Quaker History in 8 Minutes

Quaker History in 8 Minutes - to learn more and really understand, see the long version!

• 1450 Printing press introduced; Gutenberg Bible published in Latin 5 years later
• 1522 Luther printed the Bible in Middle German
• 1525 Tyndale Bible in English printed
• 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome, Anglican Church established
• 1611 King James I Authorized Bible widely distributed
• 1624 George Fox born
• 1647 George Fox epiphany, “There is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak to thy condition.”
• 1649 Charles I executed; Oliver Cromwell and Puritans govern until 1658
• 1652 George Fox has a vision on Pendle Hill of establishing a group; Westmoreland Seekers and Margaret Fell convert
• 1654 “Valiant 60” missionary work throughout Great Britain, Ireland and northern Europe
• 1656 First Friends arrive in America. Others set off for the Vatican and the Sultan of Constantinople to attempt to convert them.
• 1659-61 Four Quakers hanged by the Puritans on Boston Commons; anti-Quaker laws enacted in Virginia
• 1661 First General Meeting held in Newport, RI, start of New England Yearly Meeting, oldest such meeting in the world.
• 1668 First Quaker schools formed in England; London Yearly Meeting established
• 1672-1673 George Fox travels to Barbados, Jamaica and from the Carolinas to RI
• 1676 Robert Barclay’s An Apology for the True Christian Divinity published
• 1681 Penn obtains charter for Pennsylvania; Philadelphia Yearly Meeting established
• 1688 Germantown Meeting protests slavery
• 1689 Robert Barclay dies
• 1691 George Fox dies
• 1702 Margaret Fell dies
• 1756 Quakers relinquish control of the Pennsylvania legislature over the French and Indian War
• 1758 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting condemns slaveholding by Friends
• 1783 First “Book of Extracts” (Book of Discipline) published in Britain
• 1796 York Retreat, first modern mental hospital, founded by Friends in Britain
• 1813 Elizabeth Fry starts prison reform work in Newgate Prison in London
• 1817 Friends Asylum, first modern mental hospital in the United States, founded in Frankford, Philadelphia
• 1825 First passenger railroad in England
• 1827-1828 The Great Separation between Hicksite and Orthodox sects occurs
• 1837 Joseph John Gurney travels to America
• 1843 Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-Slavery Friends separates from Indiana Yearly Meeting
• 1845 Gurneyite-Wilburite separation of New England Yearly Meeting
• 1846 Quaker Levi Coffin settles in Cincinnati and becomes the “president” of the underground railroad
• 1845-47 Quakers provide famine relief in Ireland
• 1848 Lucretia Mott and other, mainly Quaker, women organize the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention
• 1854 Gurneyite-Wlburite separation in Ohio
• 1859 Endogamy (marriage only within the Quaker faith) ends in Britain
• 1860 Conference held in Archworth, England to consider new forms of foreign missionary work by Friends
• 1862 American Quakers start relief and education work for former slaves
• 1866 Rachel Metcalf sent by British Friends to do missionary work in India; American Quakers undertake supervision of Native American agencies in Nebraska, Kansas, and Indian Territory; Sybil and Eli Jones are sent by New York Yearly Meeting as missionaries to Ramallah to establish a girls’ school
• c. 1875 Introduction of “pastoral system” (of ministers) among American Friends
• 1895 Manchester Conference in England - began Summer Schools and culminated in the opening of Woodbroke Quaker Study Center in 1903
• 1900 Friends General Conference established
• 1902 Five Year Meeting (FYM), later named Friends United Meeting (FUM), established
• 1903 Willis Hotchkiss, Arthur B. Chilson and Edgar Holes sent by FYM to East Africa
• 1909 First fully united male and female London Yearly Meeting
• 1914 British Friends establish War Victim’s Relief Committee. Friends Ambulance Unit created to provide care for soldiers and civilians in World War I
• 1917 American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) founded
• 1919-24 Friends have feeding programs for German children, expanded to Poland, Russia, and other European countries
• 1937 Friends World Committee for Consultation established
• 1937-39 Friends provide nonpartisan relief work in the Spanish Civil War
• 1939-47 Quakers provide relief work in Europe and Asia
• 1940 Civilian Public Service Camps for conscientious objectors , established by the government and administered by AFSC
• 1945 New England Yearly Meeting reunites
• 1946 East Africa Yearly Meeting formed, the first in Africa
• 1947 Nobel Prize awarded to AFSC and Friends Service Council (Britain)
• 1947 Association of Evangelical Friends founded; formalized in 1963 as the Evangelical Friends Alliance; then in 1990 Evangelical Friends International (EFI)
• 1955 Hicksite-Orthodox schism healed - Meetings united in New York, Canada and Philadelphia
• 1967 Separated Yearly Meetings in the Middle Atlantic states form the consolidated Baltimore Yearly Meeting
• 1999 EFI / Africa Region opens the Great Lake School of Theology in Burundi