Race Street Meeting House
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Race Street Meetinghouse is located between Race and Cherry streets at 15th Street. Built in 1856 by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, now known as Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, the Race Street meeting was the forefront of the women's movement in the nineteenth-century in the Quaker religion as well as in American political activism. Quakers permitted the greatest role for women in church affairs as well as in church government. Quakers were also abolitionists and social reformists. Prominent women's rights activities associated with the Meeting included Lucretia Mott and Hannah Clothier Hull.
The Meetinghouse is 131 feet long and 100 feet wide. The Cherry Street façade has a steep front-gabled roof. There is an arched window on this façade, divided into four sections, with paned glass and a simple stone sill. Originally, the Race Street façade was the formal entrance to the building. It was set back from Race Street to create a courtyard. There is a stone inscribed with "1856" over the windows. Two main meeting rooms were used; the northern meeting room was designed to house the Monthly Meeting and the Women's Yearly Meeting. The southern meeting room was used for the Men's Yearly Meeting. In 1926 the southern 1926 meeting room ceased to be used strictly for men and became a dining/ social hall.
The meetinghouse was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993 for the meeting's role in the advancement of women's suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and the civil rights movement
