Anthony Benezet was a French-born American abolitionist and teacher who was active in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A prominent member of the abolitionist movement in North America, Benezet founded one of the world's first anti-slavery societies, the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. He also founded the first public school for girls in North America and the Negro School at Philadelphia, which operated into the nineteenth century. Benezet advocated for kind treatment of animals, racial equality and universal love.
The Religious Society of Friends began as a proto-evangelical Christian movement in England in the mid-17th century in Ulverston. Members are informally known as Quakers, as they were said "to tremble in the way of the Lord". The movement in its early days faced strong opposition and persecution, but it continued to expand across the British Isles and then in the Americas and Africa.
Friends Select School (FSS) is a college-preparatory, Quaker school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade located at 1651 Benjamin Franklin Parkway at the intersection of Cherry and N. 17th Streets in Center City Philadelphia. Quaker education in Philadelphia dates back to 1689. Friends Select, which was founded in 1833, has been located on this site since 1885.
Abigail Hopper Gibbons, née Abigail Hopper was an American abolitionist, schoolteacher, and social welfare activist. She assisted in founding and led several nationally known societies for social reform during and following the American Civil War.
Isaac Tatem Hopper was an American abolitionist who was active in Philadelphia and New York City in the anti-slavery movement and protecting fugitive slaves and free blacks from slave kidnappers. He was also co-founder of Children's Village with 23 others.
The Institute for Colored Youth was founded in 1837 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It became the first college for African-Americans in the United States, although there were schools that admitted African Americans preceding it. At the time, public policy and certain statutory provisions prohibited the education of blacks in various parts of the nation and slavery was entrenched across the south. It was followed by two other black institutions— Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (1854), and Wilberforce University in Ohio (1856). The second site of the Institute for Colored Youth at Ninth and Bainbridge Streets in Philadelphia was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. It is also known as the Samuel J. Randall School. A three-story, three-bay brick building was built for it in 1865, in the Italianate-style After moving to Cheyney, Pennsylvania in Delaware County, Pennsylvania its name was changed to Cheyney University.
Thomas Story Kirkbride was a physician, alienist, hospital superintendent for the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital, and primary founder of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (AMSAII), the organizational precursor to the American Psychiatric Association. Along with Benjamin Rush he is considered to be the father of the modern American practice of psychiatry as a specific medical discipline. His directive and organization of institutions for the insane were the gold-standard of clinical care in psychiatry throughout the 19th century.
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler was an American poet and writer from Pennsylvania and Michigan. She became the first female writer in the United States to make the abolition of slavery her principal theme.
Thomas Fitzsimons Junior High School, later The Young Men's Leadership School at Thomas E. FitzSimons High School, was a public secondary school that, in its final years, was a secondary school for boys. It was located at 2601 West Cumberland Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and was a part of the School District of Philadelphia. The school was named after Thomas FitzSimons, who was a signer of the Constitution of the United States.
Lucretia Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, women's rights activist, and social reformer. She had formed the idea of reforming the position of women in society when she was amongst the women excluded from the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840. In 1848, she was invited by Jane Hunt to a meeting that led to the first public gathering about women's rights, the Seneca Falls Convention, during which the Declaration of Sentiments was written.
The Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was established in 1832. Its present site, in the city's Overbrook neighborhood, was acquired in 1890. Along with the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children and the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, it is one of four state-approved charter schools for blind and deaf children in Pennsylvania.
Sodom Schoolhouse is a historic octagonal school in West Chillisquaque Township, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States reportedly built about 1812, 1835, or 1836 and used until 1915. It is located in a rural area on Pennsylvania Route 45 near several Scotch-Irish communities: the "small group of houses" formerly known as Sodom, which was about a mile east of the hamlet of Montandon, and about 3 miles east of a small town, Lewisburg.
St. Peter's School is an independent, coeducational, nonsectarian day school for children ages 3–14. Founded in 1834, it is located in the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Sarah Mapps Douglass was an American educator, abolitionist, writer, and public lecturer. Her painted images on her written letters may be the first or earliest surviving examples of signed paintings by an African American woman. These paintings are contained within the Cassey Dickerson Album, a rare collection of 19th-century friendship letters between a group of women.
By the mid-18th century, members of the Religious Society of Friends lived throughout the thirteen British colonies in North America, with large numbers in the Pennsylvania colony in particular. The American Revolution created a difficult situation for many of these Friends, informally known as "Quakers," as their nonviolent religious tenets often conflicted with the emerging political and nationalistic ideals of their homeland. Early in the conflict's history, Quakers participated in the revolutionary movement through nonviolent actions such as embargoes and other economic protests. However, the outbreak of war created an ideological divide among the group, as most Quakers remained true to their pacifist beliefs and refused to support any military actions. Nevertheless, a sizable number of Quakers still participated in the conflict in some form, and dealt with the repercussions of doing so.
The history of African Americans or Black Philadelphians in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has been documented in various sources. People of African descent are currently the largest ethnic group in Philadelphia. Estimates in 2010 by the U.S. Census Bureau documented the total number of people living in Philadelphia who identified as Black or African American at 644,287, or 42.2% of the city's total population.
Martha Schofield was a Hicksite Quaker abolitionist and suffragist who founded a school in Aiken, South Carolina, for freed African Americans.
Elijah Funk Pennypacker was a politician, abolitionist and station master in the Underground Railroad in the United States, in the years leading up to the American Civil War. He operated in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Pennypacker's home, White Horse Farm, was a safe house during the time that he participated in the Underground Railroad. As a station master in the Underground Railroad, Pennypacker reportedly aided hundreds of fugitive slaves in their escape to freedom, without any having been apprehended by authorities or by bounty hunters. He also served as a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, representing Chester County from 1832 to 1833 and from 1835 to 1836.
