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Race Street (Philadelphia)

Economy of PhiladelphiaStreets in Philadelphia
Race Street Meetinghouse and Visitors Center from Cherry Street
Race Street Meetinghouse and Visitors Center from Cherry Street

Race Street is a major east-west street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that runs parallel to Cherry Street. It was one of William Penn's original gridded streets from the 1680s, although named Sassafras Street then. It is listed by name on the map in Birch's Views of Philadelphia (1800) – Race and Arch Streets are listed by their original names, "Sassafras" and "Mulberry." The earliest official use of the name Cherry Street was in 1809.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Race Street (Philadelphia) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Race Street (Philadelphia)
Cherry Street, Philadelphia Center City

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Latitude Longitude
N 39.955577 ° E -75.16475 °
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Race Street Meetinghouse

Cherry Street 1501
19103 Philadelphia, Center City
Pennsylvania, United States
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Race Street Meetinghouse and Visitors Center from Cherry Street
Race Street Meetinghouse and Visitors Center from Cherry Street
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Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, or simply Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, or PYM, is the central organizing body for Quaker meetings in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, area, including parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. PYM is one of the oldest Yearly Meetings in the Religious Society of Friends. In 1827, it divided into two Meetings in the Hicksite/Orthodox schism, each Meeting claiming the title of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. In this period the two Meetings were known by the location of their respective meetinghouses (Race Street and Arch Street). In 1955, the schism was healed and the two Meetings reunited. The Yearly Meeting is a member of Friends General Conference, the main national organization of unprogrammed Quaker Meetings. The Yearly Meeting is also a member of the National Council of Churches. Westtown School, founded before the schism, and Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College became the educational mainstays of the Orthodox yearly meeting. George School and Swarthmore College were founded to provide education for the Hicksite students. While the schools remain under the indirect supervision of the reunited Yearly Meeting, both are functionally and financially independent of the Yearly Meeting, as are other Friends Schools in the area; they may be governed by members of the Society of Friends, but they are structurally independent of the Monthly and Yearly Meetings. The colleges have no formal relationship with the Meeting. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting holds annual sessions for business to which all Friends in the Philadelphia area are asked to come. These meetings, generally held in March at the Arch Street Friends Meeting House, are an opportunity for Friends to hear about the goings-on in PYM over the previous year and other Yearly Meetings that have sent news. PYM is overseen by a General Secretary. Christie Duncan-Tessmer is the current general secretary and has been since the retirement of the previous general secretary, Arthur M. Larrabee, on August 25, 2014. She was previously the Associate Secretary for Program and Religious Life for PYM, a position she took in 2008.

Race Street Friends Meetinghouse
Race Street Friends Meetinghouse

The Race Street Meetinghouse is an historic and still active Quaker meetinghouse at 1515 Cherry Street at the corner of N. 15th Street in the Center City area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The meetinghouse served as the site of the Yearly Meeting of the Hicksite sect of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) from 1857 to 1955. Built in 1856 by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and what is now known as Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, a building 131 feet long by 80 feet wide was set fairly close to its Cherry Street frontage but sufficiently far back from Race Street to provide a pleasant open yard. The structure built was not just one meeting house, but two, so arranged and divided that either party could dispose of its property without affecting the property of the other. Construction brought two meeting rooms 36 feet high, the northern chamber being 60 feet by 80; the southern, 46 by 80. Each had "youth's galleries" on three sides. Between the two meetinghouses, and exceeding them by 16 feet in total width, was a 25-by-96-foot three-story structure containing large rooms for committee meetings and other purposes.The Race Street Meetinghouse was at the forefront of women's involvement both in Quaker religion and in American political activism. Many leaders in the Women's Movement were associated with this meetinghouse; these included abolitionist and women's rights activist Lucretia Mott, peace activist Hannah Clothier Hull, and suffrage leader and Equal Rights Amendment author Alice Paul.The meetinghouse was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993 for its role in the abolition of slavery, the advancement of women's suffrage, and the civil rights movement.The Meetinghouse is part of the Friends Center campus, which includes the National Office of the American Friends Service Committee, Friends World Committee for Consultation, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the United Nations Association. It is the site of a copy of Sylvia Shaw Judson's statue of Mary Dyer, the 17th-century Quaker martyr. The Friends Meeting Center, built in 1974, was designed by Cope & Lippincott.