Josiah White papers (HC.MC-1166)

Date created 1797-1949
Creator White, Josiah, 1781-1850
Abstract Josiah White was a 19th-century engineer and the inventor of a method to bring coal down the Lehigh River, a tributary of the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. He was also heavily involved in the education of many among America's less privileged, establishing a number of manual labor schools in the midwest. The collection includes White's business and personal papers, as well as the papers of Hannah White Richardson and Rebecca White, his daughters, whose interests extended to religious and community affairs.
Additional Description Rebecca White was involved in a variety of philanthropic causes. She was a Quaker member of the Board of Managers of the Woman's Hospital and Corporation member of the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Her papers include approximately 200 letters, six journals, and additional materials including financial records, religious notes, and genealogy. Rebecca White maintained a friendship with abolitionist and educator Sarah Mapps Douglass. The collection includes thirteen letters from Douglass to White, written between 1854 and Douglass's death in 1882. Letters describe Douglass's religious journey, her fondness for Rebecca, her own family history (with a particular focus on her mother and grandfather) and their attempts to confront racism, her time at Woman's Medical College, and the challenges of teaching.
Research Interest Rebecca White’s papers reveal much about her philanthropic and religious interests, but the highlight of the collection is her correspondence with Sarah Mapps Douglass. While Douglass was a leader in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, these letters are unique in providing her individual voice--particularly important for a movement that was for African Americans but for which the bulk of the extant documents come from white women. These letters, by contrast, offer an illuminating look at Douglass's activism and the challenges she faced, as well as the nature of an interracial friendship in the nineteenth-century US.
Full collection description Home repository description for Josiah White papers (HC.MC-1166)
View full item http://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/resources/hcmc-1166
Local identifier HC.MC-1166
Contributing institution Haverford College Libraries, Quaker & Special Collections
Digital materials View items from the Josiah White papers (HC.MC-1166)