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Carey Memorial Lectures
The Carey lecture was established in 1947 as the result of a gift to Baltimore Yearly Meeting from Millicent Carey McIntosh in memory of her parents, A. Morris and Margaret Thomas Carey. The Careys were a prominent Quaker family in Baltimore, as were the Thomases. Morris and Margaret were active members of Baltimore Monthly Meeting (Homewood). They were actively involved in the establishment of what was then called Five-Years Meeting, later named Friends United Meeting. Morris and Margaret Carey also served on the Cooperating Committee of the two separate Baltimore Yearly Meetings (Orthodox and Hickite), beginning the effort that ultimately resulted in the the two yearly meetings' union in 1968.
The Carey's concern for Christian unity extended beyond the Society of Friends. Margaret Carey served on the board of the Baltimore YWCA, the Young Women's Christian Association for 46 years beginning at age 24.
The Carey family made its money through the Carey Machinery Company, established in the 1880s by Morris and his brother. According to Thomas Clark who wrote the the forward to the printed copy of 1971 lecture, Morris Carey “helped in the ways of peace by refusing sales from the company which would aid the war effort in the First World War, at a considerable financial loss.”
Their daughter, Millicent Carey McIntosh, was a distinguished educator. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College and received her doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. She taught at Bryn Mawr from 1926-1930 and was acting dean from 1929 to 1930 and later head mistress of Brearley School in NYC. She was appointed dean of Barnard College at Columbia University in 1947 and in 1952 became president of the college, the first women to hold such a position at a prominent U.S. college. She died in 2001 at the age of 102.
In 1991, Millicent made mention of the reason for establishing the lecture series. She wrote of herself and her siblings “... we understood and admired the devotion of our parents to the Meeting and to Quaker principles. My mother especially read and sympathized with books which presented new interpretations of Quaker thought and philosophy. So it was natural that when I inherited my share of their estate, I thought it would be most suitable to establish a “seminar” in their name to bring the Yearly Meeting the best of current Quaker philosophy and thought.”
Over its long year history, the lecture series has provided attenders at the annual BYM session with the thoughts of some noted Quakers beginning with the first lecture in 1947 given by Rufus Jones. Some of the other presenters over the decads have included:
- Elton Trueblood, the third lecture in 1950
- Douglas Steere, the fourth
- Clarence Pickett (one of the founders of AFSC), the ninth
- Landrum Bolling, the 13th
- Kenneth Boulding the 19th
- In 1961, Millicent Carey McIntosh herself gave the lecture, the first woman to do so.
- In 1976 another noted Quaker woman, author or and speaker Elizabeth Watson
Some of Baltimore Yearly Meeting's own member have presented the lecture over the years, including Bob and Susie Fetter in 1997.
In preparing for their lecture, Bob and Susie corresponded with Millicent Carey McIntosh. Later that same year Bob wrote to Millicent on the occasion of her 99th birthday. In that letter, he noted that in his and Susie's presentation, they had made mention of her mother Margaret Carey's words as an apt motto for contemporary Friends to follow:
“Be ye doers of the Word, not hearers only.”
Submitted by Liz Hofmeister
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