Call Number:

RG5.238

Repository:

Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College

Extent:

1.5 linear ft. (3 boxes)

Language:

English

Date:

1885-1995 (inclusive)

Creator:

Vaux, George, III, 1909-1996, Vaux, George, 1832-1915, Vaux, George, Jr., 1863-1927, and McCracken, George Englert, -1904

Abstract:

The Vaux family was a prominent Philadelphia Quaker family active in a number of charitable concerns, particularly as relate to the education of African-Americans. This collection includes papers from three George Vauxes: 1832-1915, 1863-1927, and 1908-1996, spanning a little over a century from the 1890s to the 1990s. There are administrative documents from the Institute of Colored Youth (later known as the Richard Humphreys Foundation), Friends’ Freedmen’s Association, and the Emlen Institution. Also included are materials from the Joint Committee of the Three Monthly Meetings of Philadelphia and the Welcome Society.

The Vaux family was a prominent Philadelphia Quaker family active in a number of charitable concerns, particularly as relate to the education of African-Americans. This collection includes papers from three George Vauxes: 1832-1915, 1863-1927, and 1908-1996, spanning a little over a century from the 1890s to the 1990s.

George Vaux Sr. (1832-1915), also referred to in family histories as the eighth, served on the Joint Committee of the Three Monthly Meetings of Philadelphia at the turn of the century. He also wrote multiple lengthy articles for The Friend on the history of Quakers in Barbados. Both George Vaux Sr. and his son, George Vaux Jr., served on the board of the Institute for Colored Youth at the time when it was involved in moving its facilities to Cheyney (the Institute still exists as a state university of Pennsylvania and is now known as Cheyney University).

George Vaux Jr. (1863-1927) was a lawyer and served as the Chairman of the U.S. Board of Indian Commissioners. He was also an amateur photographer and geologist. Photographs taken by him and by his siblings are in the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, and his collection of minerals was donated to Bryn Mawr College after his death. He also took pictures of various area meeting houses; these were included in the collection but have now been moved to the photo archives.

George Vaux III (1908-1996) graduated from Haverford in 1930 and then studied at Cambridge University. He was involved in the Philadelphia Athenaeum (the shares were passed down to him from his grandfather, George Vaux Sr.), and he was a member and in 1958 elected the president of the Welcome Society of Pennsylvania, a hereditary society of descendents of passengers on William Penn’s ship the Welcome. He also served on the Richard Humphreys Foundation Distribution Committee (the later name of the Institute for Colored Youth’s foundation), Friends’ Freedmen’s Association, and the Emlen Institution, a philanthropic foundation that supported children of African and Indian descent.

This collection contains papers from all three Vauxes, spanning a little over a century from the 1890s to the 1990s. There are documents from the Institute of Colored Youth (Richard Humphreys Foundation), mostly pertaining to fundraising and to the facility’s move from Philadelphia to the Cheney, Pa., site and also papers from the Foundation in the 1980s and 1990s, most of which are administrative.

The collection contains papers concerning the Emlen Institution, Friends’ Freedmen’s Association, and the Joint Committee of the Three Monthly Meetings of Philadelphia. Also, correspondence and administrative papers from the Welcome Society, as well as a small amount of family papers, including research on Quakers in Tortola and Barbados.

Organization:The Collection is divided into four series: 1.The Institute for Colored Youth; subsequently, the Richard Humphreys Foundation. 2. Quaker meetings and organizations. 3. Vaux family miscellaneous papers, including two account books and writings. 4. Welcome Society of Pennsylvania.