Sharing Frankford’s
rich history

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

The Frankford Friends School and the Historical Society of Frankford have teamed up for the past three years on projects that examine the neighborhood’s history, adding to the society’s archives and culminating with an HSF exhibit.
Sixth-graders at the school have examined recent immigration patterns in Northeast Philadelphia (2006) and one of the neighborhood’s historical churches — Campbell A.M.E., which celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2007 and the history of the African-American community of Frankford.
This year is a little different. The 120 pre-kindergarten-to-eighth-grade students are examining their own history as Frankford Friends School celebrates its 175th anniversary.
The boys and girls have lots to inspire them.
According to principal Penny Colgan Davis, a circa 1890 photograph of girls wearing smocks and dresses and boys in suits and knickers sitting in desks that are lined up in a row has always captured the attention of the school’s second-graders. After all, it’s their classroom these long-ago pupils once sat in. Their project examines student experiences through the ages.
In Trees Into Shields: A History of Frankford Friends School, author and FFS alum William C. Kashatus talks about how the school has changed through the years since its beginnings on the second floor of the meeting house at Orthodox and Penn streets. The schoolhouse itself was erected in 1868.
“It’s mission has also changed from teaching Quaker children the rudiments of literacy and religion to providing a more comprehensive education to children from a variety of social and economic backgrounds,” he wrote.
Keeping up with those changes included the New Math in the 1960s as well as media literacy today.
FFS seventh- and eighth-graders started right at the beginning of the school year on their contribution — a DVD of the school’s history.
The kindergarten and pre-K classes will create a quilt illustrating FFS values. First- and fourth-grade students are focusing on spaces and places important to the students.
The third and sixth grades will report on Quakers in Frankford, then and now, while fifth-graders look at places of worship in Frankford. The eighth-grade project shows how the waterways affected Frankford’s industrial development.
The art class is working on a mural for a community garden on Penn Street across the street from the school, and the music class is working on a school song.
The children’s work will be on display at the Historical Society of Frankford, 1507 Orthodox St., this Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.
The society’s part of the exhibit will feature items from its extensive collection of artifacts and documents tracing more than three centuries of Quaker life in Frankford.
Highlights will include the original 1687 deed by which William Penn’s business organization, the Free Society of Traders, purchased the Frankford gristmill property from the early Swedish settlers of the area. Visitors will also get to see Quaker women’s bonnets from the 1820s and 19th-century Quaker men’s hats. You can see paintings and photographs of prominent area Quakers and photographs of important Quaker homes, such as Waln Grove, Chalkley Hall and others — all of which are now gone.
HSF will also host a lecture on the history of Frankford Friends School and Quakers in Frankford on Tuesday, May 13, at 7:30 p.m. It will be presented by Kashatus.
The exhibit and lecture are funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
FFS will also host an open house on Tuesday, May 6, beginning at 9 a.m. ••
For more information about Frankford Friends School, visit www.frankfordfriendsschool.org
For more information about the Historical Society of Frankford, call 215-743-6030 or visit www.historicalsocietyoffrankford.org
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com