Collecting area: Religion

Founded in 1705, the Smithfield Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends is the oldest surviving institution in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and has been an important center for Quakerism in Rhode Island and Massachusetts for more than three centuries. Established as the Providence Monthly Meeting, the meeting changed name to Smithfield in 1731, and subsequently gave rise to both Uxbridge and Providence Monthly Meetings. A pastoral meeting since the late nineteenth century, Smithfield currently offers one unprogrammed meeting for worship monthly.

The records of the Smithfield Monthly Meeting document three centuries of an active meeting within the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. Beginning 1718, the collection includes comprehensive minutes for both men’s and women’s meetings (when separate); notices of births, deaths, marriages, separations, removals, and arrivals; accounts of the meeting’s Bible School held in the last quarter of the nineteenth century; records of the Ladies’ Aid and Women’s Foreign Missionary Auxiliary; and in more recent years, an extensive run of newsletters.

Set off from Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting in 1801, the Smithfield Quarterly Meeting of the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends oversaw monthly meetings in three states. In Massachusetts, it cared for monthlies in Bolton (1801-1971), Uxbridge (1801-1907), and the successor to Uxbridge, Worcester (1907-1971); in New Hampshire it oversaw Richmond (1801-1850); and in Rhode Island, it was a parent to Smithfield Monthly Meeting (1801-1971). In 1971, Smithfield Quarter merged with Rhode Island Quarter to become Rhode Island-Smithfield Quarterly Meeting, which is now known as Southeast Quarter.

The records of Smithfield Quarterly Meeting include a nearly complete set of minutes of meetings, records of the Ministers and Elders, some financial records, and materials on the Bible school conference.

Originating as an independent worship group in Monterey, Mass., in about 1952, the South Berkshire Friends Meeting came under the auspices of the Middle Connecticut Valley Monthly Meeting in 1955 as the Great Barrington Worship Group. It changed name to Gould Farm in 1962, and then to Berkshire in 1971 before setting off formally from the Mount Toby Monthly Meeting in 1984.

This small collection contains minutes and newsletters of the meeting since it was organized as a monthly in 1984.

The South Kingstown Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends was the home meeting of John Wilbur and as such, the epicenter of the Wilburite separation of 1845. A part of Rhode Island Quarter, the meeting became a locus for the Wilburite separation of 1845 when the membership at South Kingstown rebuffed efforts to discipline Wilbur. After being suspended from 1842 to 1847, the Gurneyite South Kingstown Monthly Meeting was laid down in 1899.

The records of South Kingstown Monthly Meeting contain an extensive set of minutes, though sparse in the post-separation years, along with vital records, records of meeting disciplinary cases, certificates of manumission for people enslaved by members of the meeting, and miscellaneous other content.

As the home of John Wilbur, South Kingstown Monthly Meeting was at the epicenter of the Separation of 1845 within the New England Yearly Meeting of Friends. The South Kingstown Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) was formed in 1845 from members of South Kingstown and Greenwich Monthly Meetings and placed under the care of Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting. It was one of only three Wilburite monthly meetings to survive through the unification of 1945, when it became Westerly Monthly Meeting.

The relative success of South Kingstown Monthly Meeting (Wilburite) did not parlay into a large body of records. The collection contains one volume each of official minutes from the men’s and women’s meetings, two slender volumes from the Select Preparative Meeting, a letterbook, and a slender volume of vital records.

The Friends Monthly Meeting at South Starksboro, Vermont, began as Creek Allowed Meeting, and has had a complex organizational history. It became part of New England Yearly Meeting in 1975, and gained status as a monthly meeting for the second time in 1996, operating under Northwest Quarter.

The records of South Starksboro Monthly Meeting date from the period starting shortly before it returned to monthly status in 1982. They consist of minutes of meetings (sparse for later years) and state of the meeting reports, along with a somewhat incomplete run of newsletter.

The Southern Maine Monthly Meeting (Falmouth Quarter) is a small, unprogrammed Quaker meeting that gathers in Friends’ homes twice monthly in York County. Established as an independent worship group in 1980 under Falmouth Quarterly, the meeting achieved monthly status as Waterboro Monthly Meeting two years later. With changes in membership in 2005, and the departure of some longtime supporters, they changed name to Southern Maine Monthly Meeting to reflect the “broader range of the various members and attenders.”

The records of Southern Maine Monthly are comprised of a relatively complete set of minutes and state of the society reports.

Brother David Steindl-Rast was born Franz Kuno in Vienna, Austria, in 1926. He discovered The Rule of St. Benedict as a young man, which sent him on a search for an authentic version of Benedictine practice. This search brought him through the Second World War in Vienna, where he earned a Ph.D from the University of Vienna in 1952 and to the Mount Savior Monastery in Elmira, New York, where he became a monk in 1953. Along with his friend Thomas Merton, Brother David is one of the most important figures in the modern interfaith dialogue movement, leaving Mount Savior in the mid-1960s to study Zen Buddhism with Hakuun Yajutami, Shunayu Suzuki, and Soen Nakagawa. He was the first Benedictine to learn directly from Buddhist teachers and received Vatican support for his bridge-building work in 1967. Through Merton, Brother David met Thich Nhat Hanh, who introduced him to the peace movement and grounded Brother David’s spirituality in a tradition of activism. When not in seclusion, Brother David has served as a teacher of contemplative prayer, the intersection of Zen and Catholicism, and gratefulness as a spiritual practice. Through many books and articles, lectures, and residencies in spiritual centers like Tassajara and the Esalen Institute, Brother David has developed an influential philosophy and much of the current popularity of mindfulness and Zen-influenced living and activism owes a debt to his teachings.

The Brother David Steindl-Rast Papers include Brother David’s extensive published and unpublished writings, sermons, memoirs, personal journals, correspondence, photographs, recordings, and videos of his teachings. His papers extend back to his youth in Vienna, documenting his childhood and experience during the war, including a complete run of Die Goldene Wagen, the children’s magazine published by Brother David’s mother Elisabeth Rast.

A Quaker worship group was established in Storrs, Conn., in 1956, under the care of Hartford Monthly Meeting. It was granted status as a monthly meeting in 1963 as part of Connecticut Valley Quarter.

This small collection contains minutes from the business meetings of Storrs Monthly Meeting, 1980-1993 (with some gaps), and a membership directory, 1994.

Founded in 1975 by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, The Abode of the Message is the headquarters for members of the Sufi Order International. Sitting on 430 acres, formerly the site of a Shaker Village in New Lebanon, New York, the Abode was settled by 75 adults and 20 children coming from all over the United States. The Sufi Order initiates spent the first several months preparing for the arrival of winter, a task that required much effort since buildings were in need of repair, there was no central heating system or updated electrical wiring, and few bathrooms. Within a year, the community prospered with the establishment of woodworking, stained glass, and sewing shops, a bakery, and a small school. Today, the community is smaller in number, but their mission remains the same: to collectively embody spiritual awakening.
The collection consists chiefly of publications produced by the Abode, including two newsletters Connections and The Messenger dating from the 1970s to the present. Also represented are other Sufi Order publications, such as Heart & Wing and Mureed’s Newsletter.