Organized and led by Caleb Goodhouse of the Newport Restoration Foundation
Caleb Goodhouse is currently the Archivist & Digital Collections Coordinator at the Newport Restoration Foundation. He has lived in Rhode Island for the past five years. As a historian Caleb is interested in how changes in technology have affected our sense of identity and the ways in which we express identity.
Exploring the Landscape of Newport’s Quaker Community
Sunday May 4, 9am-10am
Starting from Brick Market, this walk took us to the Great Friends Meeting House and then through Newport’s Easton Point neighborhood. Along the way we discussed Newport’s Quaker community and its role in shaping the city’s society in the 17th and 18th centuries. We reflected on Quaker values and practices while visiting where they lived and worshiped.
Questions we asked along the way: What do we know about the Quakers? How where they different from other religions in colonial America? In what ways did Quaker values and practices shape Newport’s urban landscape? In what ways did Quaker values and practices shape Newport’s economy? Do you think that present-day New Englander’s values and sense of identity are still influenced by the religious practices of the colonists? (Puritans, Quakers, Pilgrims)
Walk Reflections
Caleb took us to several spots in Newport with ties to Quaker history and invited us to reflect on how Quaker values are still present today. Caleb spoke about his expertise as an archivalist and that he personally didn’t know much about Quakers. He was using the walk as a way to learn more. There were several people on the walk who had either grown up Quaker or were now practicing and so the conversation moved between people along the way as we all though about values of simple-living.
The biggest surprise: “12 up” windows were a way for Quakers with wealth to have a plain house while still showing off their wealth.
