Archives
Mira Sharpless Townsend, Miscellaneous Photographs Collection, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College.
Rosine Association archives can be found in the Mira Sharpless Townsend Papers, located at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mira Sharpless Townsend (1798-1859) was a Quaker social activist and reformer, born in Philadelphia, who beginning in the 1840s wrote and published a variety of poetry and articles which reflected her strong views regarding women, slavery, temperance and capital punishment.
She was the driving force behind the founding of the Rosine Association. In January 1847, at a meeting of the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, she announced her desire to form a society "to open a house for the reformation, employment and instruction of females, who had led immoral lives." The result was the establishment of the Rosine.
Mira’s journals, letters, and poetry reflect her activism and her devotion to friends and family, while the case books offer insight into the lives of the women she sought to help.
The casebooks of the Rosine Association, and other collection highlights, have been digitized and can be accessed via the TriCollege Libraries Digital Collections website. The remainder of the Mira Sharpless Townsend Papers has not yet been digitized as of 2021. The collection finding aid provides an overview and inventory of all collection contents. You can access a data set created from the contents of the casebooks. This will allow you to search by names, subjects and events.
Researchers are welcome to visit the Friends Historical Library in person to explore the entire collection (see current visitor access policies) or may email questions to friends@swarthmore.edu.
Rosine Association Store ledger book used as a clipping scrapbook, 1848 - 1856, Mira Sharpless Townsend Papers, RG5/320, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. Photograph by Leigh Brown.