Margaret Fell Fox

Margaret Fell (nee Askew, b. 1614– d. 1702), Quaker leader, was born in 1614 in Furness, Lancashire (now Cumbria). Her father was John Askew, and little is known of her mother, although she is presumed to be Margaret Pyper because of an extant marriage certificate. At the age of seventeen, Margaret married Judge Thomas Fell (bap. 1599, d. 1658) and moved to Swarthmoor Hall, where she would live for most of the rest of her life. In 1652, the itinerant Quaker preacher George Fox called on the hospitality of Swarthmoor and while there subsequently “converted” Fell, in a process Quakers term “convincement.” Most of her family, and many of the servants, also became Quakers at this point. In the years that followed, Fell’s husband remained an attender at the nearby Ulverston church until his death in 1658, while Swarthmoor hosted local Quaker meetings. Fell was important because of the energy with which she galvanized the wider Quaker body. She set up the Kendal Fund, and a very extensive epistolary network operated because of her commitment to keeping news and communication flowing. She was certainly a leader of the early Quakers, based on her administrative capabilities alone. Marriage to Fox, in 1669, further cemented this position as the “mother” of Quakerism. She was an active polemicist who periodically gained access to England’s rulers and tried to use these audiences to effect greater understanding of the Quaker cause; she also wrote over twenty pamphlets. In common with many Quakers of the period, Fell was imprisoned, in her case due to holding meetings at her house; she served over four years in the 1660s, then another year in the 1670s. Her marriage to Fox was to prove to be unconventional, and it certainly made an already strained relationship to her son, George, who was not a Quaker, worse. Fox and Fell spent very little time together between their marriage and Fox’s death in 1691, though their relationship is presumed to be affectionate. Fell died in 1702. She had composed A Relation of Margaret Fell (1690), and “A Testimony Concerning [her] . . . Late Husband George Fox” (1694), both of which are important accounts of her life. Her letters and published pamphlets were collected together, alongside testimonies of praise, in A Brief Collection of the Remarkable Passages . . . of Margaret Fell (1710). The Fell manuscripts are now held primarily in the Society of Friends’ library, London, and they serve as the basis for many of the studies of the Fell family.

Pandemic and Pandemonium

The Buzz captures the timely concerns, challenges, and reflections on the minds of scholars at work. For this issue, we reached out to colleagues in North America to fill us in on the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the field and how they are responding. In this edition we are joined by Leslie Dorrough Smith (associate professor of religious studies at Avila University), Dave McConeghy (managing co-editor and co-host of the Religious Studies Project), Jennifer Eyl (associate professor of religion at Tufts University), Natalie Avalos (assistant professor of ethnic studies, University of Colorado-Boulder), and Ekaputra Tupamahu (assistant professor of New Testament, George Fox University).

A Pathway to Gender Neutral housing

George Fox University is a small, private Quaker university in Newberg, Oregon, just southwest of Portland. In the fall of 2013, a transgender student, named only as Jaycen to protect his identity, was denied housing consistent with his gender identity as a man. Jaycen had requested to live on campus with a group of male friends and had obtained a male gender marker on his identification. George Fox University refused, in accordance with their policy on preventing unwed students of different genders from living together, and offered Jaycen a choice between a single apartment on campus and living off campus. (“Students Identifying as Transgender,” n.d.) (Not meant to be the actual abstract -- I am submitting as a placeholder)

Fox @ the Fireside: Using Strategic Marketing & Outreach to Foster Authentic Scholarly Conversations in the Library

This session highlights the strategic marketing, intentional outreach through liaisons, and event planning that went into developing "Fox @ the Fireside," shares about the program, and invites conversations about other opportunities that might exist for libraries to host and engage in scholarly discussions around campus. Fox @ the Fireside is an event hosted by the George Fox University librarians each semester, designed to showcase the intellectual and creative output of a campus community member or group (student, staff, faculty) and invite the university community to participate in conversation centered around a topic of campus-wide interest. Past programs have showcased art, books, and even LEGO® creations! Through this event, we have created a hospitable, inviting, inclusive space for conversation that furthers the library's mission to be a place for holistic connection, innovative creation, and authentic contribution.

Protestant Supremacy: The Story of a Neologism

“Protestant Supremacy,” the phrase that evoked the majority of commentary in this forum, is a neologism. I began researching Christian Slavery in 2005, but I did not coin “Protestant Supremacy” until 2013. I have an audio recording of the first time I used the phrase. It was during my dissertation defense and I was explaining why I felt it was wrong to use the terms “pro” or “antislavery” to describe the slavery debates of the seventeenth century. “Spiritual equality does not equal antislavery,” I said at the time, when I refusing to draw a straight line from Quaker founder George Fox to later Quaker abolitionists. I needed a new way to frame the conversation. “I could call it ‘Protestant Supremacy,’” I said. “It isn't White Supremacy in the seventeenth-century. … [Instead,] you have a contest between the ideology of Protestant Supremacy and the ideology of Christian Slavery. … That's the conversation that's important.”