ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the internal development of the Society of Friends as a religion spanning the North Atlantic Ocean. It looks at the development of formal organization and the challenge of slavery in the eighteenth century and painful divisions among American Quakers in the nineteenth century. The chapter describes the spread of Quakerism into the American West and the beginnings of missionary work. It explores the ways in which Friends interacted and influenced the wider world through their achievements in science and business and their work as progressive reformers. The chapter focuses on the divergent paths that emerged in the late nineteenth century and development of Quakerism that has been set as a worldwide religion in the twentieth century. Nineteenth-century Friends were an important source of social reform energy. They sparked social betterment movements that grew beyond the Society of Friends.
