Friends Meeting at Cambridge Records

Scope of collection

Although the records of the Friends Meeting at Cambridge are beset with significant gaps, they are nevertheless a rich resource for examining the growth of a monthly meeting in New England during the post-World War II era and the commitment they showed to social activism.

The collection includes a nearly complete run of the meeting newsletter (called a Bulletin in its early days), extending from 1927 to 2010, but the minutes are clustered in two disjunct periods of time: 1937-1844, when the meeting was working to union with Boston, and from 1998 onward.

What is most notable about the collection, however, is the fortuitous survival of an exceptionally rich body of records falling primarily in the period 1955-1970. During this period, the meeting preserved an extensive body of correspondence and records of some of its committees, providing fascinating detail on Quaker concerns over social justice issues, especially civil rights and peace activism. Members of Cambridge Monthly were deeply involved in peace and antiwar activity, working with Peace Witness and Witness for Peace, supporting a Draft Information Center, and offering sanctuary to soldiers resisting service in Vietnam. From the late 1940s into the mid-1960s, the meeting also operating work projects and community initiatives, including a work camp in Roxbury.

Inventory