CHARITY, CHANGE, AND COMMUNITY: FRANKFORD’S SWEDENBORGIANS AND THEIR CIRCLE, VOLUME I: 1817-1875

A historian and archivist chronicles the intersection of community, faith, and family history in this debut nonfiction book.

Over the past four decades, McCormick notes, more than 200 books have been published on Philadelphia’s history. Most of these, she laments, make little to no mention of the city’s northeastern Frankford neighborhood. Making a convincing case for “Frankford’s pre-eminence in the city’s nineteenth-century textile industry,” this first volume in a multipart, comprehensive local history focuses on the role of the Swedenborgian community in shaping the borough, which “remained a unique ‘village’ for many of its residents” more than a century after its incorporation into the City of Brotherly Love in the mid-1800s. An obscure Christian denomination with an idiosyncratic theology, Swedenborgianism and the New Jerusalem Society of Frankford lies at the heart of the community, per the author. While the denomination’s esoteric, mystic interpretations have been the focus of religious scholars, McCormick asserts that the faith is best understood by looking at its local impact. Most of its practitioners, the author asserts, were driven by a reform-oriented ethos that deemphasized doctrine for a praxis of “‘love toward the neighbor.’” This ethos provided an avenue for members, many of whom were immigrants from Lancashire, England, to easily assimilate into a city dominated by Quaker and Catholic influences. A member of the board of directors of the Historical Society of Frankford (whose family history is intertwined with the neighborhood’s Swedenborgian community), McCormick describes the book as “a labor of love.” With an advanced degree in public history and a career as a historian, librarian, and archivist before her retirement, the author has based this narrative on a wealth of primary-source research informed by her solid grasp of relevant scholarly literature. (More than 300 pages of endnotes and bibliographic entries support the book’s text.) Written in an accessible style for those unfamiliar with Frankford, the book’s emphasis on engaging readers is reflected in its ample inclusion of newspaper clippings, maps, portraits, photographs of historical ephemera, and other visual aids.

A well-researched local history of an oft-ignored Philadelphia neighborhood.