Cope-Evans Project

The Cope-Evans Project traces the lives of the Cope and Evans families, two prominent Orthodox Quaker families in the Philadelphia region, over a century of economic, religious, technological, and social change between 1820 and 1920. 

The beginning of the period saw the deepening of tensions in the Society of Friends in Philadelphia, leading to a schism in 1827, with the Evans family at the center. The Cope family began extending their packet ship line, later known as the Cope Brothers, to service not just Philadelphia and Liverpool but also various cotton ports across the Southern United States, building a fortune and calling into consideration Quaker views on abolition and enslavement. 

The Industrial Age in America radically transformed nearly every aspect of American daily life after the Civil War (1861-1865). Innovations in transportation and manufacturing accelerated the rate at which goods were produced and distributed, and changed the nature of work. New printing and photographic processes, the invention of the telegraph and telephone, and mass production improved the standard of living for many Americans and connected them to each other in new ways; the families began traveling more extensively and began documenting their lives not only through correspondence but also through photographs. However, this rapid industrialization also led to a wave of social and economic problems, and the families renegotiated their relationships with philanthropy and social reform, particularly in areas outside of Philadelphia.

In 1873, the two families merged through the marriage of Rachel Reeve Cope and Jonathan Evans. Multiple generations of the family would live at Awbury, the family estate just outside of Philadelphia in Germantown, supported by a number of nurses, maids, cooks, and other household workers. Over the next decades, the Cope-Evans family would travel more extensively than ever before.

The correspondence contained within the Cope-Evans Family papers (HC.MC.1170 and HC.MC.1242) provides insight into each of these changes, as the family navigated both societal changes and evolving personal relationships. Thomas Pim Cope’s letters include those to his sons on his business interests, while the letters of Anna S. Cope (1822-1916) and Francis R. Cope (1821-1909) discuss home life, children, and connections with family and friends. Many of the latter’s letters were written from family vacation spots in New England, where she often went to escape the hot summer months in Philadelphia. Letters of Francis R. Cope include letters written while in Virginia on Freedmen’s Relief Association business after the Civil War (1861-1865) as well as letters related to estate sales in Washington D.C. The letters of sisters Clementine, Caroline, and Annette Cope include many travel letters from Europe. 

But while the Cope-Evans family often held prominent positions in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and the Evans family was central to the 1827 schism, they rarely discussed weekly meeting activities in detail, a relative rarity for Quaker correspondence of the time. This lack of mention indicates that while the family was respected within the Society of Friends, they did not usually center their voices at weekly Meetings for Worship or travel in the ministry, as was common at the time. 

Of course, not all correspondence generated by the family has been saved or even received. Clementine Cope, for example, wrote in September 1869 from Europe in reply to a letter from her brother Alexis. Yet Alexis’s letter is not in the collection, nor are Clementine’s letters from “England Scotland Brussels & Interlaken,” which had not yet arrived–and may never have–as Clementine again wrote her brother. In fact, much of the collection is weighted toward particular individuals not because they necessarily wrote more than other members of the family, but because their letters were more often saved. The absence of correspondence often suggests a great deal about a person’s life–did they not need to write to their family member because they were living in close proximity to one another? Were they simply unable to save their correspondence, either because they were traveling or because they did not have the capital (space, time, and/or money) to do so? The Cope-Evans Family papers do not document every detail of the family’s activities, but the collections and their silences allow us to understand key aspects of their lives.