“No One Was More Faithful: George W. Taylor, Quakers, and Reform in the Nineteenth Century”

For Philadelphia Quaker George W. Taylor activism in causes such as abolitionism, free produce, temperance, and peace was an expression of his Quaker faith. While Taylor’s free produce activism has received scholarly attention, much of the rest of Taylor’s life and reform work has not. As a result, Taylor appears to be a man of a single idea who arrives rather abruptly in the 1840s just as the free produce movement is losing ground with most abolitionists. My project focuses on the breadth and depth of Taylor’s public and personal life, placing Taylor’s free produce activism within the larger context of his close-knit family, his deep religious views, and his other reform work. Such a focus will highlight the diversity of Friends and their relationship to antebellum reform movements such as abolitionism. This talk is part of the GLC Brown Bag Lunch Series. Bring your lunch and we’ll provide the drinks & dessert.