Activists and Reformers of Longwood
Longwood Progressive Friends
Speakers at the Annual Meetings
1855 to 1940
1. William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was an abolitionist, newspaper editor, and publisher of The Liberator, and one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society. He became a leading advocate of immediate emancipation and racial equality and also supported women’s rights, peace and nonresistance, and other nineteenth-century reforms.
Subjects He Discussed at Longwood:
- Slavery, emancipation, and racial equality: abolition; slavery and the Civil War; the memorial to President Lincoln for emancipation; the end of slavery; freedpeople and Reconstruction; Black suffrage and racial equality
- Peace and nonresistance: war and peace; nonresistance; armed enforcement; opposition to military preparation; international arbitration and fellowship
- Religion and free thought: religion and moral responsibility; public prayer; Christianity; church and state; the Bible and claims of infallibility; freedom to test religious belief
- Women’s rights and suffrage: the co-equality of women; woman’s rights; the Woman Question; universal and impartial suffrage; equal political rights
- Other social reforms: capital punishment; prison reform; temperance; tobacco; the labor question; common schools; kindness to animals; simplicity of living
2. Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony was a leading organizer and speaker in the American women's voting-rights movement. Raised in a Quaker family, she also worked in antislavery and temperance reform and collaborated closely with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in campaigns for women’s legal and political equality.
Subjects She Discussed at Longwood:
- Women’s voting rights: woman’s rights; equal suffrage; motion to appoint the chairman to draft the meeting’s suffrage testimony
- Routes to enfranchisement: state suffrage campaigns; legislative and municipal approaches; appeals to Congress; a proposed federal constitutional amendment
- Temperance and women’s political power: licensing; medical alcohol; prohibition enforcement; the need for women voters to help elect officials who would enforce temperance laws
3. Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Mott was a Quaker minister, abolitionist, and advocate for women’s rights whose reform work centered on human equality. She helped organize the 1848 Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention, helped organize the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and in 1866 became the first president of the American Equal Rights Association.
Subjects She Discussed at Longwood:
- Religion, religious liberty, and Progressive Friends: organization, religious liberty, equality, and the purposes of Progressive Friends; conceptions of God and religious truth; liberal religion; religion and reform; spiritual-mindedness; testimony on religion; religious truth and spiritual life
- Women’s rights: woman’s rights and reform; the Woman Question; rights of women; dress reform
- Reform work and education: contributions and support of reform work; itinerant reform meetings and support for reform lecturers; education; warning against conservatism and openness to truth
- Spiritualism: discussion of Spiritualism within the meeting’s broader religious debates
- National affairs and liberal ideas: the state of the country and the advance of liberal ideas
3. Frederic A. Hinckley
Frederic A. Hinckley was a Unitarian minister and reformer who wrote on labor questions and supported woman suffrage. He became the longtime presiding clerk of the Longwood meetings, where from 1883 through 1905 he delivered addresses and took part in discussions on religion, labor, temperance, education, suffrage, race, imperialism, peace, economic reform, and public affairs. He should not be confused with the visiting Frederic Hinckley of Newburgh, who appeared at Longwood in 1885.
Subjects He Discussed at Longwood:
- Religion and free thought: religion and morality; conscience; practical religion; truth-seeking; religious tolerance; heresy-hunting; spiritual awakening; prayer; evolution and religious thought
- Labor and economic reform: the labor question; poverty and inequality; labor organization and cooperation; responsibility of employers; the Chicago strike; the coal strike; industrial rights
- Temperance and social conditions: temperance; alternatives to saloons; the social causes of drinking; Universal Temperance; the Norwegian liquor-control system
- Education and the young: religious education; moral education and manual training; Educational Reconstruction; the American public school; constructive criticism of schools
- Women’s rights, citizenship, and racial justice: woman suffrage; women’s changing educational, occupational, marital, and political position; good citizenship; Black voting rights and the race question in the South; racial equality
- Peace, war, and imperialism: peace and defensive war; intervention in Cuba; imperialism and conquest; national self-defense; Japan and Russia
- Longwood and continuing reform: Longwood’s history and purpose; religious freedom; humanitarian work; unfinished reform; public conscience; political responsibility; continued service to humanity
4. Oliver Johnson
Oliver Johnson was an abolitionist journalist and editor who worked closely with William Lloyd Garrison. He edited the Anti-Slavery Bugle from 1849 to 1851 and the National Anti-Slavery Standard from 1863 to 1865, and later wrote William Lloyd Garrison and His Times. He was also a major participant in the Progressive Friends, repeatedly speaking at Longwood on slavery, racial equality, religion, peace, women’s rights, temperance, prison reform, labor, and education.
Subjects He Discussed at Longwood:
- Slavery, emancipation, and racial equality: slavery and the national crisis; the Slaveholders’ Rebellion; universal emancipation; freedpeople; Reconstruction; political equality; caste and racial equality
- Religion and free thought: religion and reform; public worship and prayer; liberal religion; sectarianism; Spiritualism; religious freedom; religious evolution; church and state; Bible reading in schools
- Peace and war: war and peace; whether war can ever be right; peace testimony; arbitration
- Women’s rights and suffrage: the Woman Question; women’s rights; woman suffrage; women’s legal disabilities; dress reform
- Temperance and social customs: temperance and prohibition; tobacco; amusements; First-day and Sunday observance
- Criminal justice, education, labor, and family reform: capital punishment; crime and prison reform; common schools and education; labor and capital; currency and public expenditure; rights of children; home instruction and religious education; funeral reform
5. Chandler Darlington
Chandler Darlington was a Chester County abolitionist and a prominent participant in the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends. With his wife, Hannah, he aided freedom seekers sent north through Thomas Garrett’s Underground Railroad network, although their home was not described by Robert C. Smedley as a regular Underground Railroad station. The Longwood records show Darlington repeatedly participating in discussions of antislavery, racial equality, women’s rights, peace, temperance, labor, prison reform, education, and liberal religion.
Subjects He Discussed at Longwood:
- Slavery, emancipation, and racial equality: slavery and the national crisis; emancipation and the memorial to the President; the Slaveholders’ Rebellion; universal emancipation; freedpeople; Reconstruction; caste and racial equality
- Religion and religious liberty: public worship and prayer; liberal religion; Spiritualism; religious evolution; creed and belief; religious liberty; the place of Jesus in religion; church and state
- Women’s rights and suffrage: woman’s rights; political equality of women; universal suffrage; woman suffrage; dress reform
- Peace, war, and public affairs: war and peace; armed policing and practical justice; public affairs; labor, currency, and public expenditure; Reconstruction and suffrage
- Temperance and social habits: temperance; tobacco; alcohol in medicine; prohibition; amusements; Sunday observance; simplicity of living
- Labor, education, criminal justice, and family questions: labor and capital; money and interest; rights of children; education and compulsory schooling; free reading rooms and wholesome recreation; crime and prison reform; marriage