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From: "Nancy BRANTINGHAM" <>
Subject: Re: [Q-R] Quakers and Music
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 15:39:20 -0500


Dear List:

I have been following the discussion on the list involving Quakers and music. I know that Friends Churches belonging to the "Gurney" split in 1845 soon had music, as well as preaching and alter calls, in their services.

I'm sure that the urge to have musical outlets was prevalent much before that with young people in the Society of Friends. A 1906 centennial book about Salem, Ohio has an account of life in early Salem written by Robert Painter, who came with his parents to Columbiana County in 1802. "Most of the settlers were Friends, and they built a log meeting house....When they wanted to have a big time the girls and boys would go out in the woods, clean off the leaves, when some would sing and some would dance, and so merrrily pass away the time; so we had tame animals as well as wild ones...."

Nancy B.

----- Original Message -----
From: Diana Owen
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 9:59 AM
To:
Subject: [Q-R] Quakers and Music

T Hamm,
Thank you so much for responding. What an interesting story !
But now I am even more confused...
-Why were NATHAN REED's daughter's, who came from musical ancestry (per
family lore), accepted as the wive's of son's of the BAILEY family with their
strong Quaker ancestry?
And ...the parents, Abidan Bailey(+Vashti Brooks) moved with Mahlon and
Malinda Reed Bailey to MN, so they appear to have been ok with the union.
Many thanks for your great response,
Diana

Thomas Hamm wrote:

> >Would music have been acceptable in the Quaker religion in the 1800's?
> >NATHAN REED, supposedly "a musician born in Scotland", had daughter's
> >Malinda and Amanda Reed, who married Mahlon and Anderson Eli Bailey.
> >These boy's father Abidan BAILEY is listed as a child on Quaker meeting
> >records in Indiana, so I am thinking Nathan Reed's family would probably
> >have been Quaker as well, but don't know if music was acceptable to
> >Quaker's in the mid 1800's.
> >Many thanks,
> >Diana
>
> The answer is complicated. The date really matters. In 1850, no
> group of Friends would have tolerated a musician member. By 1870,
> that was changing among many Friends, but not all. My own Earlham
> College is a good example. When we opened as Friends Boarding School
> in 1847, all musical instruments were banned, as was singing of any
> kind. (When the class of 1875 wanted to engage in an act of student
> rebellion, they did so by singing a hymn at commencement.) By the
> 1880s, however, we had a music department.
>
> T Hamm
>
> ==== QUAKER-ROOTS Mailing List ====
> Visit The Quaker Corner - http://www.rootsweb.com/~quakers


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