Anna and Howard Brinton:

 "A Marriage of East and West"

The editor is currently working on a biography of Howard and Anna Brinton, founders of Friends Bulletin and of the Pacific Coast Association (the forerunner of Pacific Yearly Meeting). A description of this project follows:

Book-length biographical studies have been written about most of the "giants" of twentieth century American Quakerism-Rufus Jones, Henry Cadbury, Douglas Steere, and most recently, Clarence Pickett1. Yet to be written, but sorely needed, is an in-depth study of Anna and Howard Brinton, who are described by Thomas Hamm as "one of the most remarkable couples since George Fox married Margaret Fell" (Earlham College, p. 139). The Brintons were remarkable for many reasons. They played a key role in the development of Quakerism both in the Western and Eastern USA. They helped to lay the foundations for Pacific Yearly Meeting and also for Pendle Hill during its critical beginning stages. Through a steady stream of pamphlets, articles, talks, and books, including the classic Friends for 300 Years (1952), Howard Brinton helped define liberal Quaker theology during the mid-twentieth century. Through her work with the AFSC and her writings, and above all, her unique personality, Anna Brinton also exerted a profound influence as a teacher, mentor, and activist.

I started researching the Brintons three years ago while editing A Western Quaker Reader, Writings by and about Western Independent Friends. This anthology was published in 2000 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Friends Bulletin, the official publication of the three unprogrammed Western Yearly Meetings. In 1929 Anna and Howard Brinton started Friends Bulletin, the magazine that I have edited for the past six years.

One aspect of the Brintons' legacy that intrigued me was their unique "marriage of East and West." This dimension of their joint ministry is sometimes not fully appreciated by those who have not lived in the Western USA. Anna Shipley Cox Brinton embodied the independent, inventive spirit of Western Quakers. Born in San Jose, California, she was the grand daughter of Joel and Hannah Bean, the founders of the College Park Association and "independent Quakerism." Howard Brinton, on the other hand, came from an eastern Quaker family which arrived in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in the late 17th century and has had a pervasive presence there ever since. Although deeply rooted in the eastern Quaker establishment, Howard sought to move Friends beyond traditionalism into a vital connection with the living Spirit and with modern ideas. Together Anna and Howard made a remarkable team.

In 2001, when I received a Bogert grant to research a book called Activist Mystics, I planned to devote a chapter to Howard Brinton's concept of "group mysticism" and to explore its meaning for Quaker social activists. While researching the Brinton archives at the Haverford College Quaker Collection, I learned from his daughter, Cathy Cary, that Howard had dictated his autobiography to his wife and former secretary Yuki Brinton during the last year of his life, when he was blind. I was intrigued and asked to see the manuscript. It proved to be a biographer's dream, a treasure trove of reminiscences that convey the voice and living presence of its author, beginning with his childhood and continuing through his stay in Japan in 1954.

Feeling led to explore the Brinton legacy in more depth, I consulted with Thomas Hamm, John Punshon, and Margaret Bacon to find out whether they felt that I should undertake a book-length biography of the Brintons. They felt that this was a very ambitious but much needed project, and encouraged me to proceed.

During 2001, I made two trips to Haverford's Quaker collection and went through the eight boxes of material in the Brinton archives. I visited various members of the Brinton family and spent a day with them exploring "Brinton country" in Chester county, Pennsylvania. I also did research on the Beans while at Earlham College and consulted with Thomas Hamm and Tom King (a Friend from San Jose Meeting) to learn more about the Bean legacy.

To do justice to this extraordinary Quaker couple will require an enormous amount of work, which I anticipate will take at least five years to complete (since I currently work three-fifths time as editor of Friends Bulletin2). I have already begun reading and digesting Howard Brinton's voluminous writings (including his many unpublished talks). I have perused much of the Brintons' correspondence and the Pendle Hill minutes which are housed at Swarthmore. I have interviewed members of the family in order to understand more about the complex dynamics of the Brintons' marriage. I am beginning to contact old colleagues and students who are still alive to interview. I am also trying to find out more about Howard's relationships with colleagues, especially Douglas Steere. Finally, I am also beginning to delve into the significance of Howard Brinton's contribution to Quaker theology.

My goal is to complete one or two publishable articles each year that can be used as the basis for chapters in the book. This year I want to explore Howard Brinton's social activism, particularly as it relates to the "peace testimony." Brinton is usually seen as a scholar rather than as a social activist, but the activist component of his life was also significant. (Anna's work also needs to be considered in this context, since she was active with the AFSC throughout most of her life.)

Brinton's activism began while he was serving as acting president at Guilford College during World War I. At the request of Friends, Brinton visited Quaker conscientious objectors who were imprisoned in North Carolina. On June 18, 1918, he wrote a letter to J. Algernon Evans, describing a visit to Camp Jackson, where conscientious objectors were being detained. During this period, conscientious objectors were often not allowed to communicate with those outside of prison, and even their names were sometimes hard to obtain. (One is reminded of the 1,000+ Muslims who are being detained following the events of Sept. 11th, 2001). Using "friendly persuasion," Brinton was able to "thaw out" the captain and acquire the names of Friends who were incarcerated. He was even allowed to exchange a few words with several of the men. The captain told Brinton that the men would be "sent to France to work in the fields where the bullets were flying" and "that would show whether they had a yellow streak or not." This experience no doubt made a strong impression on Brinton.

Soon after this prison visitation, Brinton took leave of academia and joined the American Friends Service Committee, which was founded by his teacher and mentor, Rufus Jones. Brinton worked as a publicist and later oversaw relief work in Upper Silesia, where he met Anna Shipley Cox. While working for the AFSC, the Brintons saw first-hand the devastating effects of war, and it left an indelible impression on them both. Even though he was trained as physicist, Howard came to question the optimistic claims of modern science:

The war through which we have just passed, has shown that modern science, which we supposed was devised to further civilization, can be used to reduce man to a beast, and destroy what the years have built up. 3

Brinton also came to believe that another global conflagration was inevitable if world leaders continued to pursue their current course. "The world is in pain," wrote Brinton in his address to German youth two years after the signing of the Versailles Treaty. "Men have lost their way. Another war will bring a new age of darkness and yet every move of the diplomatists of Europe increases the probability of another such war." 4

During the 1920s and 1930s Brinton not only gave many talks on the subject of pacifism, he also took a stand on controversial issues, such as that of Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, labor organizers accused of planting a bomb during a San Francisco preparedness parade which left six dead and forty wounded in 1916. "Nothing in the history of this State has so sharply divided people as the celebrated Mooney case," wrote Brinton.5 Along with other Friends he met with the Governor of California to call for the release of Mooney and Billings. They also visited Mooney in prison. "The governor sees a symbol," wrote Brinton, "we see a man.... a man of manly bearing, sweet natured, with a very intelligent sense of his own situation. If released, we believe he will make a good and useful citizen of the State." Brinton regarded this concern for Mooney as an application of the "mystic type of religion."6 What exactly Brinton meant by this remark needs to be explored and explained more fully.

As World War II broke out, Brinton began writing a series of essays defending pacifism. These were collected into a Pendle Hill pamphlet called Critique by Eternity (1943). In this pamphlet, Brinton argues that isolationism and pacifism are polar opposites. The true pacifist is engaged with the world, and seeks to bring about a peaceful society by eliminating injustice. A pacifist is someone who has experienced inner peace, usually within the context of a supportive religious community, and then seeks to bring peace into the world through the elimination of selfishness. According to Brinton, the root cause of war is a sense of isolation that leads to barriers between people-borders, tariffs, armies, etc.

In "Why Are Quakers Pacifists?" Brinton uses an historical approach to explain the Quaker commitment to pacifism. He discusses the faith and practice of early Friends and observes that they did not write much about pacifism or the Peace Testimony because they were primarily concerned not with "right action in itself but a right inward state out of which right action will arise" (p. 21).

In "Blitzkrieg and Pacifism" Brinton uses biological metaphors to describe the peacemaking process. According to Brinton, violence depends on quickness because its very nature is mechanical and self-destructive. Pacifism, on the other hand, works slowly because it is an organic process. "The pacifist therefore cannot depend on blitzkrieg methods," concludes Brinton. "He must abide the slowness of the organic. An inanimate bomb reaches its goal swiftly, annihilating whatever is in its way. A living object is soft and pliant, slowly adjusting its environment to itself. It must always depend on small beginnings, germ cells which are perhaps invisible. The pacifist is not afraid of minute beginnings, aimed at the distant future. Violence works quickly, but in the realm of life results are never swift" (p. 19). As this passage suggests, Brinton's background in science shaped both his language and his way of understanding the peacemaking process. What underlies this passage and needs further explication is Brinton's debt to Taoism and to the German mystic Jacob Boehme, about whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation.

The Brinton legacy deserves to be explored in depth and at many levels-historical, political, philosophical, as well as theological. My plan is to write a book that will interest both academics and activists and show the relevance of the Brintons' work for twenty-first century readers.

To accomplish this goal, I need to spend as much time as possible in the Brinton archives at Haverford. For this reason, a Gest research fellowship would be extremely useful.

Notes

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