THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF BRYN MAWR COLLEGE
WRITES ABOUT THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
RHOADS, James Evans.
Autograph letter signed (‘James E. Rhoads’) to Henry Horniman.
Philadelphia, 22 July 1869.
8vo bifolium, pp. 3 + 1 with pencil notes and sketches; neatly written in brown ink; creases where folded; good.
[tipped-in inside:]
EVANS, William, and Thomas EVANS, editors. The Friends’ library: comprising journals, doctrinal treatises, and other writings of members of the Religious Society of Friends, Vol. V. Philadelphia, Joseph Rakestraw, 1841.
8vo, pp. iv, 480; some foxing; in publisher’s cloth; spine partly detached, extremities rubbed; book label of Henry Horniman to front pastedown.
A letter from the first president of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia. Rhoads (1828–1895) helped establish the college as a nondenominational, internationally respected school, and the first higher education institution to offer graduate degrees to women.
Rhoads writes to Horniman, at the suggestion of his sister, to send him some books on the Society of Friends, ‘illustrated by the lives of two of the more illustrious of their early members’. Rhoads describes some aspects of the Friends’ faith which he hopes will inform Horniman’s reading.
Volume V of the Friends’ Library includes a lengthy biography of the Quaker leader and founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn.
