Friendly Connections: Philadelphia Quakers and Japan Since the Late Nineteenth Century

Edited by Linda H. Chance, Paul B. Reagan, and Tetsuko Toda. Lexington Books, 2024. 372 pages. $125/hardcover; $45/eBook.

While reading Friendly Connections, I was reminded how collective identity relies on recorded history and record keeping, the archival weave of warp and weft of group identity, challenge, and discernment. The book’s vast tapestry is fashioned from the deft weaving of archival threads from Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College and Haverford College’s Quaker and Special Collections, spanning the years 1885 to 1955, from the initial arrival of Friends in Japan to postwar recovery. Religious and educational labors of mostly Philadelphia Quaker women facilitated far-reaching sociocultural change, and the text provides a comprehensible framework for their decision making during an era of unstable peace.

In the first 14 chapters, spread over four sections (Beginnings, Partnerships, Tides, and Occupations), essayists chronicle cultural reciprocity between Philadelphia Quakers and Japan during the twentieth century when the City of Brotherly Love’s prominence as an industrial and educational force enabled international partnerships.

Collective and individual prowess delineate the first Quaker missionary society of 1881, the discernment that took Joseph and Sarah Ann Cosand to Japan in 1885, and the ensuing missionary toil. Japan and Philadelphia were similar in that Japan was an emerging industrial power whose “predilection for class distinction and urban sophistication” resonated with the milieu of women who followed their calling. Functional notions of class, race, power, privilege, and culture on both sides (and beliefs about colonialism embedded therein) also affected Christian agency. Future Japanese leaders educated in the West and familiar with Quaker ethos aided the path toward meaningful alliances. A Quaker presence in Japan was made possible by linked networks: missions; American Friends Service Committee’s (AFSC) 1923 entry into Japan; and the ties of Friends such as Philadelphia’s Mary Morris and Elizabeth Gray Vining to Japanese intellectuals, notably Nitobe Inazō, Tsuda Umeko, and Jōdai Tano.

Quaker impulses of evangelism differed little from the conventions Protestants and other religions employed centuries before, and the operation of Philadelphia Quakers in Japan divided the Religious Society of Friends. For instance, the contentious relationship between Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Orthodox leadership and the 1882 Women’s Foreign Missionary Association’s (WFMA) aim to promote “women’s work for women in foreign missions” stands out because of the concern over mission methods and the disapproval of WFMA employing salaried missionaries. Missions experienced a marked shift from prewar pastoral Quakerism to a more routine postwar non-pastoral system.

To explain the appeal of Quaker values, a chapter in the Partnerships section considers the interracial marriage of Japanese diplomat Nitobe Inazō, who later served as under-secretary-general of the League of Nations, and native Philadelphian Mary Patterson Elkinton, who devoted her life in Japan to educational reform. Of equal interest is the leading of Anna Cope Hartshorne: her journey from Philadelphia to a 40-year residence in Japan and partnership with Tsuda Umeko in founding Tsuda College.

During wartime Japan, Edith Forsythe Sharpless stayed the course as a non-interned “enemy alien” and witnessed the unraveling of Japan Yearly Meeting and the attenuation of Tokyo Friends Girls School. Esther Biddle Rhoads’s travels from internment camps in California to relief efforts in Asia solidified her resolve to engage with Friends Girls School in Tokyo. Directorship of AFSC’s Japan branch and the Friends Center in Tokyo are representative of Rhoads’s overarching focus on global education.

We learn in the Occupations section how Elizabeth Gray Vining obtained her Japanese imperial court appointment to tutor 12-year-old Crown Prince Akihito from 1946 to 1950. (Rhoads succeeded her until 1960.) Vining maintained a close relationship with the imperial family and further distinguished herself in speeches on democratization, education, the Japanese Constitution, and commitment to civil and human rights. Another connective thread in the Philadelphia–Japan partnership was the American Women’s Scholarship for Japanese Women that Mary Harris Morris founded after visiting Japan in 1890 and 1892. Recipient Quakers Tsuda Umeko, Kawai Michi, Hoshino Ai, and Fujita Taki studied at Bryn Mawr College and profited from Quaker networking in Philadelphia.

The fifth section, Futures: Archives “Bearing Witness,” consists of three narratives that underscore both the enduring presence that archives exert in reappraising our Quaker past and the women whose spiritual guidance, intellect, and activism influenced Japanese education. Thanks to archival recovery, readers can appreciate the voices and constructive interplay among the endeavors and initiatives of Quaker women leaders in Japan who sat at the table, walked cheerfully over the world, and knew the spiritual aspect of how to touch peace.

This book reads like a Who’s Who of Philadelphia–Japan Quaker catalysts of change, with abundant photographs depicting women piloting the Japan initiative. A glossary of Quaker terms and a comprehensive bibliography enhance the book’s appeal. In its layered weavings, Friendly Connections provides clear contexts for the thinking and deeds of its subjects whose continuing revelation affirmed Quakerism in modern Japan.

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Jerry Mizell Williams is a member of Green Street Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa., where he serves as meeting archivist. He is the author of numerous books, articles, and book reviews on colonial Latin America.