Our Beloved Friend: The Life and Writings of Anne Emlen Mifflin

Anne grew up directly across the street from the Pennsylvania statehouse, where the Continental Congress was leading the War of Independence. A Quaker minister whose busy pen, agile mind, and untiring moral energy produced an extensive corpus of writings, Anne was an ardent abolitionist and social reformer decades before the establishment of women’s anti-slavery societies. And at a time when most Americans never ventured beyond their own village, hamlet, or farm, Anne journeyed thousands of miles. She traveled to settlements of Friends on the frontier and met with Native Americans in the rough country of northwestern Pennsylvania, New York, and Canada.

Our Beloved Friend provides a unique window onto the lives of Quakers during the pre-Revolutionary era, the establishment of the New Republic, and the War of 1812.