Philadelphia Quakers: A Brief History is a concise but insightful account of the Religious Society of Friends, beginning with their founding in mid-seventeenth-century England. Persecuted for his non-conformist beliefs, William Penn, in 1682, established a refuge for Quakers in his New World colony of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia became the capital city of Penn's utopian colony dedicated to the ideals of religious toleration, participatory government, and brotherly love. Afterward, Philadelphia Quakers became a minority in the City of Brotherly Love, but continued to exercise a disproportionate influence on local, state, and national affairs through such humanitarian reforms as abolitionism, women's rights, care for the mentally ill, Native American affairs, and prison reform. Quakers also experienced a religious schism between more traditional Quietists and evangelical Friends. That schism plagued Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, the central governing body of Friends, until 1955 when the two sides reunited.

Richly illustrated, Philadelphia Quakers tells the story of a remarkable people whose active commitment to religious freedom, social diversity, and peace has had a profound impact on American society and government.

Arcadia Publishing

2023 | Paperback

State: Pennsylvania

ISBN: 9781634994989

Pages: 144

Imprint: America Through Time 

Series: America Through Time

Price: $24.99

“William Kashatus provides a concise and accurate history of the impact of Quakers on Philadelphia from its founding by William Penn until the present.  He draws upon his own earlier publications on Quakers and Lincoln, Chester County, and the American Revolution and shows how Friends pioneered efforts for freedom of religion, antislavery, women's rights, social justice, and peace.”  - J. William Frost, author of A Perfect Freedom: Religious Liberty in Pennsylvania

“In Philadelphia Quakers: A Brief History, William Kashatus shows how a people few in numbers but big in purpose did much to shape the character and conduct of Philadelphia, and beyond. The genius of Kashatus’s book is its honesty in relating the tensions among Philadelphia Quakers who knew they must live in the world, and improve it, without becoming of the world and a slave to it.   Philadelphia Quakers is at once a compelling American story of a people in a constant state of becoming and an invitation to consider how and why faith-based people make history by the institutions they build and the causes they compel.” – Randall M. Miller, co-editor of Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth

“Philadelphia Quakers have always been few in number. But, pound for pound, they have been the most culturally creative religious community in all of American history.  They have led the nation in promoting popular democracy, religious pluralism, the empowerment of women, the abolition of slavery, and much more.  In this brief but luminous book, William Kashatus tells their story as it has never been told before.  Kashatus, a longtime Quaker, writes lovingly of his people and admiringly of their astonishing accomplishments yet never neglects their foibles and failings.  No one knows their past better.  No one ponders their present and future with more urgency.” – Michael Zuckerman, author of Peaceable Kingdoms: New England Towns in the Eighteenth Century