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Haddonfield Friends School records
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Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
In 1786, several members of the Haddonfield Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in New Jersey established a school, adjacent to the Meeting burial ground, and called it the Haddonfield Free School. It accepted both Quaker and non-Quaker students, and was the first "public" school in the borough. It began as a school for boys, became coeducational in 1830, and for a period served as a boys' boarding school. Today, it is known as Haddonfield Friends School (HFS) and serves early education through middle school.
HFS is governed by a Board of Trustees, known as the "School Committee," that must be composed of 30% Haddonfield Monthly Meeting members, 30% Friends of other Meetings/schools, and 40% (maximum) non-Friends. It is not officially under care of the Friends meeting, although the meeting provides some of the spaces that the school uses.
This collection consists of records compiled by Patricia Kane Williams, who joined the School Committee in 2003 and served as its clerk. It includes minutes, correspondence, and other records of the School Committee and its subcommittees, with a focus on financial and property records.
The collection is organized into six series:
- School Committee
- Policies and Procedures
- Personnel
- Property
- Finance and Development
- Other Committees
Per Patricia K. Williams' original file organizing scheme, the file is indicated with a number often written in pen on the front of each packet of papers (e.g. "HFS #34"). A copy of the file plan is stored in the accession/control file.
Gift of Haddonfield Friends School via Patricia K. Williams, acc. FHL-2017-018.
Processing of this collection began in summer 2017, when an FHL student worker rehoused it and created a preliminary inventory. A staff member reviewed the collection, determined series, and began sorting the collection accordingly. Her work on the collection was interrupted by her retirement. Processing was resumed by another FHL staff member in 2023. The original fileplan was located in the collection at this stage, and some files were renamed to their original titles and reorganized accordingly, but in general the folder titles and series established in 2017 were retained through final processing. In the course of processing, files relating to individual faculty/staff members or students were shredded, as requested by the donor. Additionally, duplicate copies and reference materials not created by HFS were weeded and shredded during 2023 processing.
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Organization
Subject
- Publisher
- Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
- Finding Aid Date
- 2023
- Access Restrictions
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Access to the School Committee series is restricted for 30 years from the time of creation. This collection is currently stored off-site so please allow up to two weeks for retrieval of materials.
- Use Restrictions
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Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce items in this collection beyond the bounds of Fair Use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder or their heirs/assigns. See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0/.