Guarded Domesticity and Engagement with “THE World”: The Separate Spheres of Quaker Quietism

This contribution to a symposium on quietism concerns what is known as the Quietist period of Quakerism in the eighteenth century. Dandelion addresses the key question of conflict between the quietist commitment of the Quaker faithful and the commitment of many among them to abolitionism and other pressing social causes. He reviews the scholarship on this issue, noting the recent tendency to look for mystical aspects to the social commitment of Quakers. Instead, however, he argues that the culture of Friends during this period became self-enclosed to a remarkable degree, permitting some of the members to move about extramurally, as required by conscience, then return to their essentially quietist world.