Educational Activities Of New England Quakers

In this investigation of Quakers in early America, Sarah Crabtree elaborates on the tensions caused by Quakers conception of themselves as people beholden not to states but to Christ. Quakers were no less than a triple threat to their governments because they claimed loyalties above and beyond the state, resisted the military strategies that were used to bolster the state, and became political activists pushing for reform. In resisting both the compulsion and the exercise of state power, Quakers put forth alternative definitions of nation and citizenand yet, many Quakers often found themselves drawn to political and social reform efforts that required recognizing and engaging with nations and states. Crabtree argues that the resulting conflicts between obligations to church and state illuminate similar contemporary conflicts."

American Historical Review is the oldest scholarly journal of history in the United States and the largest in the world. Published by the American Historical Association, it covers all areas of historical research.

From its inception in the 1660s as a millennial sect, the Society of Friends (Quakers) forged a truly Atlantic community. Its itinerant ministry, the Public Friends, reinforced religious ties across several continents and flourished despite the eighteenth and nineteenth-century wars for empire and independence that characterized the "Age of Revolution" (1750-1820) ... [This] project explores this conflict between religion and nation, arguing that the Society of Friends represented an alternative political identity and guiding principle at the turn of the nineteenth century.--From the author's abstract