Race Street Meetinghouse | |
Location | 1515 Cherry Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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Coordinates | 39°57′20″N75°9′55″W / 39.95556°N 75.16528°W |
Built | 1856 |
NRHP reference No. | 93001610 [1] |
Added to NRHP | November 4, 1993 |
The Race Street Meetinghouse is an historic and still active Quaker meetinghouse at 1515 Cherry Street in the Center City area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [2] The meetinghouse served as the site of the Yearly Meeting of the Hicksite sect of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) from 1857 to 1955.
Built in 1856 by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and what is now known as Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, a building 131 feet long by 80 feet wide was set fairly close to its Cherry Street frontage but sufficiently far back from Race Street to provide a pleasant open yard. The structure built was not just one meeting house, but two, so arranged and divided that either party could dispose of its property without affecting the property of the other. Construction brought two meeting rooms 36 feet high, the northern chamber being 60 feet by 80; the southern, 46 by 80. Each had "youth's galleries" on three sides. Between the two meetinghouses, and exceeding them by 16 feet in total width, was a 25-by-96-foot three-story structure containing large rooms for committee meetings and other purposes. [3]
The Race Street Meetinghouse was at the forefront of women's involvement both in Quaker religion and in American political activism. [2] Many leaders in the Women's Movement were associated with this meetinghouse; these included abolitionist and women's rights activist Lucretia Mott, peace activist Hannah Clothier Hull, and suffrage leader and Equal Rights Amendment author Alice Paul. [4]
The meetinghouse was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993 for its role in the abolition of slavery, the advancement of women's suffrage, and the civil rights movement. [2]
The Meetinghouse is part of the Friends Center campus, which includes the National Office of the American Friends Service Committee, Friends World Committee for Consultation, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the United Nations Association. It is the site of a copy of Sylvia Shaw Judson's statue of Mary Dyer, the 17th-century Quaker martyr. [5] [6] [7] The Friends Meeting Center, built in 1974, was designed by Cope & Lippincott. [8]
George School is a private Quaker boarding and day high school located on a rural campus in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was founded at its present site in 1893, and has grown from a single building to over 20 academic, athletic, and residential buildings. Besides the usual college preparatory courses, including an International Baccalaureate program, the school features several distinct programs deriving from its Quaker heritage. These include community service requirements, an emphasis on social justice and environmental concerns, required art courses, and community-based decisionmaking.
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, or PYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States area, including parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.
A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held.
The Flushing Friends Quaker Meeting House, also the Old Quaker Meeting House, is a historic Quaker house of worship located at 137-16 Northern Boulevard, in Flushing, Queens, New York. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1967 and a New York City designated landmark in 1970. Today, it still serves as a Quaker Meeting, with meetings for worship taking place every Sunday.
The Arch Street Meeting House, at 320 Arch Street at the corner of 4th Street in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a Meeting House of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Built to reflect Friends' testimonies of simplicity and equality, this building is little changed after more than two centuries of continuous use.
The Buckingham Friends Meeting House is a historic Quaker meeting house at 5684 Lower York Road in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Built in 1768 in a "doubled" style, it is nationally significant as a model for many subsequent Friends Meeting Houses. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2003.
Birmingham Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house at 1245 Birmingham Road in Birmingham Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. The current meetinghouse was built in 1763. The building and the adjacent cemetery were near the center of fighting on the afternoon of September 11, 1777 at the Battle of Brandywine. Worship services are held weekly at 10am. The meetinghouse and adjacent octagonal schoolhouse were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Birmingham Friends Meetinghouse and School on July 27, 1971.
Bradford Friends Meetinghouse, also known as Marshallton Meeting House, is a historic Quaker meeting house located at Marshallton in West Bradford Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1764–1765, and is a one-story, stone structure with a gable roof. A porch was added to two sides of the building in the 19th century. The interior is divided into four rooms, rather than the customary two. Abraham Marshall, father of botanist Humphry Marshall was instrumental in the establishment of the meeting in the 1720s. The meeting originally met from 1722 to 1727 at the Marshall home, Derbydown Homestead, from 1722 to 1727.
Chichester Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house at 611 Meetinghouse Road near Boothwyn, in Upper Chichester Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. This area, near Chester, was one of the earliest areas settled by Quakers in Pennsylvania. The meetinghouse, first built in 1688, then rebuilt after a fire in 1769, reflects this early Quaker heritage. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
The Free Quaker Meetinghouse is a historic Free Quaker meeting house at the southeast corner of 5th and Arch Streets in the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1783, and is a plain 2 1⁄2-story brick building with a gable roof. The second floor was added in 1788. The building was moved about 30 feet (9.1 m) to its present site in 1961, to allow for the widening of Fifth Street.
Camden Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house located on Delaware Route 10 in Camden, Kent County, Delaware. It was built in 1805, and was still in operation as a Quaker meeting house when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. A modern Camden Friends Meeting and Social Hall has been built behind the historic building, which now serves the meeting, and was designed to be energy-efficient and architecturally respectful of the historic building.
Appoquinimink Friends Meetinghouse, also known as the Odessa Friends Meetinghouse, is a very small but historic Quaker meetinghouse on Main Street in Odessa, Delaware. It was built in 1785 by David Wilson and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Members of the meeting, including John Hunn and his cousin John Alston, were active in the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman may have hid in the meetinghouse. Measuring about 20 feet (6.1 m) by 22 feet (6.7 m), it may be the smallest brick house of worship in the United States.
Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house at 4th and West Streets in Wilmington, Delaware in the Quaker Hill neighborhood. The meeting is still active with a membership of about 400 and is part of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. It was built in 1815–1817 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
The Darby Meeting or Darby Friends Meeting House is located in Darby, Pennsylvania. The first recorded minutes of the meeting are dated July 2, 1684, not long after William Penn landed in nearby Chester to establish the colony of Pennsylvania. The first Friends meeting house in Darby was a log cabin built in 1687. The third and present building was built in 1805. It was used during the Revolutionary War by Continental soldiers. During the War of 1812, it was used by the U. S. Army as a hospital.
Twelfth Street Meeting House was a Quaker meeting house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was built on the west side of 12th Street, south of Market Street, 1812–1813, incorporating architectural elements from Philadelphia's Greater Meeting House (1755).
Friends meeting houses are places of worship for the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. A "meeting" is the equivalent of a church congregation, and a "meeting house" is the equivalent of a church building.
The Roaring Creek Friends Meeting House is a historic place of worship for members of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, in rural Columbia County, Pennsylvania, near Numidia on Quaker Meeting House Road.
The Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting is a monthly meeting (congregation) of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). First meeting in 1924, they were the first "United" monthly meeting, reconciling Philadelphia Quakers after the Hicksite/Orthodox schism of 1827. The original Meeting House, built in 1931, was located at 100 E. Mermaid Lane in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was replaced in 2012-2013 by the current meeting house, located at 20 E. Mermaid Lane, which incorporates a Skyspace designed by Quaker light artist James Turrell, the second such installation to be incorporated into a working religious space. The new Quaker meeting house is the first to be built in Philadelphia in eighty years.
The Progressive Friends, also known as the Congregational Friends and the Friends of Human Progress, was a loose-knit group of dissidents who left the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends (Quakers) in the mid-nineteenth century. The separation was caused by the determination of some Quakers to participate in the social reform movements of the day despite efforts by leading Quaker bodies to dissuade them from mixing with non-Quakers. These reformers were drawn especially to organizations that opposed slavery, but also to those that campaigned for women's rights. The new organizations were structured according to congregationalist polity, a type of organization that gives a large degree of autonomy to local congregations. They were organized on a local and regional basis without the presence of a national organization. They did not see themselves as creators of a new religious sect but of a reform movement that was open to people of all religious beliefs.
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Further reading