Contents

Descriptive Summary

Administrative Information

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTE

SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE RECORDS

SELECTED SEARCH TERMS DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE RECORDS

Series 1. Board Records: Minutes, Correspondence, Financial Records

Series 2. Reports and Publications

Series 3. Board Committees

Series 4. Miscellaneous

Finding aid for Partnership for Productivity Records, 1968-1990

Finding Aid Prepared by FHL staff

2007

Administrative Information

Partnership for Productivity Is People, Slides and cassette tape removed to FHL Audiovisual collection

Polaroid photograph of A. Keith Smiley, probably 1982

Harper, Malcolm. Consultancy for Small Business, 1976, removed to FHL book stacks

Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration Records, Swarthmore College Peace Collection

Lake Mohonk Conferences of Friends of the Indian and other Dependent Peoples Records, Haverford College Special Collection

A Man Who Made a Difference: the Life of David H. Scull. Charles E. Fager, ed. McLean, VA : Langley Hill Friends Meeting, c. 1985.

RG5/135 David H. Scull Papers

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTE

Partnership for Productivity (PfP) was a Quaker-sponsored program in overseas economic development which advised small business ventures primarily in African countries. It was founded in 1969 by David H. Scull with an initial project established in Western Kenya in 1970. Its two organs, the Partnership for Productivity Foundation/USA, Inc., (a non-profit service agency) and the Partnership for Productivity Investments/USA, Inc., (a limited dividend stock company) were designed to provide capital for loans or investments, combined with on-going management counsel or personal supervision. The goal of the Foundation was to promote the better sharing of the world’s resources as an expression of a religious concern. Its work was to be accomplished through assisting and encouraging beneficial and productive industrial and commercial enterprise in the economically less developed countries and through helping to create conditions favorable to such development. Activities included providing business, educational and social services, investing or lending available funds and personal leadership. The purpose of PfP Investments/USA, Inc., company was to invest in, loan to, or underwrite loans for, beneficial and productive industrial and commercial enterprise in the economically less-developed countries; it may do this directly or by lending to or investing in other organizations established to carry our similar objectives.

In December 1986, the Board resolved to liquidate the corporation after a sudden financial crisis which occurred when liabilities caused the enterprise to collapse. CARE absorbed some of the PfP’s project.

David H. Scull (1914-1983) was a Virginia Quaker businessman. He was active in civil rights and other social concerns and one of the founders of Langley Hill Monthly Meeting in McLean, Virginia. He served as clerk of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, on the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College, and chair of the International Affairs committee of the Friends World Committee for Consultation through its World Resources Committee. He was founder and president of PfP from 1970 to 1979.

A. Keith Smiley, a member of the Quaker family which owns and manages Lake Mohonk Mountain House, was a board member of the Production for Productivity Foundation from 1969 to its end. He was active in Quaker activities and served as member of the Friends World Committee executive committee and its subcommittee Sharing the World’s Resources. Lake Mohonk Mountain House was established in 1869 by Albert and Alfred Smiley near New Palz, N.Y., and was the site of a special conferences (Lake Mohonk Conferences of Friends of the Indian and Lake Mohonk Conferences on International Arbitration) as well as the regular meeting location for Partnership for Productivity.

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SCOPE AND CONTENT OF THE RECORDS

Records, from 1968-1990, include minutes, correspondence, financial records, annual reports, country project reports and articles about the Partnership for Productivity.

Organized into four series: