Digital Exhibits + Projects

Our digital projects make use of primary resources in our collections presented in modern ways to enrich our understanding of history. The projects highlighted and linked, below, provide opportunities to explore data sets, digital timelines, maps, digitized manuscripts and transcriptions, and social relationships to help contemporary researchers and students understand Quaker history, Swarthmore College history, and American and African American history.

Most projects were done in collaboration with Digital Scholarship at Swarthmore, Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections, and/or the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries.

Penn's intention to treat Native Americans fairly was soon overridden by land hungry Europeans. This digital project links primary resources and maps from Swarthmore and Haverford to document the unfolding relationships.

Beyond Penn's Treaty: Quaker and American Indian Relations

In the summer of 2022, Whitney Grinnage-Cassidy, '24 and Zahara Martinez, '23 worked as Black Genealogy Fellows and built a website to store their work including personal reflections on how their work with Black Genealogy has impacted their lives.

Black Genealogy at Friends Historical Library

Explore the networked world of New Jersey Quaker minister John Hunt, whose journals (1770-1824) document his daily activities, religious life, and advocacy for non-violence, the end of slavery, and the fair treatment of Native Americans.

Friendly Networks: The Quaker World of John Hunt

view of Richard Jordan residence ca. 1826 engraving

Delve into the history of women's activism via digitized primary sources compiled from a wide range of special collections libraries in the Philadelphia area, including Swarthmore.

In Her Own Right: A History of Women's Activism 1820-1920

Suffrage parade, Syracuse, NY ca. 1914-1920

Learn about Lucretia Mott's spoken ministry through a timeline enhanced with digitized images of sources from the Friends Historical Library.

Lucretia Mott Speaks: A Timeline of Her Spoken Ministry

Geographical Reconstruction of 19th-Century Women's Lives Who Found Home at the Rosine Association in Philadelphia

Disorderly Trajectories

map of philadelphia, half modern and half historic

Online exhibit featuring digitized images and manuscripts from the collections along with scholarly commentary. This site was created in collaboration with Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections.

Quakers and Slavery

manuscript letter to George Washington Taylor, 1849

This website, compiled as companion to a 2015 exhibit, provides information and sources about LGBTQIA+ life in the Society of Friends, as well as a timeline of LGBTQIA+ communities at Swarthmore College and other resources.

Queer Anthologies: Selections from Swarthmore's Special Collections

Explore a detailed snapshot of Philadelphia's African American population in 1847. The census data is a rich resource for Black history and genealogy in the city.

Philadelphia African American Census 1847