During the nineteenth century two major separations took place. The first caused serious divisions: the orthodox party emphasizing biblical authority and the historical aspects of salvation, and the liberal party (Hicksite) emphasizing individual conscience and the inward aspects of religion. Later in the century differences arose within the orthodox party concerning the appropriateness of planned worship and ministry. The Wilburites wanted to preserve the quietist tradition of immediate spiritual guidance; the Gurneyites wanted to acknowledge biblical and rational preparation for ministry under the Spirit's guidance. The latter position proved to be more successful in accommodating Quakerism to a westward moving, pioneering America.

After the Civil War, touched by revivals that swept America, Friends rekindled their banked fires of evangelism and joined other Christians in new evangelistic forms. Revival meetings with singing and altar calls characterized the new mode. Traveling ministers became settled ministers; and thus arose the pastoral system soon to become dominant in American Quakerdom. Rapid growth occurred during the latter decades of the nineteenth century. To coordinate growth and to articulate Quaker faith and practice, several uniting conferences were held. Widely representative, these conferences led to programs of missionary outreach to Mexico, Africa, Alaska, the Caribbean, India, China, and Japan. Eleven American yearly meetings established a delegate organization, the Five Years Meeting, and affirmed their bonds of spiritual unity in a significant document, the 1887 Richmond Declaration of Faith.

This unity was broken by a modernist-fundamentalist rift in American Protestantism between World Wars I and II. Polarization developed between those who stressed evangelism and doctrinal essentials and those who stressed humanitarian concerns and doctrinal liberty. In 1926 Northwest Yearly Meeting (then called Oregon) withdrew from the Five Years Meeting (now called Friends United Meeting). In several other yearly meetings withdrawals occurred, or disaffected evangelicals formed association with fragmented Protestants (particularly Wesleyan). Loyalty to Quaker connections and testimonies became weakened as a result of these schisms. During these decades Protestant liberalism dominated Europe and America.