Symposium Highlights Allen Jay's Impact on Quakerism, Earlham

/News Release Agency - CollegePressReleases.com/ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 1, 2010 

RICHMOND, Ind. — Allen Jay is described as one of the most influential Quakers of the 19th century, and his impact on Earlham College may be even larger.

To commemorate his legacy, “Allen Jay, 1831-1910: A Centennial Symposium” begins at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010 in Stout Meetinghouse on the Earlham College campus. Joshua Brown, editor of the new edition of Jay’s autobiography; Tom Hamm, Earlham Archivist, and Max Carter, who has done extensive research on Jay’s work during Reconstruction, share insights into one of the most fascinating Quakers of the 19th century.

The symposium includes a visit to the Earlham Friends Collection, a tour of campus as Jay knew it, a visit to his grave in the Earlham Cemetery, a visit to West Richmond Friends, which Jay helped to found, and, on Sunday, a visit to Farmer’s Institute in West Lafayette, Ind., where Jay and his wife Martha lived before and during the Civil War.

“Allen Jay was remarkable in lots of ways,” Hamm says. “He became one of the best known and most effective Quaker ministers in the 19th century despite the fact that he had a cleft palate. The force of his personality and the content of his messages were so striking that people forgot that.”

As a child, Jay worked as an abolitionist on the Underground Railroad, and he was a pioneer in conscientious objecting during the Civil War.

Jay attended Earlham during the 1850s, and served the College in several capacities, including superintendent and treasurer, from 1881- until his death in 1910. Jay’s major accomplishments in fundraising and reform directly benefitted Earlham.

“It is no exaggeration to say that Earlham would not be here today were it not for Allen Jay,” says Joshua Brown, minister at West Richmond Friends. “He was largely responsible for the changes that allowed it to transition from a preparatory school for farmers’ kids to a modern liberal arts college.”  

Hamm says Jay was a force for change in Quakerism, and those changes were apparent on Earlham’s campus.

“He convinced Quakers to give up some of the old ways that were holding them back,” he says. “For example, no longer did Quakers have to marry Quakers.”

At Earlham, social life became a bit less restrictive. Music was allowed on campus, and May Day became a popular social event.

“Between 1890 and 1910, there was major concern among American Friends about how colleges should respond to some of the changes that were taking place,” Hamm says.

Evolution and the critical study of the Bible were being taught. Jay made the case that if Earlham was to succeed as an intellectual institution then it had to keep up with the times. He assisted and defended the professors who taught those subjects, so they could teach without interference.

“He was so respected by the evangelical Quakers of the time; they thought that if Allen Jay says it’s all right they trusted his judgment and went along,” Brown says.

When Jay began working at the College, Earlham consisted of one building. After his nearly 30 years, Earlham had six buildings and an endowment.

“Jay was absolutely an unparalleled fundraiser,” Hamm says. “He was good at convincing Quaker farmers and business people, who are notoriously thrifty, to part with their money for good causes, and Earlham was the chief beneficiary of that.”

It was said that Jay “could talk the birds out of the trees,” according to Brown.

Hamm says despite the great strides Jay made in reform and fundraising, his greatest accomplishment may have been rebuilding Quakerism in North Carolina after the Civil War.

“Jay and Joseph Moore went to North Carolina and helped rebuild Quakerism there – everything from starting schools, setting up model farms to simply encouraging a new effective ministry in Friends Meeting,” Hamm says. “Jay’s headquarters were in High Point, North Carolina, and today there is still a section of town called Allen Jay complete with the Allen Jay School, the Allen Jay Baptist Church, which I am pretty sure he is the only Quaker minister that has a Baptist church named after him, and the Allen Jay package liquor store, which I know he would disapprove of.”

At the time of his death in 1910, Jay was called “the best-loved Quaker in America,” Brown says.