to see that now. Now we are headed into the east room. The space, as a mentioned earlier is nearly identical to , the room that we were just in called the west room. You can see the benches up front are the same but the benches , throughout the rest of the space have been removed. Now this is used as a multipurpose space. This is currently set up for events that we had this past weekend for the mayors office. On this table are headstones that were once outside in the Burial Ground. As you will see later, the property here is about two acres. It is the First Burial Ground in philadelphia. What is interesting is there are not visible headstones on the property. People walkes through thinking it is a beautiful park without realizing there are nearly 20,000 bodies buried underneath their feet. Grounds created before the 1850s did not use headstones. It was seen as against the rules. It was also seen as vain. There was an actual quaker ruling set out said gravestones were supercilious, a great word. Some people still wanted headstones. You might see a few headstones at some quaker Burial Grounds. But here, they ended up taking the existing headstones and laying them down and covering them over with dirt. They did not want to get rid of them or throw them away. They are still out on the property. We have come across a few doing routine maintenance outside. And we haverfaced brought them in for safer keeping. Here are a few of them. One thing i find to be incredibly interesting is we have all been to cemeteries where you can barely make out the persons name. They are so why dont you struggle to see what was written. But these look like they were cut yesterday. That is because this ruling past about the headstones happened in the mid1700s. Her headstone was not up for very long so it was not out in the rain and weather for very long before it was covered over or put inside of the building. Another interesting artifact that we have on the site is wooden sled. Its a funerary sled. It would have been used on the property to bring the bodies to their final resting place. We have had some experts look at it. They have said it looks like it or earlyhe late 1700s 1800s. These exhibits were standing in front of now were created for the american bicentennial in 1976. There were a lot of people coming to philadelphia and the quakers wanted to invite them to tell Meeting House them more about the founding of the city and other things about quaker history. Is the story of william penn. It is an interesting story to tell. Arama is whene ram william penn first starts thinking about quakerism. He has learned about it and gone to meeting for worship. He knows it is in conflict with his father who is seated at the end of this, who was an admiral in the navy. Quakers are pacifists. So by him becoming a quaker, he was going against his family and his father. It was a really difficult choice for him to make. Here, william penn is explaining to his father that he has found this new religion and can no longer carry the sword. The next is an image of william penn in jail. A lot of people are shocked when they hear early quakers and even modern quakers do end up being jailed for their beliefs. Here he is in prison. You can see there are some other folks. There are women. One of the stories that we hope pennll beyond william having been in prison is the story of other quakers who work. She was imprisoned for picketing outside the white house for womens suffrage. She really wanted the right to vote. She was standing outside with big signs. She got hauled to jail. She did a hunger strike. These experiences in prison also got quakers involved in Prison Reform movements. Eastern state penitentiary in pennsylvania was founded with help from quakers who had these sort of experiences firsthand. Diorama is of william penn making a treaty with native americans. Back to the quaker idea of equality, william penn and other quakers viewed native americans as equal. Other europeans in the United States may not have taken the same approach. This is to tell that story of fair dealing with native americans, and how that was different in pennsylvania versus other places. This tells the story of the founding of philadelphia. William penn had a big hand in designing the city. Not only a lot of the streets named after prominent quakers. But the way william penn originally laid them out, they are named after trees because quakers would have preferred not to name streets after themselves. That is sort of not vain, but close to vain. In philadelphia, youll see there is walnut, chestnut. The main roads are named after trees instead of people. Now you will walk around and see other streets named after quakers. You start getting involved in quaker history, you can really point them out on the map. Exhibits we have now start over starts with this quote. This quilt was created a group of women called the house of industry. They were active in philadelphia after they took up quaker arms , after the yellow fever epidemic. They noticed that there were a lot of women left widowed who had children to take care of and they needed to find a way to help those women by providing clothing and services. But also, to give women the opportunity to work for wages. Industry was active. This quilt we have is an emblem of quaker activism, even though its just a quilt. But each individual square is signed by a woman who was working with the house of industry. They were giving this signature when to the head matron she was retiring. In this next case, we are highlighting the work of a quaker artist. Was edward hicks. Some people might be familiar with the Peaceable Kingdom artwork. One thing people know about quakers is that they were simple and plain. When edward hicks learned his passion in life was painting and art, it was in direct conflict with his religion. At one point, he was a quaker minister. People saw that he was doing this work which was seen to be adornment. It was not just useful. Thats what quakers were in the habit of having. People suggested that he become a farmer instead. These were people who were his mentors and elders in his worship community. A farmer instead. He knew he still wanted to be a painter. He tried farming and failed that it areas its interesting. Heres some examples. He was painting signs. You can see that he was selftrained. They are not extra flamboyant or anything like that. They are simple and plain in their own way. The reason we tell his story is because he is a quaker and we have these childrens blocks handpainted by edward hicks. This was probably the beginning of the 1830s that these were made. Ive heard that there is only one other set that exist. Its really rare and great that we have those. This blown up image here is of outside of the Meeting House on the bricks that pave the way out there. This is the door right next to us here. Youll see there is a group of men here standing outside of the Meeting House. One thing i like to point out to visitors is the differences in their hats. This was a Pivotal Moment in fashion history. Some men were wearing bowler hats and others were wearing flat top hats. Its interesting to see the dynamic, to think about why he chose the round, he chose the flat. With more research, i am sure fashion historians know. Weve heard because of the hat styles, it probably was from the 19s that this was taken. In this case here, we have some silhouettes. I think a lot of people are familiar with the art of silhouettes. Most children go to some sort of colonial Historic Site where you get your silhouette made. Quakers really embraced this art form, versus portraiture. Portraiture would have been seen as fancier. It takes time when you have to sit for a portrait. You are seated for a long amount of time which shows that you have free time, which shows how rich you might be. It was an emblem of wealth. Quakers really had a commitment to simplicity and plainness, and doing things that were useful. So silhouettes were a more simple way of having a likeness of yourself created. These are just a few examples that we chose to tell that story. This one is Lucretia Mott who a lot of people know. She was an ardent abolitionist. Some of the others are just interesting that they chose to depict themselves Holding Plants or knitting for instance. The young girl in the center its probably hard to make out , here, but she actually has a crutch. You can see this little piece hanging up from beneath her foot. Thats a crutch. Its really interesting, its so simple but to start to look deeper, you do see all these details of who these people really were. This next case is about the construction of this house. What i didnt mention, the Meeting House was built by a r. Aker named owen biddle, j the comes from a family really active in quaker circles. In 1804, he did was to go to architecture school. I was not a thing, there were not architects. He referred to himself as a builder. What we have here are some of his tools that he left inside the building. They have his initials on them. Both found in the lentil above the porticos we have outside. This image shows you to it was the top rectangular box. They were doing some restoration work in the 1960s. They sort of fell out onto the restoration workers. We have heard since that early builders would leave tools as sort of their calling card saying i was here, this is my , work. We have them on display. We chose not to put them back up into the woodwork. Also some of the original nails and hinges. We also have the plans of the building here. This is a reproduction of cour course. These look a lot different than the blueprints you see nowadays. You can see how he laid it out, and all ofnt spaces, the graphs that he built into the design of this space. Down here are some comically large keys that go to different places. This is the front door key originally. The other thing owen biddle is famous for is writing a book called the young carpenters assistant. Not only did he care about doing the construction itself, but there was a lack of real educational tools for other people to learn how to do this sort of work, beyond just apprenticeship. He wrote one of the first guide books and reference books to teach people how to do construction work. This right here is an example taken directly from his book. Pillar looks exactly like the pillars we have here. When people enter this property, theres a brick walls once they come in through the brick wall, they are surprised at how large this building really is. Its hard to capture it, its so long, barely fits even into the frame. If you notice on the facade, its really plain adheres well. Nothing fancy. There is no steeple, something that you commonly see another in other churches in the area and beyond. The meetings are known as monthly meetings. There are monthly meetings all over this area of philadelphia, and all over the country, the world. These are basically the congregations. Once a year, the congregations from this area get together. They have been doing this since the religious society of friends was founded, for a meeting of everybody together in one place. This is called annual session. This building is built large enough to hold all those people at once in one place. One of the legends that exist here at arch street Meeting House is the story about this brick wall. It was originally built that when this was Burial Ground. The way it goes, the wall was originally about 45 feet high. You can sort of see the difference in the color of the bricks here. When the yellow fever epidemic swept through philadelphia in 1793 around those years, the story is that 10 of the population of philadelphia died during that time. The city was overwhelmed with the bodies of sick people. , someory is that at night folks would throw them over the wall to the arch street Burial Ground property. The quakers would take care of them. Weve also heard that there are mass graves on the property where the yellow fever victims would have been buried. Shortly after the yellow fever epidemic ended, quakers raised the wall to eight or nine feet. I have heard a number of Different Reasons for why that might have been raised, but youve got to assume it has something to do with their experience during the yellow fever epidemic. Sometimes you may hear quakers referred to as friends, usually with a capital f. Thats because the formal name is actually the religious society of friends. The religious society of friends theformed in england in 1650s by a number of people but prominently george fox. The leaders in england didnt agree with the english church, and all the stuff we talked about today, simplicity and plainness, the church and then total complete and opposition to that. Things were fancy, wasnt all about worship, the quakers wanted to pair that down and only do things that they felt were useful, things that were connecting them to god. They wanted to remove all the artifice, maybe, the middlemen. They thought that they could communicate directly with god. They saw Everything Else as being superfluous. A lot of the early quaker leaders were actually jailed for their beliefs. If they were on street corners preaching, they could be thrown in prison for speaking out the way that they were about the quaker beliefs. The persecution they faced in england was one of the main reasons they started to come to america. They originally lived in new jersey, pennsylvania area. Its another reason why william penn was so motivated to come and start the colony of pennsylvania, to get away from the persecution going on in europe at the time. Arch street Meeting House is important because it is an emblem of early social activism. Quakers are well known for being people who have led and inspired others to get involved in social justice work. I mentioned suffrage, abolition, environmental movements, Prison Reform, Mental Health services, quakers have always been active in this kind of work. Arch street Meeting House is a place to learn about that history. It happened on the benches in theire. Its a really great place for us to tell that story to visitors. Its more than just quakers history, it is all of our history. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. History professor Gregg Brazinsky discusses the competition between the United States and china to influence newly independent african and Asian Countries during the cold war. He is the author of winning the world sinoamerican rivalry during the cold war. This 90minute event was cohosted by the Woodrow Wilson center and the National History center. Todays seminar featuring gregg is cosponsored by the Woodrow Wilson center asterisk prm