FMS, or Friends Manuscript Series, contains the personal records of individual Quakers. For example, D. Elton Trueblood’s personal papers. (As opposed to his college related papers, which would be housed with the college records.) FMS collections cover a wide variety of topics and include letters, photographs, clippings, genealogical material, artifacts, poetry, and anything else that an individual or family might create in their lifetime with enduring value. A member of the Archives' staff will be happy to assist you if you wish to study one or more of these collections.
Earlham holds several manuscript collections that are useful for the history of the war, peace, and conscientious objectors in the Midwest. They include:
FMS 1: Charles F. and Rhoda M. Coffin Collection, 1831-1919
Series VI includes a folder titled, "Civil War and Conscription".
Series XIV includes a folder titled, " Loose Pamphlets : Slavery and Quaker Attitudes toward it, War and Pacifism, Care of the Insane".
FMS 6: Homer and Edna Morris Collection, 1911-1951
This collection reflects Homer Morris’s career as an academic economist and longtime member of the Earlham College board, and especially the Morris’s work for the American Friends Service Committee. It contains class notes, correspondence, calendar book and publications as well as material pertaining to personal business, social justice issues, and the peace movement.
FMS 25: Francis W. Thomas Papers, 1860-1905
The Thomas Papers include diaries, correspondence, essays, and sermon drafts illustrating the concerns and tendencies of Indiana Friends in this period. The diaries span the years of the Civil War.
FMS 29: Barnabas C. Hobbs Papers, 1861-1904
The Hobbs Papers consist of correspondence and documents mainly reflecting Hobbs' trip to Europe in 1877-1878. Hobbs was sent to Germany and Russia with a message of peace and a request that the Mennonites not be forced to serve in the military.
FMS 34: Leland K. and Kathaleen Johnson Carter Papers, 1700-1994
The Leland K. and Kathaleen Johnson Carter Collection consists of correspondence, diaries, photographs, and genealogical material documenting the lives of a number of Quaker families in North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, and Kansas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The collection is especially valuable for Quaker settlement in Indiana, the Conservative Separation of the 1870s among Orthodox Friends, and the work of the Friends Reconstruction unit in France during World War I. The photographs illustrate the change of Quaker dress over the course of the nineteenth century.
FMS 38: Ernest E. Mills Papers, 1841-1986
The Mills Papers include material on genealogy, his efforts to obtain conscientious objector status during World War II, and his parents' peace work in Indiana Yearly Meeting.
FMS 51: Carpenter-Wright Family Papers, 1834-1910
The Carpenter-Wright Family Papers consist mainly of family correspondence between Walter and Susan Carpenter and Henry and Caroline Wright, with comments on Quaker affairs, life in Richmond, events relating to the response of Midwestern Quakers to the Civil War, and a reminiscence by Walter T. Carpenter of his travels in the South in 1863.]
FMS 52: Jay Beede Collection, 1942-1952
This collection consists of papers relating to Jay Beede's status as a conscientious objector in 1942 and 1950, miscellaneous clippings and articles, and a scrapbook documenting his trip to Oxford England in 1952 whern he attended the World Conference of Friends.
FMS 68: Virgil H. Kruel Collection, 1940-1947
The Alice Shaffer papers document the life and work of a Quaker social worker and humanitarian who was one of Earlham College's most distinguished alumni. They include correspondence, notebooks, photographs, and reports from her work in the United States, Europe and Latin America. She was a key figure in Quaker relief work in Berlin before and after World War II.
FMS 105: Gordon R. Coffin Collection, 1942-1946
FMS 140: Mildred White Papers, 1824-1995
Mildred White was a Quaker teacher and missionary. Her papers illustrate the history of the Quaker schools at Ramallah, Palestine, life at Earlham College, and the history of Friends in Indiana. It includes not only family correspondence and photographs, but some genealogical material the Mildred White gathered and research material from Lois Jordan's biography of aunt, Ramallah Teacher, published in 1995.
FMS 155: Stanton Family Papers, 1848-1960
The Stanton Papers reflect the lives of a Quaker family in Indiana and Ohio in the second half of the nineteenth century. Most of the collection consists of correspondence, the majority addressed to Emily (Hadley) Stanton from family members and Earlham classmates. Of particular interest are letters from Emily's non-Quaker suitor, Jesse B. Connolly. He and a cousin of Emily's, John H. Lindley, served in the Union army during the Civil War and their letters include observations on the war and the South.
FMS 161: Deborah (Misty) Gerner Papers, 1980-2004
The collection consists primarily of research materials on the Arab-Israeli conflict and Palestine human rights issues. Some of the material is from the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign and the Quaker Working Party. These materials reflect Gerner’s interest in human rights and her participation in a number of human rights initiatives in the Middle East. There are a number of materials from B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
FMS 186: Gordon Graves Collection, 1900-1960
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