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Arthur M. Larrabee ministry papers
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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
Arthur M. Larrabee (1942- ) is a lawyer, lifelong Friend, and member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. Larrabee was an expert in the practice of decision-making in Quaker communities, which is done without voting.
From 1957 to 1960, Larrabee attended Westtown School, to which he later returned as a lecturer and a member of the Board of Trustees. He earned a B.A. at Yale University and J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. In his professional life, Larrabee worked as an attorney in Philadelphia from 1970 to 1993, including sixteen years at his own firm, Larrabee, Cunningham and McCowan.
In 1992 Larrabee began his ministry, which continued for 28 years. He also served as the General Secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting from 2007 to 2014. In 2015 Larrabee returned to teaching and consulting full-time under the leadership of a Spiritual Accountability Group appointed by Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting until he laid down his ministry in 2020.
This collection consists of materials from over 350 workshops and presentations facilitated by Arthur M. Larrabee between 1992 and 2020, primarily at Quaker meetings and schools. These presentations focused on Quaker decision-making, frequently concerning the role of the clerk and leadership. Other topics include core beliefs, business practices, and materials for K-12 education. A large portion of the materials included are from presentations given at Pendle Hill and Westtown School near Philadelphia, as well as Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. A chronological list of all 363 presentations and workshops can be found in the file titled "Notes and minutes on Larrabee's ministry." The collection contains some duplication and redundancies, since the same materials were frequently used in multiple workshops or presentations.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by organization.
Gift of Arthur M. Larrabee, 2021.
The collection was received as 20 banker boxes. Due to the high level of duplication and redundancy across the collection, FHL staff have preserved only samples of that material. For organizations which hired Larrabee multiple times, generally the following were preserved: the first file, the last file, a file from the middle for large series, and additional files that looked interesting or had unique names. A sample of materials from other organizations were preserved that were on different topics, looked interesting, had unique names, or represented an interesting or unique organization. Approximately 100 files (with some files containing multiple folders) were preserved.
Two digital sources are also included in this collection, a DVD video of a presentation at Friends Seminary (given 2016-10-27) and a USB thumb drive with material from a Southeastern Yearly Meeting presentation (given 2007-04-04). These materials have been removed for digital archiving.
People
Subject
- Publisher
- Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
- Finding Aid Author
- James Truitt and Gwendolyn Rak
- Finding Aid Date
- 2022 May
- Access Restrictions
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This collection is available for research use.
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All or part of this collection is stored off-site. Contact Friends Historical Library staff at friends@swarthmore.edu at least two weeks in advance of visit to request boxes.
- Use Restrictions
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Some of the items in this collection may be protected by copyright. The user is solely responsible for making a final determination of copyright status. If copyright protection applies, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder or their heirs/assigns to reuse, publish, or reproduce relevant items beyond the bounds of Fair Use or other exemptions to the law. See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/.
Collection Inventory
The file includes a chronological list of Larrabee's workshops and presentations.
Reflections on leadership in preparation for Larrabee's Walton lecture on the topic. For the published version of this speech, see Arthur Larrabee, Leadership and Authority in the Religious Society of Friends, J. Barnard Walton Memorial Lecture no. 44 (Melbourne Beach, FL: Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, 2007).
Physical Description0.001 GB
Only contains one page of notes
Also includes green folder with school materials
Note: "same as for Pendle Hill April 25/27, 2003'
0.297 GB
The Center for Deepening and Strengthing Our Meetings was an event that was held at Haddonfield Meeting
Materials from the morning and afternoon are divided between this and the following folder. The Center for Deepening and Strengthing Our Meetings was an event that was held at Haddonfield Meeting
The Center for Deepening and Strengthing Our Meetings was an event that was held at Haddonfield Meeting
The Center for Deepening and Strengthing Our Meetings was an event that was held at Haddonfield Meeting
The Center for Deepening and Strengthing Our Meetings was an event that was held at Haddonfield Meeting
Larger Kendal Corporation folder containing the following: files, booklet ("Kendal System Information") with comb binding, and Executive Board Retreat document
Labeled as Friday (corresponding to July 18) but contents dated 2/12/07 and 4/4/07
Blue folder with information about Pendle Hill, contained in unlabeled brown folder
Misdated on original folder (10/1/14)
Red binder; labeled as 2003 on spine, but appears to be for 2001-2002 school year
Contains one sheet, a retreat flyer
Contains three smaller folders (all with same subject)
In same larger brown folder, but loose (no sub-folder)