Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture 2020: The Road to Pendle Hill

Ninety years ago, American Quakers embarked on an almost unprecedented experiment, to open a study center that would meld contemplation and activism and focus Quaker energies to advance what they called “The Kingdom of God.” But the road to Pendle Hill was complicated. That road led through both England and North America. Along the way, it included encounters with chocolate, the Salvation Army, Bible colleges, communitarians committed to folk dancing and goat herding, Harvard professors, and Quakers behaving badly, as well as, of course, a variety of luminous Friends.

This Cary Lecture will tell the story of how a central Quaker institution, Pendle Hill, came to be founded.

Leader(s)

“Quaker Writings: An Anthology, 1650-1920” (Penguin Classics)

Tom Hamm is Professor of History, the Trueblood Chair in Christian Thought, and Director of Special Collections at Earlham College. From Spiceland, IN, Tom is a member of West Richmond Friends Meeting, Indiana Yearly Meeting. Tom has been a speaker and workshop leader at Pendle Hill and has served multiple terms on the Pendle Hill Board. He has also been involved with the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, Friends Association for Higher Education (FAHE), Friends United Meeting (FUM) Triennial, GFC, Friends United Press, Society of American Archivists, American Historical Association, and the Indiana Library and Historical Board.

Tom has written numerous articles on Quaker history as well as five books, including The Quakers in America (2003) and an anthology published in 2011 by Penguin Classics, Quaker Writings: An Anthology, 1650-1920.

The Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture was endowed by Norval and Ann Reece and established in 2004 in concert with Pendle Hill’s publication of Steve Cary’s memoir, The Intrepid Quaker: One Man’s Quest for Peace.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill.