riends General Conference began with the conferences. The first was the "general conference" called in 1867 to bring together Friends active in the First Day School movement. This was not simply a larger committee meeting. There were no yearly meeting First Day School committees, because Hicksite Friends-as a group-did not approve of formal religious instruction. First Day Schools in the nineteenth century were organized by individuals acting under concern, not by monthly meetings. They were held in private homes on Sunday afternoons, and were often open to all the neighborhood children, not just the children of Friends.

Lacking support from their meetings, the women of the First Day School Associations found support in each other. They needed to get together periodically to share ideas, offer encouragement, and spread the word. The conferences, held every year or two after 1867, were the seedbeds of a genteel but nevertheless profound revolution. Hicksite Quakers were moving beyond the walls of their Quietist tradition and beginning to reach out to the world. Within a few years Friends from all seven Hicksite yearly meetings, men as well as women, were coming to the general conferences of the First Day School associations.

Jonathan Plummer, a Friend from Chicago, was deeply stirred by the energy of the First Day School movement and its conferences. In 1879, he proposed to Illinois Yearly Meeting-the newest of the seven-that Friends should be called together to talk about the whole range of Quaker testimonies and concerns. Illinois Yearly Meeting endorsed the idea and issued the call. In 1882 the newly formed Friends Union for Philanthropic Labor, sponsored by the yearly meetings, held a joint session with the still independent First Day School associations at a general conference in Waynesville, Ohio.

By 1896 the conference movement was a powerful force in Hicksite Quakerism. The general conferences held at Swarthmore College that year ran more than a week, and included sessions of the First Day School Association, the Friends Union for Philanthropic Labor, the new Friends Religious Conference, and the Friends Education Conference. Huge tents were erected on the college grounds to house the plenary sessions and provide dining and sleeping quarters for those who could not find rooms with local Friends. The planning committee estimated that more than 6,000 people attended for all or part of the week.

Simply being with so many other Quakers was an amazing experience, especially for Friends from isolated rural meetings. The chance to hear what other Friends were doing in their local communities, to network with people with common concerns, to talk about what Quakers believe, all generated an enormous amount of energy. One highlight of the gathering was an address by William Graham, a leader of the liberal Manchester movement in England. He challenged Friends to rediscover the vitality of their faith in an age of scientific inquiry, and he offered-at least informally-a hand of friendship from London Yearly Meeting to its "heretic" Hicksite offspring.

The Swarthmore gathering marked a major transition. Hicksite Quakers were shedding their history of inwardness and isolation, and taking on a new identity as religious liberals, open to inquiry and difference of opinion, eager to involve themselves in the affairs of the world. It was the conferences that had made this change possible, giving Friends an opportunity to talk to each other outside of the carefully guarded silence of meeting for worship. They served as a testing ground for new ideas, a system of support for individual witness, a seedbed for change.

The Hicksite branch of Friends had been in steep decline throughout its history, but at the Swarthmore conferences revitalization was in the air. The Young Friends movement was recruited to help plan future conferences. In 1900 Friends General Conference was formally established to carry out the work of the founding organizations, to nurture the future leadership of the Religious Society of Friends, and to make sure that those glorious conferences continued. Getting together was the root of it all.

Editor's Note: To learn more about FGC's history see Deep Roots, New Growth: 100 Years of FGC, 1900-2000 and the Centennial web page. Consider having the Centennial Traveling Exhibit visit your meeting. To make arrangements call Ellen Helmuth at the FGC office, 215-561-1700 or email her at ellenh@fgcquaker.org.

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"Gathered in Chautauqua, playing, singing, boating together, assembling in meetings, talking things over, were two hundred representatives of that new life which is springing up among young Friends in many places. . . . Perhaps the most wonderful part of our Conference week has been, for us, as young people especially, the real enjoyment of the meetings for worship. All of the devotional gatherings have been filled with a vital interest, but the meeting for worship in which the young people alone took part, was truly alive with a spirit of Divine communion." Young Friends report on the 1912 Conference

"[Committee on] Automobiles, Samuel J. Seaman, Chairman. Information relative to garage accommodations, roads, conditions and interesting routes may be obtained from the Chairman." Conference program, 1914

"For the children between 4 and 13 years regular classes will be conducted each morning, free of charge, in Kindergarten, Songs, Games, Stories, Art and Handwork, Nature Work, including birds, flowers, and the things of interest to be found only at the sea shore." Conference program, 1916

"The conference badge is on sale at Headquarters, at the Music Pavilion, for fifty cents. Proceeds go for equalizing the traveling expenses from more distant points. All attending the Conference are urged to wear the badge and name throughout the week." Conference program, 1924

"At a meeting of the Social Services Section held at the Lafayette Hotel, Cape May, New Jersey 7-9-40: The concern of the International Peace and Justice Round Table that a statement of our position relative to the proposed Burke-Wadsworth Conscription Bill be sent by messenger to appear at a hearing before [the] Senate Military Affairs Committee to be held in Washington 7-10-40 was approved for presentation at the Central Committee." Social Service Committee Statement, 1940

"The Friends General Conference affirms its opposition to racial discrimination with special reference to Cape May, the site of the 1952 Conference, and is pleased to note that the law of New Jersey prohibits such discrimination. . . . The Business Manager, or his assistant, and the Chairman of the Social Order Committee or his designee are instructed to approach the public officials and business men of Cape May and to do such other things as may prove appropriate in order to implement as fully as possible the Friendly concern and the law." Minutes of the Executive Committee, 12/7/51

"The Sea Crest Inn, Beach Avenue and Broadway, will be headquarters for young Friends who have completed high school. It will also be a cooperative house accommodating 50 persons and providing meals for 75. By doing their own housekeeping, the young Friends groups will be able to hold the cost down to $25.00 for the week, or $10.00 for the weekend (all meals and the registration fee included)." Conference program, 1958