Brinton, Anna Cox

Joel Bean (1825-1914) was a Quaker minister associated with the "Beanite" branch of Quakerism. Born in New Hampshire, he moved to West Branch, Iowa as a young man, where he met and married Hannah Elliot Shipley. Joel was appointed clerk of Iowa Yearly Meeting in 1867, and the couple went on a ministry tour of Europe from 1872-1873. When they returned from the trip to Europe the Beans could not approve of the direction the revival movement among Friends in Iowa had taken. The revivalists were bringing into their meetings such things as programmed worship and paid pastors, and were departing from such Quaker ideas as the universality of the Inner light and the need for spiritual discipline and gradual growth rather than instant perfection. Even though the Beans opposed this so-called 'holiness movement,' they would not join a group of Conservative Friends who left the Iowa Yearly Meeting to found a rival, "Conservative," yearly meeting in opposition to that movement. They disliked division and did not want to be part of it. After moving to San Jose, California for the sake of Joel’s health and meeting other Friends there who had been a part of the Iowa Yearly Meeting, they helped to establish the College Park Association of Friends, a loose organization of likeminded Quakers. In 1893 the Iowa Yearly Meeting deposed them as ministers and in 1898 disowned them altogether. The Beans had two daughters, Lydia Shipley Bean (Cox) and Catharine Elliot Bean (Cox), who married brothers Isaac and Charles Cox.

Hannah Elliot Shipley Bean (1830-1909) was the daughter of Thomas Shipley and Lydia Richards. A Philadelphia Quaker, she married Joel Bean and was involved in his activities in Iowa and California.

Anna Shipley Cox Brinton (1887-1969), daughter of Lydia S. Bean Cox and Charles E. Cox and granddaughter of Joel and Hannah E. Shipley Bean, was born in College Park, CA. She attended Westtown School and graduated from Stanford University, Phi Beta Kappa, and Ph.D. in 1917. She was involved in the transformation of the College Park Association of Friends into Pacific Yearly Meeting. In 1918, she became a member of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting for the Western District. Around 1920, she was appointed to the child feeding program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Upper Silesia (northern Poland). In 1921, she married Howard Haines Brinton, with whom she had four children. In 1928, ASCB was recorded a minister in the Society of Friends. Later, at Mills College, she became professor of Archaeology and Convener of the School of Fine Arts, as well as Dean of the Faculty. From there, she went to Earlham College where both she and Howard Brinton taught. In 1936, the couple was appointed permanent directors of Pendle Hill. In 1948, Anna was appointed the AFSC Commissioner for Asia. Under that title she addressed the Women‘s Problems Group in Philadelphia and authored a Pendle Hill pamphlet. Both Anna and Howard worked toward the reunification of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. After the Friends World Conference of 1952, the Brintons volunteered in Japan, and Anna was in charge of post-war relief at one of the two Friends Centers in Tokyo. Anna served as a member of the AFSC Board of Directors (1938-1952) and then as vice chairman (1958-60; 1962-65). Her head was the model for Sylvia Judson Shaw‘s sculpture of Mary Dyer, the Quaker martyr. ASCB was president of Friends Historical Association in the 1960s.

Catharine Elizabeth Bean Cox (1865-1964) was born in Iowa to Joel and Hannah E. Shipley Bean. She received a BA from Bryn Mawr College in 1889. In 1891, she married Isaac Milton Cox. In 1898, she and her family moved to Hawaii, spurred by Isaac’s poor health. She taught at the Punahou School and helped Anna Rice Cooke research and catalog her art collection, which became the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Catharine Cox also served as director of the Honolulu Academy of Arts from 1927 to 1928. She died December 7, 1964. She had at least one child, Joel Bean Cox.

Charles Ellwood Cox (1854-1930) was a Haverford alumnus (class of 1880), professor at Stanford University, a widely known Quaker, and a representative of the Provident Mutual Life Company. He was born in Indiana, the eldest of 8 children, including brothers Isaac, Benjamin, Alvin and E. Morris. He married Lydia Shipley Bean Cox in 1884--they had two children, Catharine Morris Cox (Miles) and Anna Shipley Cox (Brinton). After LSBC's death, he married Sarah T. Walton. He served in various positions of public responsibility in the San Jose area. He served as a professor of mathematics at Stanford and elsewhere.

Lydia Shipley Bean Cox (1860-1922) was the daughter of Joel Bean and Hannah Shipley Bean. Born in Iowa, she moved with her parents to San Jose, California, where she met and married Charles Ellwood Cox. They had three children, of whom two, Anna Shipley Cox (Brinton) and Catharine Morris Cox (Miles), survived to adulthood.

Catharine Morris Cox Miles (1890-1984) was an American psychologist known for her work on intelligence and genius. Born in San Jose, CA, to Lydia Shipley Bean and Charles Ellwood Cox, she earned a PhD from Stanford University. After World War I, she was involved with the efforts by Quakers and the nascent American Friends Service Committee to feed the starving German populace. In 1927 she married psychologist Walter R. Miles. She was a professor of clinical psychology at the Yale Medical School and affiliated with Yale's Institute of Human Relations. She and Walter R. Miles had one child, Anna Miles Jones.

Elizabeth R. Kirk Miles (-1925) was the first wife of Walter R. Miles. She and WRM had three children.

Walter Richard Miles (1885-1978) was an American psychologist. He developed his own apparatus for his studies on drunkenness and learning, among other subjects. He married Elizabeth R. Kirk in 1908 and had three children. After her death in 1925, he married Catharine Morris Cox, with whom he had one additional child.

Sources: Wikipedia, American Psychologist, Ancestry.com, Pennock.ws, Quaker.org, Ms.Coll.1189 finding aid, materials in the collection. Some of this writing is quoted from Wikipedia and the finding aid for collection 1189.

From the guide to the Anna S. Cox Brinton family papers, 1825-1960, (Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections)