Quakers’ core beliefs about equality among all people—men and women, black and white, young and old—made them, along with other qualities, feminists. A number of extraordinary Quaker women were leaders in the fight for women’s rights, as well as efforts to alleviate other injustices and inequalities that they witnessed and experienced. Those women faced ridicule, beatings, imprisonment, torture, even death—yet still they persisted. This talk describes Quakers’ beliefs and history, especially in the United States, and focuses on many of the Quaker women who led the fight for suffrage, for the abolition of slavery and for the alleviation of poverty.

Speaker: Historian Sandra Heiler