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COFFIN - 9 reference results

coffin, closed receptacle for a corpse. Its purpose is usually to protect and to aid preservation of the body, although in the past some have believed that it may confine the spirit of the deceased. Bark, skins, and mats were commonly used in primitive societies to wrap the body prior to burial. Peoples living near rivers or oceans often buried their dead in canoes, and hollowed oak coffins have been found in the Bronze Age barrow. The Chaldaeans and the early Greeks enclosed a corpse in clay, sealing the coffin by firing it. The largest known stone coffins (see sarcophagus) are Egyptian. Wood and papier-mâché were also used in Egypt for mummy chests. Coffins lined with metal, usually lead, came into use in the Middle Ages. Most coffins used in the Western world today are made of elm or oak and are lined with bronze, copper, lead, or zinc.

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Mott, Lucretia Coffin

Mott, Lucretia Coffin, 1793-1880, American feminist and reformer, b. Nantucket, Mass. She moved (1804) with her family to Boston and later (1809) to Philadelphia. A Quaker, she studied and taught at a Friends school near Poughkeepsie, N.Y. After 1818 she became known as a lecturer for temperance, peace, the rights of labor, and the abolition of slavery. She aided fugitive slaves, and following the meeting (1833) of the American Anti-Slavery Society, she was a leader in organizing the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Refusal by the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London (1840) to recognize women delegates led to her championship of the cause of women's rights. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton she organized (1848) at Seneca Falls, N.Y., the first women's rights convention in the United States.

See biographies by O. Cromwell (1958, repr. 1971), D. Sterling (1964), and G. Kurland (1972).

Her husband, James Mott, 1788-1868, whom she married in 1811, was also a Quaker who worked constantly for the antislavery cause and for woman suffrage. He was a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, and he presided (1848) at the first national women's rights convention at Seneca Falls. He also aided in the founding (1864) of Swarthmore College.

See A. D. Hallowell, ed., James and Lucretia Mott: Life and Letters (1884).

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Jewett, Charles Coffin

Jewett, Charles Coffin, 1816-68, American librarian, b. Lebanon, Maine. Jewett prepared his first catalog of books as librarian of Andover Theological Seminary. He was appointed librarian of Brown Univ. in 1841, where he rearranged and cataloged that library by subjects. In 1848 he became librarian of the Smithsonian Institution. There he published a survey of U.S. libraries and started mechanical duplication of individual catalog entries. As superintendent of the Boston Public Library from 1858 to 1865, Jewett worked out catalog rules which were adopted internationally.

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Hanaford, Phoebe Ann (Coffin)

Hanaford, Phoebe Ann (Coffin), 1829-1921, American Universalist minister. She was the first woman ordained (1868) in New England. Hanaford was the author of fiction, history, and a chronicle of American women, Daughters of America (1882).

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Coffin, William Sloane, Jr.

Coffin, William Sloane, Jr., 1924-2006, American Protestant social activist, b. New York City. Strongly influenced by the social philosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr, Coffin became a leader in the civil-rights and peace movements of the 1960s and 1970s when he was chaplain at his alma mater, Yale. As minister (1977-87) of Riverside Church in New York City he was involved with such social concerns as nuclear disarmament and the plight of war refugees. Subsequently remaining active in the international peace and disarmament movement, he continued to write, teach, and lecture; from 1987 to 1990 he headed SANE/Freeze. Among his books is A Passion for the Possible (1993).

See his memoir (1977); biography by W. Goldstein (2004).

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Coffin, Levi

Coffin, Levi, 1798-1877, American abolitionist, b. North Carolina. In 1826 he moved to the Quaker settlement of Newport (now Fountain City), Ind., where he kept a store until 1847. His home became a leading station of the Underground Railroad, of which he was styled "president."

See his Reminiscences (3d ed. 1898, repr. 1968).

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Coffin, Henry Sloane

Coffin, Henry Sloane, 1877-1954, American Presbyterian clergyman, b. New York City. He was pastor of the Madison Ave. Presbyterian Church in New York City (1905-26), lecturer (1904-9), associate professor of pastoral theology (1909-26), and president (1926-45) of Union Theological Seminary. He was moderator (1943-44) of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. His works include The Meaning of the Cross (1931), God's Turn (1934), Religion Yesterday and Today (1940), God Confronts Man in History (1947), and Communion through Preaching (1952).

See biography by M. P. Noyes (1964).

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Coffin, Levi

(born Oct. 28, 1798, New Garden, N.C., U.S.—died Sept. 16, 1877, Cincinnati, Ohio) U.S. abolitionist. Despite little formal education, he became a teacher. As a devout Quaker, he opposed slavery. In 1826 he moved to Newport, Ind., where he made his home into a depot of the Underground Railroad and used much of his wealth as a merchant to help the escaping slaves. In 1847 he moved to Cincinnati, where he opened a store selling goods made only by free labour. He continued his work with the Underground Railroad until the outbreak of the American Civil War; he then worked to aid liberated slaves.

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