what was the holy experiment in pennsylvania

William Penn's Holy Experiment

In the 17th century, many groups of British Christians rose and fought against religious intolerance and corruption. The Puritans sought a return to biblical religion and a purified form of Christianity in England . This resulted in the Puritan Revolution, as well as a migration to America to find a place to worship God in what they considered the 'correct' fashion.

Another group, called the Quakers, who approached Christianity from an extreme spiritual interpretation, also pushed against the status quo. They were often criticized and abused for their faith, both by the religious and the civic world. One of their members, William Penn (1644-1718), was influential in the establishment of that faith in America and was responsible for creating a colony in America where a government was established that earnestly and actively sought to protect religious and civil rights. Quaker specialist Bonnelyn Young Kunze writes in her article:

William Penn's chief claim to historical fame was his founding of the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania, as well as his prolific writings in defense of Quakerism and religious toleration in England. (170)

William Penn's parents were an interesting mix. According to American sociologist and historian Harry Wildes, Penn's father was an admiral in the royal navy and was "by conviction pro-Anglican and royalist" (Wildes, 10). He was a stern and serious man who lived and worked amidst the political chaos of the time. Not a great deal is known about Penn's mother except that she was "energetic, extroverted" (Wildes, 9), and was left alone for long periods of time to raise her children by herself. Her initial style of parenting was unorthodox, but later on, she attempted to improve upon her approach.

William Penn was described as quiet and introspective, although he was reported to have "exhibited a strong mystical streak. By his own account, he had mystical experiences by the time he was twelve or thirteen" (Dunn and Dunn, 4). No doubt this would be a determinant factor in his joining the Quakers.

At this same time, Penn and his father had "fairly stormy relations" (Dunn and Dunn, 4) that are documented in correspondences between the two. He often rebelled against his father's wishes and demands of him. This rebellious streak led him into trouble a great deal as a young man. He was expelled from Oxford in 1662 for objecting "to the prayer book and to ritual which seemed too popish" (Dunn and Dunn, 7) and was severely punished for his involvement with the Puritans. According to historian Hans Fantel, Penn's father, hoping to separate him from the "company of subversives" (Fantel, 45), sent him abroad to Paris, France. There, he mingled with many great men, including King Louis XIV of France (r. 1643-1715) and Moïse Amyraut (1596-1664), a famous Protestant Christian humanist.

During this time, contrary to what his father hoped to accomplish, Penn honed his challenging views even more, but he did learn some tact and diplomacy. He returned home a more mature, even-tempered man (much to his parents' delight), but he still had questions. His father, too, questioned why Penn was wasting his time on so much theology and enrolled him in law school. Fortunately for Penn, he was able to spend more time with his father and observed him in his military duties, which no doubt influenced Penn's later administration of the Pennsylvania colony.

At this time, Penn was also introduced to the English royal court, providing contacts that would serve him well later on. As a responsible adult, Penn was given more family responsibilities, and his father sent him to Ireland to take care of some family holdings and estates.

Penn Befriends The Quakers

While away from his family's influence, Penn began attending Quaker meetings. These meetings were forbidden under the Claredon Code, which "forbade all religious gatherings except those under the auspices of the official Church of England" (Fantel, 66). Again, Penn found himself pitted against authority concerning his religious rights. During one meeting, Penn had the opportunity to listen to Thomas Loe, a famous Quaker leader. There, Penn was deeply affected by what he heard.

]Penn] recognized the Quaker meeting as a community through which a free faith of separate individuals could take on socially effective forms. ... Penn had found ... a practical intersection of faith and society." (Fantel, 68)

Eventually, Penn joined the Quakers and was subsequently arrested and jailed after a meeting of theirs was discovered with him in attendance. He was given the opportunity to escape imprisonment by a politically savvy judge, but he stood fast to his ideals. At age 22, William Penn had declared himself a Quaker, much to his father's sorrow and anger.

Penn's conversion was predictable considering his mystical background. With the Quakers, "He could share ... powerful feelings of possession by the spirit and enjoy a certain freedom to interpret and act on those feelings in an individual way" (Dunn and Dunn, 5). Furthermore, this new faith of Penn's also managed to justify some of his belligerence with his parents. Being a Quaker "gave Penn good religious grounds for disobeying his parents" (Dunn and Dunn, 6) if they made religious demands that challenged his beliefs. The ultimate result of this was bad relations with his father until his father's death in 1670.

Penn not only had difficult relations with his family but also managed to get himself in much trouble with the Church of England. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1667 for writing a tract entitled, The Sandy Foundation Shaken Speaking Against the Doctrine of the Trinity . While in the Tower, he wrote No Cross, No Crown and Innocency with Her Open Face, and he later went on to write several other works. Many of his tracts were written by Penn to defend his Quaker brethren or in defense of religious freedom. According to Quaker historian Melvin Endy Jr.,

Penn's originality as a tolerationist consisted largely in the ingenuity with which he drew up variations of arguments intended to convince his readers that it was to their interest as individuals, citizens, and merchants to replace coerced uniformity with the blessings of toleration. (Endy, 323)

Penn also began to preach, and in 1671, he was arrested and imprisoned for preaching at a worship service. Still, "Despite filthy and crowded conditions, Penn wrote three lengthy tracts and several epistles focusing on liberty of conscience" (Adams and Emmerich, 63). He took the matter of religious liberty very seriously and hoped to use his talents in a just and righteous cause. He found that cause in the establishment of a Quaker colony in America. There, Penn hoped to put his religious and political beliefs to the test in one grand 'Holy Experiment.'

The Pennsylvania Colony & the Holy Experiment

In 1680, an older debt of King Charles II of England (r. 1660-1685) was passed from the deceased Admiral Penn to his son, William Penn, but instead of that money owed to him, young Penn asked to receive "proprietary title to a huge territory in America" (Dunn and Dunn, 41). He asked for this because “by obtaining the proprietorship to a Quaker colony, he could vastly expand his service to his coreligionists and to the general cause of religious and political liberty – and at the same time greatly enlarge his property holdings" (Dunn and Dunn, 42). It was Penn's overwhelming desire to "create a theocentric society without resorting to compulsion in religious matters" (Adams and Emmerich, 66). In that utopian society, Penn "sought to reconcile liberty and authority in his frame of government" (Stern, 85).

Therefore, Penn established this colony with the hope that religious toleration would be maintained without abuse by the government. He "argued that intolerance was contrary to reason. To sacrifice the liberty and property of a man for religious causes would not win the loyalty of that man for the prince. Enforced conversion ... resembled forced marriage" (Beatty, 134). Of course, as the head proprietor and governor of those holdings in America, Penn had complete authority as detailed in the Pennsylvania charter of 1681. However, he used this position as much as possible to procure liberties for the colonists and not to help himself. Sadly, he did not succeed as fully as he had hoped.

Penn's earliest plan of government was called the Fundamental Constitutions of Pennsylvania. This document, probably drafted by Penn himself, was the "most liberal of the early plans of government for Pennsylvania. Its opening section declares religious liberty for all inhabitants" (Soderlund, 96). Furthermore, it was extremely democratic in spirit and law. Much of the power rested in the hands of the people, rather than with the governor and the administrative council.

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Unfortunately, this plan was rejected for political reasons at the time and was neither ratified nor signed by the new colonists (not even by Penn). Instead, a new Frame of Government was enacted. It had a stronger hierarchical style of government with most of the earlier plan's extreme democratic representation being removed from its provisions. According to Historian Jean Soderlund, it still guaranteed "religious freedom to all inhabitants who believe in one God" (119) and established an electoral legislative system, prohibited taxation without representation, and guaranteed free trade .

This experiment in religion and government thrived, with new colonists coming in from all parts of Europe . Interestingly, not all immigrants to Pennsylvania were Quakers. There were many Puritans, Catholics, and people from other sects, but Penn's system of government still incorporated them. Things began to change for Penn and his colony, however, with the advent of the Glorious Revolution (1688-1689).

Penn's association and friendship with the fleeing king of England made him a hunted man, and he had to spend some time hiding to save his life. During this period, the control of the Pennsylvania colony was taken away from him because of the lack of military support for the French-Indian War by its colonists. Eventually, Penn regained control in the colony, but by that time, there was great "political disorder, religious factionalism, and a General Assembly hostile to his executive power" (Adams and Emmerich, 68).

Ever the man of peace, Penn approved a Charter of Privileges in 1701, which gave the Pennsylvania legislature even greater powers. He also returned to England to fight against a bill in Parliament seeking to re-establish royal control over the colonies, never to return to his colony in Pennsylvania again. In 1718, he died in England from complications from several debilitating strokes he suffered earlier that year. Initially, Penn's charter was split between his sons, but eventually, the Penn family sold it back to the Crown.

Penn's Holy Experiment proved true to its name. It was a testing ground for new and innovative ways of dealing with religious tolerance alongside civic administration. It showed that, at least for a time, the two kingdoms of faith and government could co-exist in ways that were free and fruitful. This form of society could prosper and flourish despite hardships, military struggles, and religious diversity.

The colony in Pennsylvania did more than just succeed for itself; it provided the framework and example for other colonies to follow in America. Even beyond that, it greatly influenced the eventual constitution of the United States of America. Adams and Emmerich have stated, "No other colony inspired the Founders more in the area of religious liberty than Pennsylvania" (68).

This incitement did not just happen on its own; William Penn was the force responsible for the creation of this important colony. As Edward Beatty concluded, Penn's "great enterprise in the New World was an endeavor to set up a social order blessed with religious toleration and controlled by humanitarian ideals" (305). Without him, there may not have been as strong a desire to create an environment for the cultivation of religious freedoms.

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Bibliography

• Arlin Adams and Charles J. Emmerich. "William Penn and the American Heritage of Religious Liberty." The Journal of Law and Religion , 1/8/1990.
• Beatty, Edward Corbyn Obert. William Penn As Social Philosopher. Kessinger Publishing, 1970.
• Bonnelyn Young Kunze. "Religious Authority and Social Status in Seventeenth-Century England: the Friendship of Margaret Fell, George Fox, and William Penn." Church History , 2/57/1988.
• Dunn, Richard S. & Dunn, Mary Maples. The World of William Penn. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
• Edwin Broner and David Fraser. William Penn’s Published Writings: 1660–1726. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986
• Endy Jr., Melvin B. William Penn and Early Quakerism . Princeton University Press, 2016.
• Fantel, Hans. William Penn. Morrow, 1974.
• Soderlund, Jean R. William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania: A Documentary History. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.
• T. Noel Stern. "William Penn on the Swearing of Oaths: His Ideas in Theory and Practice." Quaker History , 2/70/1981.
• Wildes, Harry Emerson & illus. William Penn. Macmillan, 1974.

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The Holy Experiment, in Pennsylvania

Between 1681 and 1683, William Penn established the colony of Pennsylvania. He sought to put into practice all his Quaker ideals, and he called it his ‘Holy Experiment’.  He thought that everything would be possible in the New World, unlike in the England of his time.

This summarises the philosophy underpinning the Holy Experiment. Its key features were:

Fair treatment for Native Americans : King Charles II had given Penn the land. But Penn did not think it was the King’s to give: in his view the land belonged to the Leni Lenape Indians who had been living there long before the colonists arrived. He was determined to buy the land from them, at a fair price. He signed a treaty with them at Shackamaxon in 1682.

No military : the King was amazed when Penn chose not to bring arms and soldiers with him. This was a complete contrast to other colonies, where there were frequent battles with the Native Americans.

In 1682 Penn set out the first version of Pennsylvania’s Constitution in the ‘Great Law’. In 1683 this was augmented, in the ‘Second Frame of Government’. When he returned to Pennsylvania in 1699 it was revised to become the ‘Charter of Privileges’. This remained in place until the War of Independence, in 1776.

The key features of all these documents were:

Freedom of religion : all could worship freely, as they chose. Pennsylvania would be open to people of all religious persuasions, not only Quakers. At the time, Quakers and many others were still being persecuted in Britain, where the only form of religion allowed was the Church of England. So Pennsylvania was a haven of religious freedom, and many new settlers came.

An enlightened penal code ; prison was to reform, not only to punish.  People in prison were to be taught a trade, so that they could be gainfully employed on release, and they were to be treated humanely. The death penalty was to be confined to murder and treason. In Britain at the time many relatively trivial offences incurred the death penalty and prisons were terrible places.

Work for everyone : he made occupations in agriculture, crafts and trade much more accessible than elsewhere. Pennsylvania became known as "the best poor man's country."

Education for everyone : girls and boys were all to be educated. This was a remarkable innovation at a time when most children were illiterate, especially girls. And the education was to be useful, and practical, so that all could find employment. This was characteristic of Quakers in Britain too.

A widened franchise : all men were to be given the vote. Equality did not extend to giving women the vote, but in England only a small proportion of men could vote, namely those owning property. There was no mention of slaves or 'Indians' however.

T own planning for healthy living : he designed Philadelphia on a grid pattern, with wide public squares and parks. He had seen the ravages caused by the Great Plague in London, and the fire that followed, and he was determined that his ‘greene countrie towne‘ would be healthy and safe. This approach to design was later emulated all over America.

Penn only spent 4 years in Pennsylvania, and not everything he did outlasted him. But much did. A great deal of Penn’s thinking about governance can be seen in later constitutional documents. Thomas Jefferson, third US President, and key author of the Declaration of Independence, called Penn the greatest lawgiver the world has ever seen, and drew on his ideas. Penn's legacy is considerable.

Further Reading and Credits

The picture shows the statue of William Penn, on top of the City Hall, in Philadelphia.

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William Penn: His “Holy Experiment” in Religious Tolerance in Pennsylvania

The Birth of Pennsylvania, 1680 , by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.  King Charles II granted a title of land in America to William Penn to repay a debt to Penn’s father, Sir William, who was a friend of the Crown.

William Penn was one of America’s most notable advocates and movers for religious freedom in early America . Penn believed everyone had the God-given right to choose what to believe and how to peaceably worship.

William Penn’s Early Life and Advocacy for Liberty of Conscience

William Penn

As a Quaker in England who believed in the “Inner Light of Christ” and criticized formal external religion, Penn was expelled from the Church of England. He was sent to France by his father to shake his non-conformist views but there, studying among persecuted Huguenots (or French Protestants), became a stronger dissenter. Penn traveled Europe, visiting Quakers and met philosopher John Locke . When non-conformists were persecuted in Britain, he became an advocate for religious freedom and was imprisoned. He corresponded with Roger Williams of Rhode Island and protested to colonial authorities when Quakers in Massachusetts were mistreated.

In 1670, Penn wrote  A Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Debated and Defended by the Authority of Reason, Scripture, and Antiquity  in support of freedom of belief and against religious coercion and persecution as violating the Bible and human rights. Some of Penn’s views reflected those of Martin Luther and Roger Williams. Penn argued that coercion discredits the honor of God, the meekness of the Christian religion, the authority of Scripture, the privilege of nature, the principles of common reason, the well-being of government and society, and the teachings of wise men in historical and modern times. One early historian called Penn’s treatise “the completest exposition of the theory of toleration of the time.”

Penn’s Founding of Pennsylvania and Experiment in Religious Tolerance

In 1681, Penn was granted a charter and title of land in colonial America by King Charles II to repay a debt to Penn’s father and to remove Penn and his protests from England. King Charles named the land Pennsylvania, meaning “Penn’s woods” or “Penn’s forest,” to honor Penn’s father, Sir William, who had been a friend of the Crown. In founding a new colony, Penn hoped for revenue to pay off debts and to create a “tolerance settlement” in America for persecuted Christians. He called this colony a “Holy Experiment” in religious tolerance and hoped it would be an example for Christians everywhere.

Penn’s ideas of religious tolerance, like Williams’s, differed from those of others who sought a conformed religious society that followed a state church. Penn wanted to allow differences in Christian belief and worship. He thought believers’ doctrinal differences were less important than their shared, fundamental Christian belief.

Implementing the Holy Experiment

Penn’s colony of Pennsylvania was self-governing, had no state church, and allowed religious pluralism . It forbid irreverence against God but did not impose conformity to one sect. One had to be a Christian to be a citizen or hold public office, but no denominational restrictions existed. The government maintained peace, order, and other necessary affairs. Penn placed power in the hands of the people and in their consent of governance and laws.

Pennsylvania’s Frame of Government of 1682 declares, “Any government is free to the people under it where the laws rule, and the people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.” The colony provided, says lawyer David Gibbs, Jr. in his book  One Nation Under God , “not freedom  from  religion but freedom  of  religion—not a separation of government from all religion, but a government that respected the religious consciences of all its citizens.” Penn hoped the environment would allow colonists to pursue and find true faith in God.

Penn recruited Christians of all sects from England and Europe. Refugees came from many parts of Europe that were affected by the Protestant Reformation , European religious wars, and English Civil War. Such Christian groups included:

• Presbyterians
• Roman Catholics
• Methodist Episcopalians

Colonists often described the settlers as “a great mixt multitude.” Pennsylvania became one of the most religiously tolerant places in New England and the world at that time. It became an example for the future nation of the United States of America.

Legacy of the Holy Experiment

The legacy of William Penn’s Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania had a profound impact on American religious freedom, making the colony one of the most religiously tolerant places in New England and the world at that time. Penn’s progressive ideas of religious tolerance directly influenced the framers of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights , embedding the principles of religious freedom into the foundation of American law. This enduring legacy set a lasting example for the future nation of the United States, demonstrating the importance and viability of a society based on religious tolerance and freedom.

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At the American Heritage Education Foundation (AHEF), we are dedicated to preserving and promoting the foundational principles of American history, including the values of religious tolerance and freedom championed by visionaries like William Penn. Your support helps us create educational resources, conduct workshops, and provide teachers with the tools they need to inspire students about the importance of these principles in shaping our nation.

Join us in our mission to educate future generations about the rich heritage of religious freedom and tolerance that forms the cornerstone of American democracy. By donating to AHEF or participating in our programs, you can make a lasting impact on the quality of history education and ensure that the legacy of the “Holy Experiment” continues to inspire and guide us.

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Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Source for more information:   Kamrath, Angela E.   The Miracle of America:  The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief .  Second Edition.  Houston, TX:  American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

Related posts/videos: 1.  An Introduction t o Popular Sovereignty 2.  Challenges in the Early Puritan Colonies: The Dilemma of Religious Laws and Dissent 3.   The Two Kingdoms Doctrine : Religious Reformers Recognize the Civil and Spiritual Kingdom 4.   The First Experiments in Freedom of Belief & Religious Tolerance in America 5.  Roger Williams:  His Quest for Religious Purity and Founding of Rhode Island 6.  Roger Williams:  First Call for Separation of Church and State in America  7.   Early Americans supported Religious Tolerance based on God as Judge of Conscience 8.   Early Americans opposed Religious Persecution as contrary to the Biblical Teachings of Christ . 9.   Early Americans argued Religious Coercion opposes Order of Nature 10.   Early Americans Believed Religious Coercion Opposes Reason 11.   Early Americans Supported Religious Tolerance within Civil Peace and Order 12.   Philosopher John Locke & His Letters Concerning Toleration 13.   The Religious Landscape of the Thirteen Colonies in Early 1700s America

Additional Reading/Handout:  Why Religious Freedom Became an Unalienable Right & First Freedom in America by Angela E. Kamrath, American Heritage Education Foundation.  Paper available to download from member resources, americanheritage.org .

Activity:  Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 4, Part 1 of 2, Activity 6:  Thinking About Freedom of Conscience and Religion, p. 147.  MS-HS.

Thinking About Freedom of Conscience and Religion

Purpose/Objective:   Students learn about the arguments, motives, and actions of Roger Williams and William Penn who founded or influenced the religiously tolerant colonies of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania.

Suggested Readings:  1) Chapter 4 of  Miracle of America  sourcebook/text.  Students read sections from Introduction to 4.15. 2) Paper/handout titled  Why Religious Freedom Became an Unalienable Right & First Freedom in America by Angela E. Kamrath (AHEF).  Paper available to download from member resources, americanheritage.org . 3) Related Post: The First Experiments in Freedom of Belief & Religious Tolerance in America

Activity:   A) Short-Paragraph Test.  Students think about, write on, discuss in small groups/whole class (with chairs in a circle, if possible) the questions below.  In writing on these questions, students may use more informal journaling/reflective writing.  Students may use this activity or parts of it as test preparation for a short-answer test on the same questions: 1.  How did the beliefs of Williams and Penn differ from those of the Puritans?  How were they similar? 2.  How do the experiences of Roger William and William Penn influence your own views about religious tolerance and freedom of belief? 3.  What main points from the Bible and other sources were used by Williams and Penn to argue against religious coercion and in support of religious tolerance and freedom of belief? 4.  Why do you think Williams and Penn based their arguments against religious intolerance and coercion largely on the Bible and Christian principles? 5.  Why is it important for people to have freedom of conscience and to be tolerant toward other people’s peaceful religions? (These and other questions are also found in Chapter 4 of Miracle of America sourcebook/text, p. 125.)

B) Text Analysis.  Have students discuss and rephrase in their own words two or more quotes from Williams and Penn.

To download this whole unit,  sign up as an AHEF member  (no cost) to access the “resources” page on  americanheritage.org .  To order the printed binder format of the course guide with all the units, go to the  AHEF bookstore .

Copyright © American Heritage Education Foundation.  All rights reserved.

Dr. Danilo Petranovich is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Petranovich is the Director of the Abigail Adams Institute at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. Previously, he taught political science at Duke University and Yale University.  His scholarly expertise is in nineteenth-century European and American political and social thought, with a special emphasis on American culture and Abraham Lincoln.  He has authored a number of articles on Lincoln and is currently writing a book on nationalism and the North in antebellum America.  He is a member of Harvard’s Kirkland House.  He holds a B. A. from Harvard and a Ph. D. in Political Science from Yale University.

Dr. Richard J. Gonzalez (1912-1998) is Co-Founder of AHEF.  Dr. Gonzalez served as Chief Economist and a member of the Board of Directors for Humble Oil and Refining Company (later Exxon Mobil) in Houston, Texas, for 28 years.  Later, he served as an economic consultant to various federal agencies and studies including the Department of Defense and the National Energy Study. 

He consulted with the Petroleum Administration for Defense and the Office of Defense Mobilization. In 1970, he was appointed by the U. S. Secretary of the Interior to the National Energy Study.  In addition, Gonzalez chaired and directed many petroleum industry boards and committees.  He served as director of the National Industrial Conference Board, chairman of the Economics Advisory Committee-Interstate Oil Compact Commission, and chairman of the National Petroleum Council Drafting Committee on National Oil Policy.  Gonzalez also held visiting professorships at the University of Texas, University of Houston, University of New Mexico, Stanford University, and Northwestern University.  From 1983-1991, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Texas IC2 Institute (Innovation, Creativity, and Capital).

Gonzalez authored many articles and papers on topics ranging from energy economics to the role of progress in America. His articles include “Economics of the Mineral Industry” (1976), “Energy and the Environment: A Risk Benefit Approach” (1976), “Exploration and Economics of the Petroleum Industry” (1976), “Exploration for U. S. Oil and Gas” (1977), “National Energy Security” (1978), and “How Can U.S. Energy Production Be Increased?” (1979).

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Gonzalez earned his B.A. in Mathematics, M.A. in Economics, and Ph.D. in Economics (Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors) from the University of Texas at Austin.  He was and still is the youngest candidate ever to earn his Ph.D. from UT-Austin at the age of 21 in 1934.

In 1993, Dr. and Mrs. Gonzalez were recognized by the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) with the Bronze Good Citizenship Medals for “Notable Services on Behalf of American Principles.”

Selected Articles: 1.  “What Makes America Great? An Address before the Dallas Chapter Society for the Advancement of Management” (1951) 2.  “Power for Progress” (1952) 3.  “Increasing Importance of Economic Education” (1953) 4.  “Federal Spending and Deficits Must Be Controlled to Stop Inflation” (1978) 5.  “What Enabled Americans to Achieve Great Progress? Keys to Remarkable Economic Progress of the United States of America” (1989) 6.  “The Establishment of the United States of America” (1991)

Eugenie Gonzalez is Co-Founder of AHEF. Mrs. Gonzalez was elected to the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Trustees with Dr. Herman Barnett III and David Lopez from 1972-1976 and was a key designer and advocate for HISD’s Magnet School program.  With HISD and AHEF in 1993, she designed and implemented HISD’s annual American Heritage Month held every November throughout HISD. 

Jeannie was recognized in 1993 by the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) for “Notable Services on Behalf of American Principles” with the Bronze Good Citizenship Medal and in 2011 by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) for “Outstanding Achievement through Education Pursuits” with the Mary Smith Lockwood Medal.  In 2004, she was honored to receive HISD’s first American Heritage Month Exemplary Citizenship Award.

Jeannie was a volunteer, participant, and supporter of M. D. Anderson Cancer Hospital, St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, Gethsemane United Methodist Church, Houston Grand Jury Association (board member), League of Women Voters, Houston Area Forum, the Mayor’s Charter Study Committee, Vision America, Houston Parks Department, and Houston Tennis Association.  She was instrumental in the founding of the Houston Tennis Association and Houston Tennis Patrons.

In her youth, Jeannie was the leading women’s tennis player in the Midwest Section of the US Lawn Tennis Association and competed at the U. S. National Championships.  She attended by invitation and became the first women’s tennis player at the University of Texas at Austin.  In 1932, 1933, and 1934, Jeannie was women’s finalist at the Houston Invitational Tennis Tournament which became the River Oaks Invitational Tennis Tournament and is now the USTA Clay Court Championships.  She was instrumental in bringing some of the nation’s top amateur tennis players to that event.  Jeannie became the first teaching tennis professional at Houston Country Club and River Oaks Country Club, starting active junior programs at each.  Jeannie and her father, Jack Sampson, were jointly inducted into the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame in 2012.

Claudine Kamrath is Outreach Coordinator, Office Manager, and Resource Designer for AHEF. She oversees outreach efforts and office administration. She also collaborates on educational resource formatting and design.  She has served as an Elementary Art Teacher in Texas as well as a Communications and Design Manager for West University United Methodist Church in Houston. She also worked as a childrens’ Camp Counselor at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  She holds a B.A. in Art and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Texas at Austin as well as Texas Teacher Certification from the University of Houston. She has served in various children’s and student ministries.

Dr. Brian Domitrovic is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Domitrovic is a Senior Associate and the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics. He is also Department Chair and Professor of History at Same Houston State University.  He teaches American and European History and Economics.  His specialties also include Economic History, Intellectual History, Monetary Policy, and Fiscal Policy.  He has written articles, papers, and books–including  Econoclasts –in these subjects.  He is a board member of the Center for Western Civilization, Thought & Policy at the University of Colorado-Boulder and a trustee of the Philadelphia Society.  He has received several awards including the Director’s Award from Intercollegiate Studies Institute and fellowship grants from Earhart Foundation, Krupp Foundation, Princeton, Texas A&M, and SHSU.  He holds a B. A. in History & Mathematics from Columbia University, an M. A. in History from Harvard University, and a Ph. D. in History, with graduate studies in Economics, from Harvard University.

Jack Kamrath is Co-Founder and Vice-President of AHEF.  A Texas state champion and nationally-ranked tennis player during his high school and college years, Kamrath is the Co-Founder and Principal of Tennis Planning Consultants (TPC) in Houston, Texas, since 1970. TPC is the first, oldest, and most prolific tennis facility design and consulting firm in the United States and world.  Mr. Kamrath is also the founder and owner of Kamrath Construction Company and has owned and managed various real estate operating companies.  He worked with Brown and Root in construction and human resources in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from 1966-1970. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.  He is a member of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  In 2008, AHEF President Mr. Kamrath and AHEF received the Distinguished Patriot Award from the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (NSSAR) for leadership in preserving America’s heritage and the teaching of good citizenship principles.

Essays: 1.   1776:  From Oppression to Freedom 2.   FUPR:  The Formula for the American Experiment 2.   In Support of Our Pledge of Allegiance 3.   A Summation of America’s Greatest Ever Threat to Its Survival and Perpetuation 4.   A Brief Overview:  The Moral Dimension of Rule of Law in the U. S. Constitution  (editor)

Dr. Michael Owens is Director of Education of AHEF. He has served as a Presenter/Trainer of AHEF teacher training workshops. Owens has taken on a number of administration leadership roles in Texas public education throughout his career–including Superintendent in Dripping Springs ISD, Assistant Superintendent in Friendswood ISD, and Associate Executive Director of Instruction Services for Region IV Education Service Center. He has also served as Director of Exemplary Programs for the Texas Education Agency, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for College Station ISD, and Director of Elementary and Secondary Education for College Station ISD. Owens has led many professional development worships for the Texas School Boards Association, Texas Assessment, Texas Education Agency, and others. He has specialization in educational technology systems and educational assessments, and has Texas teaching experience. He currently serves as Texas Technology Engineering Literacy (TEL) test administrator for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for part of Texas. He holds a B.S. and a M.Ed. from Stephen F. Austin State University and a Ed.D. from the University of North Texas.  He retired in 2021.

Angela E. Kamrath is President and Editorial Director of AHEF.  She is the author of the critically-acclaimed  The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief . She is editor and co-contributor of AHEF’s widely-distributed teacher resources,  America’s Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty ,  America’s Heritage: An Experiment in Self-Government , and  The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide . In addition, she is editor and contributor for  The Founding Blog  and AHEF websites. Kamrath has taught, tutored, and consulted in writing and research at the University of Houston, Belhaven College, and Houston Christian University.  She also served as a Secondary English Teacher in Texas and as a Communications Assistant for St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston.  She served as a Research Assistant intern in the Office of National Service during the George H. W. Bush administration.  She holds a B.A. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin, a M.A. in Journalism from Regent University, and a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction as well as Texas Teacher Certification from the University of Houston.  She has served in various children’s and student ministries.

Dr. Steve Balch is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Balch is the Principal Founder and former President of the National Association of Scholars (NAS). He served as a Professor of Government at City University of New York from 1974-1987.  Dr. Balch has co-authored several NAS studies on education curriculum evolution and problems including  The Dissolution of General Education:  1914-1993 ,  The Dissolution of the Curriculum 1914-1996 , and  The Vanishing West .  He is the author of  Economic and Political Change After Crisis:  Prospects for Government, Liberty and Rule of Law  and numerous articles relating to issues in academia.  Dr. Balch has also founded and/or led many education organizations including the Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech University, Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, Association for the Study of Free Institutions, American Academy for Liberal Education, Philadelphia Society, Historical Society, and Association of Literary Scholars.  He has also served on the National Advisory Board of the U. S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), Educational Excellence Network, and New Jersey State Advisory Committee to the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights.  Dr. Balch was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2007, and the Jeanne Jordan Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award by the Bradley Foundation and American Conservative Union Foundation in 2009.  He holds a B. A. in Political Science from City University of New York and a M. A. and Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley.

Dr. Rob Koons is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Koons is a Professor of Philosophy and Co-Founder of The Western Civilization and American Institutions Program at The University of Texas at Austin. He teaches ancient, medieval, contemporary Christian, and political philosophy as well as philosophy of religion.  He has authored/co-authored countless articles and several books including  Realism Regained ,  The Atlas of Reality, Fundamentals of Metaphysics,  and  Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science .  He has been awarded numerous fellowships and is a member of the American Philosophical Association, Society of Christian Philosophers, and American Catholic Philosophical Association.  He holds a B. A. in Philosophy from Michigan State University, an M. A. in Philosophy and Theology from Oxford University, and a Ph. D. in Philosophy from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA).

Dr. Mark David Hall is an Advising Scholar for AHEF.  Dr. Hall is a Professor of Political Science in the Robertson School of Government at Regent University and a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy at First Liberty Institute.  He is also a Distinguished Scholar of Christianity & Public Life at George Fox University, Associate Faculty in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, and Senior Fellow in the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. His teaching interests include American Political Theory, Religion and Politics, Constitutional Law, and Great Books.  Dr. Hall is a nationally recognized expert on religious freedom and has written or edited a dozen books on religion and politics in America including  Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land:  How Christianity Has Advanced Freedom and Equality for All Americans ,  Did America Have a Christian Founding? Separating Modern Myth from Historical Truth ,  Great Christian Jurists in American History ,  America’s Wars: A Just War Perspective ,  Faith and the Founders of the American Republic ,  The Sacred Rights of Conscience ,  The Founders on God and Government , and  The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson .  He writes for the online publications Law & Liberty and Intercollegiate Studies Review and has appeared regularly on a number of radio shows, including Jerry Newcomb’s Truth in Action, Tim Wildman’s Today’s Issues, the Janet Mefferd Show, and the Michael Medved Show.  He has been awarded numerous fellowships and the Freedom Project Award by the John Templeton Foundation in 1999 and 2000.  He holds a B. A. in Political Science from Wheaton College and a Ph. D. in Government from the University of Virginia.

William Penn and His ‘Holy Experiment’

How Penn Applied Quakerism in Pennsylvania

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William Penn (1644-1718), one of the most famous early Quakers, put his religious beliefs into practice in the American colony he founded, resulting in unrivaled peace and prosperity.

Fast Facts: William Penn

• Known for : Minister, Missionary, Governor of Pennsylvania
• Born : October 14, 1644 in London, England
• Died : July 30, 1718 in Ruscombe, England
• Education : Chigwell School, Essex, England; University of Oxford; Protestant Academy, Saumur, France
• Published Works : The Sandy Foundation Shaken ; No Cross, No Crown
• Key Accomplishments : Incorporating Quaker ethics into his colony of Pennsylvania, Penn created a peaceful and prosperous territory that people flocked to. He set an example of what Christianity in action could do. His principles of freedom later influenced the writing of the U.S. Constitution.
• Spouse : Gulielma Maria Springett (died 1694); Hannah Callowhill
• Famous quote : "Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it."

The son of a British admiral, William Penn was a friend of George Fox , founder of the Religious Society of Friends , or Quakers. When Penn converted to Quakerism, he experienced the same relentless persecution in England as Fox.

After being imprisoned for his Quaker beliefs , Penn realized the Anglican church had too strong a hold in England and would not tolerate the Friends' Church there. The government owed Penn's family £16,000 in back wages for William's late father, so William Penn struck a deal with the King.

Penn got a charter for a colony in America, in exchange for canceling the debt. The King came up with the name "Pennsylvania," meaning "Forests of Penn," to honor the Admiral. Penn would be the administrator, and at the start of every year, he was to pay the King two beaver pelts and a fifth of any gold and silver mined within the colony.

Pennsylvania Guarantees Fair Government

In keeping with the Golden Rule, William Penn assured the right of private property, freedom from restrictions on business, a free press, and trial by jury. Such liberty was unheard of in the American colonies controlled by the Puritans. In those areas, any political dissent was a crime.

Even though he came from an upper-class family, William Penn had seen the exploitation of the poor in England and would have no part of it. Despite Penn's generous and considerate treatment of Pennsylvania's citizens, the legislature still complained about his powers as governor, amending the constitution several times to spell out his restrictions.

Peace and Equality

Peace, one of the foremost Quaker values, became law in Pennsylvania. There was no military draft since Quakers rejected war. Even more radical was Penn's treatment of Native Americans.

Instead of stealing land from the Indians, as the Puritans did, William Penn treated them as equals and negotiated purchases from them at fair prices. He respected the Susquehannock, Shawnee, and Leni-Lenape nations so much that he learned their languages. He entered their lands unarmed and unescorted, and they admired his courage.

To ensure his rule of equality, Penn established a model trial system for disputes between Indians and settlers. Each side was allowed the same number of men on the jury. Because of William Penn's fair dealings, Pennsylvania was one of the few colonies that did not have Indian uprisings.

Another Quaker value, equality, found its way into Penn's Holy Experiment. He treated women on the same level as men, revolutionary in the 17th century. He encouraged them to get an education and to speak out as men did.

Ironically, Quaker beliefs on equality did not cover African-Americans. Penn owned slaves, as did other Quakers. Quakers were one of the earliest religious groups to protest against slavery, in 1758, but that was 40 years after Penn died.

Religious Tolerance

Perhaps the most radical move William Penn made was complete religious tolerance in Pennsylvania. He remembered too well the court battles and prison sentences he had served in England. In Quaker fashion, Penn saw no threat from other religious groups. He believed each person had to seek God in his or her own way.

While the other American colonies each had an official church, Pennsylvania did not. Penn even offered free land to some of the groups. However, only Christians were allowed to vote and hold political office.

Word quickly got back to Europe. Pennsylvania was soon flooded with immigrants, including English, Irish, Germans, Catholics, and Jews, as well as a wide variety of persecuted Protestant denominations .

Persecuted in England-Again

With a change in the British monarchy, William Penn's fortunes were reversed when he returned to England. Arrested for treason, his estate seized, he became a fugitive for four years, hiding in London's slums. Eventually, his name was restored, but his troubles were far from over.

His unscrupulous business partner, a Quaker named Philip Ford, tricked Penn into signing a deed that transferred Pennsylvania to Ford. When Ford died, his wife had Penn thrown into debtor's prison.

Penn suffered two strokes in 1712 and died in 1718. Pennsylvania, his legacy, became one of the most populated and prosperous of the colonies. Even though William Penn lost £30,000 in the process, he considered his Holy Experiment in Quaker rule a success.

• "Brief History of William Penn," ushistory.org; http://www.ushistory.org/penn/bio.htm
• "William Penn biography," biography.com; https://www.biography.com/people/william-penn-9436869
• "William Penn and American History," pennsburymanor.org; http://www.pennsburymanor.org/history/william-penn-and-american-history/
• "William Penn and His 'Holy Experiment' in Religious Tolerance, the Colony of Pennsylvania," American Heritage Education Foundation; thefounding.net; https://thefounding.net/william-penn-holy-experiment-religious-tolerance-colony-pennsylvania/
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William Penn

William Penn (October 14, 1644–July 30, 1718) founded the Province of Pennsylvania, the British North American colony that became the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The democratic principles that he set forth served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution . Ahead of his time, Penn also published a plan for a United States of Europe, "European Dyet, Parliament or Estates."

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• Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies

William Penn’s Holy Experiment: Quaker Truth in Pennsylvania by James Proud (review)

• Barbara Franco
• Penn State University Press
• Volume 88, Number 2, Spring 2021
• pp. 272-274
• View Citation

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• William Penn’s Holy Experiment: Quaker Truth in Pennsylvania by James Proud

The founding of Pennsylvania as William Penn’s “holy experiment” in religious toleration and peaceful coexistence is regarded as one of the events in American history that helped establish principles of self-government and democracy. The iconic mages of Benjamin West’s painting, Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (1771–72), or Edward Hicks’s many versions of a Peaceable Kingdom (1820s–1840s) have helped perpetuate a mythic version of Penn’s enterprise. The account we read in William Penn’s Holy Experiment by James Proud is far more complicated and problematic.

Penn himself used the term “holy experiment” at least once in a 1681 letter expressing hope that “an example may be set up to the nations” (97). The primary “truth” for Penn, expressed in the original 1682 Frame of Government , was freedom of religion and liberty of conscience for all people living peaceably and justly in civil society. Proud sets out to track the succeses and failures of this experiment through its major themes of peace, religious freedom, public education, friendship with Native Americans, and abolition of slavery. Using original records and source materials, Proud moves beyond Penn’s aspirations for the colony to dig deeply into the legal, religious, political, and financial challenges that remained a constant reality. The author’s legal background is apparent as he navigates through complex legal and political issues that Penn faced during his lifetime, and those that continued after his death until the end of the proprietorship. [End Page 272]

The first chapter provides a comprehensive introduction to the political and religious conflicts in England from 1350 to 1682, George Fox’s spiritual journey, Penn’s religious conversion, and his subsequent persecution for his Quaker beliefs. Penn’s early life and his relationship with his father are placed in the historical context of political upheavals in England that spanned the overthrow of Charles I, the establishment of a Commonwealth under Parliament, and the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. Penn’s knowledge of America began with his own involvement in a dispute among Quakers concerning the proprietorship of West Jersey as well as George Fox’s visit to America in 1672. Facing growing debts and intensifying persecutions for his nonconformist religious beliefs, Penn petitioned Charles II for the grant of lands in America to repay an outstanding debt to his father’s estate.

The second chapter covers the period from Penn’s first visit to Pennsylvania in 1682 until his death in 1718. For two years, as the proprietor and governor, Penn worked with the General Assembly to put his Frame of Government into practice. He helped establish a Yearly Meeting of Friends and developed Pennsbury as his manorial seat, before returning to England in 1684 to resolve a contentious boundary dispute with Lord Baltimore. Penn remained in England for the next fifteen years, engaged in the affairs of his colony at a distance, while he struggled with continued political conflicts, arrest and imprisonment, the death of his first wife, and growing debt. Penn’s second visit to Pennsylvania in 1699–1701 was precipitated by concerns that the English Crown was threatening to remove Penn and other proprietors as “chief governor” (139). Accompanied by his new wife, Hannah, Penn established himself at Pennsbury and addressed the governance issues resulting from his long absence. A new Charter of Privileges was enacted, and the Friends Public School was chartered. In 1701 Penn’s meeting with a delegation of Native Americans resulted in Articles of Agreement pledging peace with each other. In November 1701 he returned to England where he continued to govern the colony from afar as he struggled with his personal financial problems and even considered the option of selling Pennsylvania back to the Crown.

The third chapter traces the years following Penn’s death when Hannah Penn was left to oversee the handling of Penn’s estate in England and the family’s holdings in...

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The Pennsylvania Colony: A Quaker Experiment in America

William Penn's 'Holy Experiment' on the Delaware River

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The Pennsylvania colony was one of the 13 original British colonies that became the United States of America. It was founded in 1682 by the English Quaker William Penn.

Escape From European Persecution

In 1681, William Penn, a Quaker, was given a land grant from King Charles II, who owed money to Penn's deceased father. Immediately, Penn sent his cousin William Markham to the territory to take control of it and be its governor. Penn's goal with Pennsylvania was to create a colony that allowed for freedom of religion. The Quakers were among the most radical of the English Protestant sects that had sprung up in the 17th century. Penn sought a colony in America—what he called a "holy experiment"—to protect himself and fellow Quakers from persecution.

When Markham arrived on the western shore of the Delaware River, however, he found that the region was already inhabited by Europeans. Part of present-day Pennsylvania was actually included in the territory named New Sweden that had been founded by Swedish settlers in 1638. This territory was then surrendered to the Dutch in 1655 when Peter Stuyvesant sent a large force to invade. Swedes and Finns continued to arrive and settle in what would become Pennsylvania.

Arrival of William Penn

In 1682, William Penn arrived in Pennsylvania on a ship called the "Welcome." He quickly instituted the First Frame of Government and created three counties: Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks. When he called a General Assembly to meet in Chester, the assembled body decided that the Delaware counties should be joined with those of Pennsylvania and that the governor would preside over both areas. It would not be until 1703 that Delaware would separate itself from Pennsylvania. In addition, the General Assembly adopted the Great Law, which provided for the liberty of conscience in terms of religious affiliations.

By 1683, the Second General Assembly created the Second Frame of Government. Any Swedish settlers were to become English subjects, seeing that the English were now in a majority in the colony.

Pennsylvania During the American Revolution

Pennsylvania played an extremely important role in the American Revolution . The First and Second Continental Congresses were convened in Philadelphia. This is where the Declaration of Independence was written and signed. Numerous key battles and events of the war occurred in the colony, including the crossing of the Delaware River, the Battle of Brandywine, the Battle of Germantown, and the winter encampment at Valley Forge. The Articles of Confederation were also drafted in Pennsylvania, the document that formed the basis of the new Confederation that was created at the end of the Revolutionary War.

Significant Events

• In 1688, the first written protest against enslavement in North America was created and signed by the Quakers in Germantown. In 1712, the trade of enslaved people was outlawed in Pennsylvania. 
• The colony was well-advertised, and by 1700 it was the third-biggest and the richest colony in the New World.
• Penn allowed for a representative assembly elected by landowners.
• Freedom of worship and religion was granted to all citizens.
• In 1737, Benjamin Franklin was named the postmaster of Philadelphia. Before this, he had set up his own printing shop and started publishing "Poor Richard's Almanack." In the following years, he was named the first president of the Academy, performed his famous electricity experiments, and was an important figure in the fight for American independence.
• Frost, J.W. " William Penn's Experiment in the Wilderness: Promise and Legend ." The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 107, no. 4, October 1983, pp. 577-605.
• Schwartz, Sally. " William Penn and Toleration: Foundations of Colonial Pennsylvania ." Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, v ol. 50, no. 4, October 1983, pp. 284-312.
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William Penn's “Holy Experiment”: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681–1701 . By Edwin B. Bronner. (New York: Temple University Publications, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1962. [x] + 306 pp. Map, chronology, notes, appendix, bibliography, and index. $6.00.)

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David S. Lovejoy, William Penn's “Holy Experiment”: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681–1701 . By Edwin B. Bronner. (New York: Temple University Publications, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1962. [x] + 306 pp. Map, chronology, notes, appendix, bibliography, and index. $6.00.), Journal of American History , Volume 50, Issue 1, June 1963, Pages 108–109, https://doi.org/10.2307/1888990

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Pennsylvania, A Holy Experiment

William Penn, a Quaker, was looking for a haven in the New World where he and other Quakers could practice their religion freely and without persecution. He asked King Charles II to grant him land in the territory between Lord Baltimore’s province of Maryland and the Duke of York’s province of New York in order to satisfy a debt owed to his father’s estate. With the Duke’s support, Penn’s petition was granted. Charles signed the Charter of Pennsylvania on March 4, 1681, and it was officially proclaimed on April 2. With this act, the King not only paid his debt to the Penn family, but rid England of troublesome Quakers who often challenged the policies of the Anglican church.

Penn was granted 45,000 acres and, at Charles’ insistence, named the new colony Pennsylvania (meaning Penn’s Woods) in honor of his father, Admiral William Penn. Penn intended to establish Pennsylvania as a Holy Experiment built on the Quaker ideals of religious tolerance, belief in the goodness of human nature, participatory government, and brotherly love. His desire was to create a society where people of different faiths could worship as they chose and actively participate in a government that guaranteed that right. However, while all groups enjoyed religious freedom, the right to participate in the government was actually only extended to Protestant Christians—Catholics and Jews were excluded from voting or holding office. This religious tolerance attracted Catholics, Jews, Anglicans, Baptists, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and several sects of Germans, who all lived harmoniously.

Pennsylvania’s government was organized into three parts: the Proprietor, who was William Penn, acted as the governor of the colony (or in Penn’s absence a deputy (our William Keith) fulfilled the duties of executive); a seventy-two member Provincial Council, or upper house; and a unicameral Provincial Assembly, or lower house. The right to vote was extended to virtually all free Christian (non-Catholic) men, regardless of whether or not they owned land.

In the 1682 Frame of Government, the first document which formed the foundation of the new colony’s government, Penn wrote:

Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined, too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But, if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.

Succeeding Frames of Government were produced in 1683, 1696 and 1701. The fourth Frame was also known as the Charter of Privileges and remained in effect until the Revolution.

(Source: Kashatus, William; “William Penn’s Legacy, Religious & Spiritual Diversity,” Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine, Volume XXXVII, No. 2 – Spring 2011)

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William Penn received a classical education at the Chigwell grammar school in Essex , England, and then matriculated at the University of Oxford (1660), from which he was expelled (1662) for religious Nonconformity . After attending the Protestant college in Saumur , France, he entered Lincoln’s Inn, where he spent a year reading law.

Where did William Penn grow up?

Having spent his early years in the Essex countryside, William Penn moved with his family to London and then to Ireland . After he was expelled from the University of Oxford , Penn was sent by his father, Adm. Sir William Penn , on a grand tour of the European continent.

What was William Penn’s religion?

Penn rejected Anglicanism and joined the Quakers ( Society of Friends ), who were subject to official persecution in England. He was the author of a number of books in which he variously argued for religious toleration, expounded the Quaker- Puritan morality, and expressed a qualified anti- Trinitarianism .

William Penn was an English Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom who oversaw the founding of Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe. His trial on a trumped-up charge of inciting a riot in 1670 resulted in a landmark ruling which established jury independence in English law.

William Penn (born October 14, 1644, London, England—died July 30, 1718, Buckinghamshire) was an English Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom, who oversaw the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe.

William was the son of Admiral Sir William Penn . He acquired the foundations of a classical education at the Chigwell grammar school in the Essex countryside, where he came under Puritan influences. After Admiral Penn’s naval defeat in the West Indies in 1655, the family moved back to London and then to Ireland. In Ireland William heard Thomas Loe, a Quaker itinerant, preach to his family at the admiral’s invitation, an experience that apparently intensified his religious feelings. In 1660 William entered the University of Oxford , where he rejected Anglicanism and was expelled in 1662 for his religious Nonconformity . Determined to thwart his son’s religiosity, Admiral Penn sent his son on a grand tour of the European continent and to the Protestant college at Saumur , in France, to complete his studies. Summoned back to England after two years, William entered Lincoln’s Inn and spent a year reading law. This was the extent of his formal education.

In 1666 Admiral Penn sent William to Ireland to manage the family estates. There he crossed paths again with Thomas Loe and, after hearing him preach, decided to join the Quakers (the Society of Friends), a sect of religious radicals who were reviled by respectable society and subject to official persecution.

After joining the sect, Penn would eventually be imprisoned four times for publicly stating his beliefs in word and print. He published 42 books and pamphlets in the seven years immediately following his conversion. In his first publication, the pamphlet Truth Exalted (1668), he upheld Quaker doctrines while attacking in turn those of the Roman Catholics , the Anglicans, and the Dissenting churches. It was followed by The Sandy Foundation Shaken (1668), in which he boldly questioned the Trinity and other Protestant doctrines. Though Penn subsequently qualified his anti-Trinitarianism in Innocency with Her Open Face (1669), he was imprisoned in the Tower of London , where he wrote his most famous book, No Cross, No Crown (1669). In this work he expounded the Quaker-Puritan morality with eloquence, learning, and flashes of humour, condemning the worldliness and luxury of Restoration England and extolling both Puritan conceptions of ascetic self-denial and Quaker ideals of social reform. No Cross, No Crown stands alongside the letters of St. Paul , Boethius ’s Consolation of Philosophy , and John Bunyan ’s Pilgrim’s Progress as one of the world’s finest examples of prison literature. Penn was released from the Tower in 1669.

It was as a protagonist of religious toleration that Penn would earn his prominent place in English history. In 1670 he wrote The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Once More Debated & Defended , which was the most systematic and thorough exposition of the theory of toleration produced in Restoration England. Though Penn based his arguments on theological and scriptural grounds, he did not overlook rational and pragmatic considerations; he pointed out, for example, that the contemporary prosperity of Holland was based on “her Indulgence in matters of Faith and Worship.”

That same year Penn also had an unexpected opportunity to strike another blow for freedom of conscience and for the traditional rights of all Englishmen. On August 14, 1670, the Quaker meetinghouse in Gracechurch Street, London, having been padlocked by the authorities, he preached in the street to several hundred persons. After the meetings, he and William Mead were arrested and imprisoned on a trumped-up charge of inciting a riot. At his trial in the Old Bailey , Penn calmly and skillfully exposed the illegality of the proceedings against him. The jury, under the leadership of Edward Bushell, refused to bring in a verdict of guilty despite threats and abusive treatment. For their refusal the jurymen were fined and imprisoned, but they were vindicated when Sir John Vaughan, the lord chief justice , enunciated the principle that a judge “may try to open the eyes of the jurors, but not to lead them by the nose.” The trial, which is also known as the “ Bushell’s Case,” stands as a landmark in English legal history, having established beyond question the independence of the jury. A firsthand account of the trial, which was a vivid courtroom drama, was published in The People’s Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted (1670).

Admiral Penn died in 1670, having finally become reconciled to his son’s Quakerism. Young Penn inherited his father’s estates in England and Ireland and became, like his father, a frequenter of the court, where he enjoyed the friendship of King Charles II and his brother, the duke of York (later James II ). In 1672 Penn married Gulielma Springett, a Quaker by whom he had eight children, four of whom died in infancy. In the 1670s Penn was tirelessly active as a Quaker minister and polemicist, producing no fewer than 40 controversial tracts on religious doctrines and practice. In 1671 and 1677 he undertook preaching missions to Holland and northern Germany, where the contacts he established would later help him in peopling Pennsylvania with thousands of Dutch and German emigrants. The later years of the decade were also occupied with political activities. In 1679 Penn supported the Parliamentary candidacy of the radical republican Algernon Sidney , going on the hustings twice—at Guildford and later at Bramber—for his friend. During these years he wrote a number of pamphlets on behalf of the radical Whigs , including England’s Great Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament (1679), which is noteworthy as one of the first clear statements of party doctrine ever laid before the English electorate.

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William Penn’s “Holy Experiment”: Quaker Truth in Pennsylvania, 1682–1781

Reviewed by Thomas Hamm

August 1, 2020

By James Proud. Inner Light Books, 2019. 522 pages. $50/hardcover; $35/paperback.

James Proud, a retired attorney and an Episcopal priest, has a fondness for Friends. A decade ago, he edited a collection of Woolman’s writings titled John Woolman and the Affairs of Truth , also published by Inner Light Books. Now he has taken on the challenge of trying to understand how Pennsylvania did—and did not—live up to its founder William Penn’s vision of it as a “Holy Experiment.”

Most of Proud’s story will be familiar to historians and historically minded Friends. Proud opens with an overview of Quakerism in England before 1682, then proceeds to an outline of William Penn’s life. Penn, the son of an admiral, was an unlikely convert to Quakerism, but once convinced in 1667, he emerged as a prolific writer, scrappy debater, and talented preacher. Nevertheless, he remained that rarest of animals: a Quaker aristocrat and courtier. His court connections would prove a mixed blessing. On one hand, they led to King Charles II granting him the colony that Penn wanted to name “Sylvania,” or woodland, but which the king insisted be called “Pennsylvania,” in honor of the admiral. On the other hand, after the Glorious Revolution overthrew Penn’s friend James II in 1688, Penn found much of his political influence gone and himself even in danger of treason charges.

While Proud does give some attention to familiar themes in the establishment of Pennsylvania, such as religious freedom, his focus is on more contemporary concerns, namely relations with Native American people and slavery in the colony. He credits Penn with good intentions in negotiating in good faith with the Leni Lenape (or Delaware), while also noting that epidemic diseases introduced by Europeans had so reduced their numbers that they were ceding largely unoccupied lands. Proud does not spare later generations of White Pennsylvanians, Quaker and non-Quaker, for not following the founder’s example. Penn’s chief agent, James Logan, who built a considerable fortune through the Indian trade and land speculation, emerges as a particular villain, cheating not only Native Americans but the Penn family as well. And William Penn’s sons, none of whom shared their father’s vibrant Quaker faith, saw their colony not as a “holy experiment,” but as a source of revenue for the aristocratic lifestyle they wished to lead in England.

Proud sees the introduction of slavery into Pennsylvania as irreconcilable with any vision of a Christian or Quaker society. He is frank in acknowledging how involved with slavery and the slave trade Pennsylvania Friends were, and takes evident pleasure in tracing the growth of antislavery feeling among Friends and in the colony. He also acknowledges Penn’s personal slaveholding, which he sees as a moral failure, although not expressing that as strongly as some contemporary Friends would.

Proud’s work has a number of strengths. It is based on wide-ranging research in primary sources, and his conclusions are usually judicious and well-supported. Particularly valuable are the 11 appendices, which include useful compilations, like comparative lists of the speakers of the Pennsylvania Assembly and clerks of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting as well as documents like Israel Pemberton’s prefatory epistle to the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting men’s minute book. There are also notes, maps, and an index.

If the book has a weakness, it is its failure to engage with recent scholarship, especially on Native Americans in Pennsylvania, such as Peter Silver’s Our Savage Neighbors (2008) ; Amy C. Schutt’s Peoples of the River Valleys (2007); or the work of the most recent Penn biographer, Andrew R. Murphy (2018). Friends interested in Penn and Pennsylvania will find this a readable and generally reliable work.

Thomas Hamm is a member of West Richmond (Ind.) Meeting, and a professor of history and director of Special Collections at Earlham College. Several of his ancestors were members of the Pennsylvania Assembly between 1682 and 1720.

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William Penn's holy experiment; the founding of Pennsylvania, 1681-1701

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The Holy Experiment

'Abdu'l-Bahá at the Rittenhouse Hotel, where he stayed in Pennsylvania. National Bahá'í Archives

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THE FIRST OF A fleet of twenty-three ships arrived at the mouth of the Delaware River on October 27, 1682. Commanding the lead ship, the Welcome , was William Penn, a pacifist Quaker with a land grant from the King of England, determined to fashion a utopia in the wilderness.

Penn had suffered imprisonment for his beliefs back in England, and set about building a “tolerance settlement” in the New World where freedom of worship would be absolute. His first act of business was to sign a “Great Treaty” with Tammany, the Chief of the Delaware tribe, a peace pact he never violated.

Thus began Penn’s “Holy Experiment” known as Pennsylvania. The King himself chose the name in honor of Penn’s recently departed father. Penn called the colony’s capital Philadelphia , a name that combined the Greek words for “love” and “brother.”

Penn made good on his promise. Philadelphia emerged not only as a commanding center of Quaker influence, but also as a Presbyterian stronghold, the national headquarters for the American Baptists, a place where Catholics and Anglicans worshiped in safety, and a refuge for German Lutherans and Mennonites. In due course the city would play host to the first independent black denomination in America: the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Philadelphia became the busiest port and largest city in the Thirteen Colonies, and a hotbed for those who demanded independence. On May 10, 1775, representatives from the colonies gathered on Chestnut Street in the Pennsylvania legislature to bring matters to a head. Five days later they declared the colonies in a state of defense. By June 14, they had nominated George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. The next July they issued the Declaration of Independence, whose words rang throughout both the Old World and the New.

Among those forging the Declaration was Philadelphia’s leading citizen, and the man responsible for virtually all of its progressive public institutions, Mr. Benjamin Franklin. Franklin defines the American ethos of hard work, education, community spirit, and both political and religious freedom. He was heir to Penn’s experiment, adding to it the scientific and rational ideals of the Enlightenment to forge a truly American identity.

He became known as “The First American.”

Penn’s City of Brotherly Love continued to attract those dedicated to the experiment well into the next century. Russell Conwell — a Civil War veteran, lawyer, author of ten books, and ordained American Baptist minister — arrived in Philadelphia in 1882.

Conwell held classes at his church to tutor adults in university subjects, in tune with Penn’s and Franklin’s commitment to improving their fellow men. By 1884 his effort had become Temple University. By 1912 the Baptist Temple — Conwell’s church — was surrounded by three hospitals and his congregation was one of the largest in America. It was here that Pastor Conwell welcomed ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to speak, on June 9, 1912.

In tomorrow’s feature, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addresses a crowd of 2,500 at Russell Conwell’s Baptist Temple in Philadelphia.

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The continuing relevance of william penn.

Penn was a committed Quaker, imprisoned several times for his religious beliefs. Quakerism was the heart of his social and political vision. His respect for Native American cultures was rooted in his belief in the inherent worth of all individuals, though this humanitarianism did not extend to African-American slaves, of whom he owned several. Unlike many Quakers who came after him, Penn was also a conscientious pacifist. He made treaties with the Indians – Delawares, Susquehannocks, Iroquois, and others – rather than simply seizing their land. He treated them as members of sovereign nations, referring to them as “little commonwealths.”

But while Penn was uncommonly decent by the standards of his time, his holy experiment was flawed from the start, and almost certainly doomed to failure. Penn’s undoubted benevolence went hand-in-hand with a hard-headed colonialism. There would have been no Pennsylvania, after all, if Charles II had not given Penn a gift of 29 million acres – a gift that made him the largest individual landlord in the British Empire. The native inhabitants of the region had no say in the matter.

Penn’s decision to pay Indians for their land rested on self-interest as much as benevolence. Only by clearing the land of encumbrances could he sell it to European settlers and recoup the expenses incurred in setting up his colony. And by treating the Indians in his province well, Penn secured their military support in the event of an attack on his Quaker colony, which had no militia of its own.

Yet, while Native Americans would have been better off if Penn had never set up his colony, they fared better under his administration than at any subsequent time in Pennsylvania’s history. The period from Penn’s death in 1718 through the American Revolution saw the disintegration, at first slowly and then with terrifying violence, of the Peaceable Kingdom.

William Penn’s son Thomas ruled the province as an imperious absentee landlord until his death in 1775. Casting off his father’s Quaker faith, he resorted to fraud and intimidation. In the so-called Walking Purchase of 1737 he sent out long-distance runners to determine the boundaries of land the Delaware Indians believed had already been measured by “a man’s walk,” tricking them into giving up a tract almost the size of Rhode Island. Driven westward across the Susquehanna River, the Delawares attacked Pennsylvania in 1755 and when the province reciprocated the Peaceable Kingdom came to an end.

In December 1763 a group of frontiersmen known as the Paxton Boys laid to rest any lingering doubts about the future of Native Americans in Pennsylvania. In two extraordinarily brutal acts of symbolic violence they exterminated the last twenty Conestoga Indians. A peaceful remnant of the once proud Susquehannock nation, the Conestogas lived on land reserved for them by the Penn family in Lancaster County. The Paxton Boys, declaring that all Indians were enemies and all were deserving of annihilation, killed the first six Conestoga Indians at home on their farm and, two weeks later, they slaughtered the fourteen survivors at Lancaster jail, where they had been removed for their protection.

On both occasions the Paxton Boys killed the Indians on government property in broad daylight. Having done so, they claimed the Conestogas’ land by right of conquest. They did not succeed in this goal but they were never prosecuted for the massacres. They acted with the connivance of local officials and they emerged directly from a frontier militia that exceeded its defensive mandate and launched offensive operations against local, usually defenseless, Indians.

What the Paxton Boys did was anomalous in Pennsylvania as late as 1763, but it became commonplace during the American Revolution. Similar outrages had taken place in New England more than a century earlier, but not in the Peaceable Kingdom. The Penn family’s failure to pursue the Paxton Boys gave carte blanche to other, like-minded frontier settlers, and the frontier soon descended into anarchy, with Native Americans the principal victims.

During the Revolution, exterminating Indians became an act of patriotism. American forces devastated Iroquoia and the Delaware strongholds west of the Susquehanna. In 1783 the Iroquois forfeited their lands to the new American nation by right of conquest.

Over the next two centuries Pennsylvanians insisted that were no Native Americans living in their state. The few who survived the Revolution appear to have fled to the hills and forests. Yet, while only about 5,000 Indians lived in the province in 1700 almost 20,000 Pennsylvanians identify themselves as Native American today and another 30,000 identify themselves as partly so. They belong to more than twenty different tribes and nations. Pennsylvania is an extreme case of the myth of “the vanishing Indian” – the belief that Native Americans were destined to die out in the face of Western Civilization.

William Penn talked to the Indians, listened to them, respected their cultures, made treaties with them, and agreed on boundaries setting aside the territory where they lived. He wanted most of their land but he saw a permanent place for their “little commonwealths” in his colony. Today the United States recognizes the sovereignty of more than 500 Indian tribes and nations – “little commonwealths” that exist within the dual sovereignty of state and federal power and enjoy extensive territorial rights and powers of self-government.

But Pennsylvania is one of only six states where no Indian tribe is recognized by either the state or the federal government and one of twelve states without a Native American reservation. Perhaps the time has come when Pennsylvanians can look back on the Peaceable Kingdom and, for all its flaws, find some insights for the present.

Holy Experiment

The holy experiment.

A Quaker, William Penn intended Pennsylvania as a “Holy Experiment” dedicated to tolerance for all religious practices.  In this discussion, we focus on religion and faith communities, from the colonial era to the present.  The panel was moderated by Randall Miller of St. Joseph’s University with panelists including Emma Lapsansky-Werner of Haverford College; Maris Gillette of Haverford College (and the Muslim Voices project); Rabbi George Stern of the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement; and Tuomi Forrest of Partners for Sacred Places.   Emma Lapsansky Werner’s essay on The Holy Experiment was published in the Currents section of the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday, April 10, followed also by posting on this Web site and on Newsworks.org .

The Greater Philadelphia Roundtable is a partnership of The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, presented in cooperation with numerous civic partners.  This program has been supported in part by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities’ We the People initiative on American history.

Series co-sponsors:  Young Involved Philadelphia, the Friends of Independence, WHYY, the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, Philadelphia Media Network, Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, Neighborhood Interfaith Movement, Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities.

Program co-sponsors: American Friends Service Committee, Neighborhood Interfaith Movement, Partners for Sacred Places.

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“Things Are Moving So Quickly” as Scientists Study This “Very Scary” Climate Strategy

The controversial field of solar geoengineering is hitting its stride..

Jessica McKenzie June 30, 2024

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This story was originally published by  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is reproduced here as part of the  Climate Desk   collaboration.

In 2006, a group of preeminent scientists met for  a two-day conference at the NASA Ames  Research Center in California to discuss cooling the Earth by injecting particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight into space.

At some point, one of the conference rooms became overheated.

“The room was getting kind of hot, and somebody went over to the thermostat to try and fix it,” recalled Alan Robock, a Rutgers climatologist who was in attendance. “And they couldn’t adjust it. And so many people didn’t understand the irony that you can’t control the temperature of a room, but you’re talking about controlling the temperature of the whole Earth.”

Solar geoengineering—also called solar radiation management or solar radiation modification—was then and is now a fraught subject. Many experts and nonexperts alike consider the idea of deliberately mucking about with Earth’s climate systems to counteract centuries of mostly accidental mucking about in Earth’s climate systems ethically dubious and potentially highly dangerous.

And yet: Last year, the global average temperature was  almost 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer  than the pre-industrial average, due to the vast amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that humans have added to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. This warming is responsible for  a wide range of climate impacts , from more extreme storms and longer heat waves to increased precipitation and flooding as well as more severe droughts and longer wildfire seasons.

As the climate crisis has escalated, some experts have suggested that drastic measures like solar geoengineering may eventually become necessary and so should be researched now.

Would it work? In 1991,  the eruption of Mount Pinatubo spewed 17 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide  into the atmosphere, which cooled the Earth by roughly 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) for about a year. After the Tambora volcano in Indonesia erupted in 1815, parts of Europe and North America saw a “year without summer.” Scientists have looked to those events to try to understand what might happen if humans deliberately released sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. But there is a world of difference between studying naturally occurring volcanic eruptions and intentionally modifying the amount of solar radiation that reaches Earth’s surface.

Solar geoengineering is a controversial area of research for numerous reasons. In 2008, Robock penned an article for the  Bulletin  on  the 20 reasons solar geoengineering could be a bad—possibly even catastrophic—idea ; a  more recent version  expanded the list to 26.

Introducing particles like sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere could create a plethora of new and unpredictable problems. Possible negative impacts may include changing regional weather patterns—creating or shifting areas of drought or regions that receive extreme precipitation—or altering tropospheric chemistry and ocean circulation patterns.

Partially blocking the sun’s rays could interfere with normal plant processes and reduce agricultural yields. Adding sulfate aerosols to the stratosphere would degrade the ozone layer (thereby increasing global cancer rates) and increase acid rain. The potential effects of solar radiation management are so large and wide-ranging as to implicate almost every aspect of life on the planet.

The potential effects of solar radiation management are so large and wide-ranging as to implicate almost every aspect of life on the planet.

Even in best-case scenarios, it would be only a partial stopgap. Solar geoengineering, for example, does nothing to ameliorate ocean acidification, which occurs when the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This acidification  threatens ocean life  like oysters, clams, sea urchins, corals, and the calcareous phytoplankton that help make up the foundation of the marine food web on which much of humanity depends.

Also, many experts agree, global governance structures are profoundly ill-equipped to deal with the kinds of questions solar geoengineering will raise: How much cooling is the right amount? (Wouldn’t Russia want things a bit warmer, and India somewhat cooler?) Who benefits, and who doesn’t, and who decides? How would disputes about the negative impacts of any geoengineering regime be adjudicated? The type of world-spanning, long-term regulatory scheme required to institute and manage solar geoengineering has no precedent in human history.

Some have argued that merely conducting research could inspire rogue actors to take things into their own hands, with potentially disastrous geophysical and geopolitical results. Then there is the moral hazard argument against geoengineering: If humans began cooling the Earth with solar geoengineering, wouldn’t that give citizens a false sense of security—and companies an excuse to pump the brakes on decarbonization of energy systems and proceed with fossil-fuel-burning business as usual?

As fringe as the idea of solar radiation modification once was and as generally controversial as it remains, it is gaining some traction. Last spring, the University of Chicago hired David Keith, one of the most visible proponents of solar geoengineering, to lead a new Climate Systems Engineering initiative, committing to at least 10 new faculty hires for the program. The group will study solar geoengineering, as well as other kinds of Earth system modifications aimed at addressing the climate crisis.

With this initiative, the University of Chicago is attempting to position itself as the place for serious scientific consideration of the logistics and implications of Earth system interventions aimed at reversing or counteracting climate change. It is part of a broader university effort to become a global leader in the climate and energy space.

Previously, Keith was at Harvard University, where he helped launch the  Solar Geoengineering Research Program . After repeated delays and years of controversy, Harvard recently  canceled  a small-scale outdoor geoengineering experiment that Keith helped plan. That  experiment  would have involved launching a high-altitude balloon, releasing fine particles of calcium carbonate into the stratosphere, and then sending the balloon back through the cloud to monitor how those particles disperse and interact within the atmosphere, and with solar radiation.

Although many of the sources interviewed for this article acknowledged the controversial nature of solar geoengineering, they also pointed out that the University of Chicago is a leading educational institution that prides itself on not shying away from tough questions or topics. And because of its provocative nature, climate systems engineering—a term the university created to describe this emerging field—is also an area of research that, until now, has lacked strong, centralized institutional support. This has created a vacuum that University of Chicago leaders seem excited to fill.

Michael Greenstone, the director of the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago (EPIC), led the faculty committee that proposed the Climate Systems Engineering initiative and was instrumental in bringing Keith to Chicago. Greenstone described the academy’s indifference to geoengineering research as “malpractice.”

“I thought it was really different and consequential to have UChicago—without any particular person on campus who was an advocate of climate engineering research—to say, ‘We think this makes sense to build as a field.'”

“We’re going to wish we had effective carbon dioxide removal technologies operating at scale, or we’re going to wish we knew how to modulate temperatures with various forms of geoengineering to prevent human suffering,” Greenstone told the  Bulletin . “But these ideas are not being stress-tested in a systematic way, and the University of Chicago’s tradition of bravery at pursing important ideas, no matter how controversial, make this the perfect place to create the field of climate systems engineering.”

In the early stages of developing the initiative, Keith helped the university organize an event with researchers working on topics that could fall under the umbrella of climate systems engineering.

“Here was the most distinguished group of scholars in the world in this field,” recalled university president Paul Alivisatos. “To a person, what they said is, ‘I’ve always felt that I have to do this work very quietly by myself, as one person in my university, because it’s just not a set of ideas that people want to engage with.’” (Alivisatos did not respond to a later request for a list of event attendees. Keith responded in an email: “I don’t believe we told people the meeting would be public so I would have to go back and double check that each person okayed it which seems like too much trouble.”)

There are researchers studying solar geoengineering at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Colorado State, and ETH Zurich, but, Keith said, most of those programs came about because of “a single person who pushed it forward, sometimes against resistance, and then it grew.”

“I thought it was really different and consequential to have UChicago—without any particular person on campus who was an advocate of climate engineering research—to say, ‘we think this makes sense to build as a field, to actually build it in a serious way and make a commitment to do that,’” Keith added.

As with many new university initiatives, this one started with a new president. In November 2021, Alivisatos charged a university committee with the task of determining how the university could best establish itself as a “global leader in the climate and energy space.” One of the specific requests was to “[d]etermine the areas in which the University of Chicago does not currently have strong faculty presence but could expand its influence by facilitating the development of new ideas in key areas that other universities are missing.”

The committee was chaired by Greenstone, an economist, and included two other economists, an ecologist, two molecular engineers, a historian, a geologist, a law professor, and a computer scientist.

Susan Kidwell, a geologist and paleobiologist, was shocked to be the only committee member from the geophysical sciences department and said that there were two other people from the department who would have been “more appropriate.” Kidwell said that the make-up of the committee helped avoid “preaching to the converted,” but it raised the eyebrows of outside observers.

“I think part of the big story here is not even just about geoengineering, specifically, but about the fact that the university decided to basically give control over their biggest climate initiative, primarily, to the economics department,” said Raymond Pierrehumbert. Pierrehumbert is an Oxford physicist and former University of Chicago professor in geophysical sciences, a former member of the  Bulletin ’s Science and Security Board ,  a prominent climate change expert, and an outspoken critic of solar geoengineering.

Greenstone has done a lot of work at the intersection of climate, the environment, and economics, Pierrehumbert acknowledged. While the chief economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, for example, Greenstone was  one of the key architects of efforts to calculate and use the social cost of carbon  in federal policy making. But he is not a climate or atmospheric scientist, nor were any of the other members of the University of Chicago committee that explored the university’s role in climate and energy.

The committee’s report in March 2022 made several recommendations, including the design of new undergraduate and graduate programs related to energy and climate and the development of “climate forward” policies, so the university’s operations reflect its commitment to climate action. The strongest recommendation was to create a new Climate and Energy Institute, what one faculty member described as a “super EPIC,” with a mission to “fundamentally alter education and research on a global scale.” It has since been announced that Greenstone  will be the founding director  of that new institute.

The committee recommended the university start research programs within the new institute in three substantive areas: economics, markets, and policy; energy conversion and storage systems; and climate systems engineering.

The last stands out for its tangential relation to the “energy” part of climate and energy. But for better or worse, climate systems engineering certainly fit the brief of filling a gap in the research landscape and creating a plausible path to becoming a global leader in a specific area.

According to the committee report, “[M]ost models, including all major models used by the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], indicate that the world will need to deploy carbon dioxide removal technologies on a massive scale in the near future. Moreover, to blunt the pace of rapid climate change, nations may turn to geo-engineering tools, such as solar radiation management. Higher temperatures may also require managing, indeed perhaps engineering, ecosystems to be resilient to climate change and even help mitigate it.”

The report suggested creating a research initiative based around these problems and potential solutions, under the new umbrella term of “climate systems engineering,” which could “position the University at the forefront of this central challenge of reducing and perhaps reversing the harms from climate change.” This would include working on improvements in climate modeling and other computational tools, as well as “novel materials, sensing devices, and chemical strategies for carbon dioxide removal and geo-engineering.”

The report concluded its remarks on climate systems engineering by acknowledging the moral hazard argument against research into geoengineering and arguing that the university should not be cowed by that. It stated that “concerns about reputation and that innovation will incentivize increased greenhouse gas emissions today have prevented many universities from adequately engaging in this area. In many respects, climate systems engineering resembles other instances where UChicago’s fearless commitment to go wherever the facts lead has helped build its intellectual reputation.”

Where some supporters of the university’s initiative see research bravery, other experts see the potential for enabling extraordinarily dangerous interventions in Earth’s climate systems.

Historically, geoengineering has referred to  either taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere (carbon removal) or solar radiation management, which could take the form of releasing reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, brightening clouds with salt water, or putting sun shields into space. The University of Chicago  is also including  interventions like glacier geoengineering—using manmade structures to protect ice shelves from warming ocean waters, for example—under the umbrella of climate systems engineering.

While the Climate Systems Engineering initiative will study open system carbon removal, like enhanced rock weathering or ocean alkalinity enhancement, it will not study direct air capture , something Keith worked on at a company he founded, Carbon Engineering. That company was recently purchased by fossil fuel giant Occidental for  $1.1 billion . Occidental will use the captured carbon dioxide, at least in part, to pressurize oil fields and extract more oil from them. The industry considers the technology a kind of lifeline: “If it’s produced in the way that I’m talking about, there’s no reason not to produce oil and gas forever,” Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub  told NPR . (Keith has had no legal involvement with Carbon Engineering since the sale was completed.)

In his 2013 book,  A Case for Climate Engineering , Keith wrote that carbon removal and solar geoengineering are no more similar to one another than they are to technologies that advance decarbonization or energy efficiency.

“My own guess is that if geoengineering works, humanity will not want to phase it out. It will become more agile and provide increasing control, and that will be addictive.”

Among those options for managing climate risk, the ethical, technical, environmental, and governance questions that accompany solar radiation management are unique. “Because solar geoengineering and carbon removal have little in common, we will have a better chance to craft sensible policy if we treat them separately,” Keith wrote.

Keith is now in charge of a program that not only, in a sense, lumps the two technologies together, but also throws in a few others for good measure. “I do feel there’s some level of crow eating because I spent a lot of time arguing how totally separate they are—I’ve even done that in congressional testimony. Now I’m running something that does both,” Keith said. “A lot of people I respect have been lumping them forever. And so sometimes you have to listen to people.”

Open system carbon removal and solar radiation management, Keith added, both raise a lot of complicated environmental and Earth science issues. On the other hand, enhanced rock weathering—spreading finely ground silicates on Earth’s surface to speed up the chemical reactions that pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—does not raise the same kind of governance questions as solar radiation management. “Local entities, national governments or state governments, can regulate soil health, more or less, on their own,” Keith explained. “So in that sense, it’s not global the way solar geoengineering would be.”

Other experts have argued the two technologies must be considered as a pair because the arguments in favor of solar geoengineering often depend on the success of large-scale carbon dioxide removal.

One reason that solar geoengineering has received attention recently is because the world has been slow to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, threatening to push global temperatures past the aspirational limit set by the Paris climate agreement.  Keith and others have argued  that solar geoengineering could be a way to limit warming while the world gets around to slashing emissions  and  figures out how to do large-scale carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.

Alivisatos echoed that sentiment, telling the  Bulletin , “What this would be doing more than anything else, presumably, is offering one way to have more time.”

“If you have to do geoengineering, you’re saddling the next 1,000 years of humanity with continuing to do it. And that’s a huge intergenerational obligation.”

But Shinichiro Asayama, a researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Japan, and Mike Hulme, a geographer at the University of Cambridge, have  compared  this strategy to the risky subprime mortgage lending that tanked the world economy between  2007 and 2010 . If solar geoengineering is deployed to compensate for slow emissions reductions, banking on the world’s as-yet unproven ability to do large-scale carbon removal, Hulme and Asayama argue, it will create an ever-increasing “climate debt” that carbon dioxide removal may or may not ever be able to pay back.

Taking on an increasing amount of climate debt could prove to be too easy and seductive, if solar geoengineering were ever successfully deployed. This worries Robert Socolow, a physicist and environmental scientist—and member of the  Bulletin ’s Science and Security Board—known for his work on climate stabilization efforts.

“My own guess is that if geoengineering works, humanity will not want to phase it out,” Socolow told the  Bulletin . “It will become more agile and provide increasing control, and that will be addictive. A limited geoengineering epoch is not something I would bet on. That makes me see deployment as truly fateful, a crossing of the Rubicon, probably permanently changing humanity’s relationship with nature.”

This is a major concern of Pierrehumbert, as well. “If you have to do geoengineering, you’re saddling the next 1,000 years of humanity with continuing to do it,” he said. “And that’s a huge intergenerational obligation, which engages really deep ethical concerns.”

Opinions among University of Chicag o faculty members who spoke to the  Bulletin  about the initiative ranged from cautious enthusiasm to quiet skepticism.

David Archer, a climate scientist in Chicago’s geophysical sciences department and a member of the Climate Systems Engineering initiative board, expressed a kind of desperate optimism about the initiative, pointing out that the Earth is  dangerously near catastrophic climate tipping points , like thawing permafrost and melting ice sheets.

“Climate engineering is very scary. As a scientist, and as a citizen, I want to see this field investigated in a very serious and intentional way.”

“The idea of dialing down the temperature of the whole planet is horrifying,” Archer said. But, he added, it’s not nearly as horrifying as “dialing it up with CO2,” because any sulfates or particles used in solar geoengineering will soon fall out of the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide will persist for centuries.

Archer pushed back on critics who fear that the cure could be worse than the disease. “I’m primarily opposed to outdoor release of CO2,” he said. He pointed out that many critics of geoengineering will casually take cross-country or international flights, while he abstains from flying if he can help it. “I’m just so much less frightened about sulfur emissions than CO2 emissions, and everybody is so sanguine about CO2 emissions. I just have trouble taking it it seriously.”

Some of the faculty members I interviewed expressed the opinion that if more research into—and potentially even experimentation with—solar radiation management and other kinds of geoengineering was inevitable, they would rather it take place at the University of Chicago than at a less rigorous institution, or some private start-up.

“We thought, well, this isn’t going away,” said Fred Ciesla, a planetary scientist and former chair of the geophysical sciences department, describing some of the conversations he had with his department colleagues about the program. “Rather than be on the periphery of it, why not bring in people that we trust to take on—like I said, to hold up the research to the standards that we set and expect here at the University of Chicago, and make this a really rigorous investigation, make sure it’s being done with the care that is needed.”

Kidwell pointed out that there are already some efforts to manipulate the climate taking place outside of academia, with great potential for non-governmental actors to engage in risky experiments. Make Sunsets,  a start-up using balloons to release sulfur dioxide gas  into the stratosphere and selling “cooling credits” to fund its work, is one example.

“Climate engineering is very scary,” said Kidwell. “As a scientist, and as a citizen, I want to see this field investigated in a very serious and intentional way. And I want it to be done somewhere where it’s surrounded by scientists, [and] the engineers are not left alone.”

At least one faculty member is already thinking about her responsibilities within an institution that is prioritizing this kind of research. Elisabeth Moyer, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Chicago, submitted a $30 million grant proposal to NASA for a field campaign to take point measurements in the atmosphere over two summers. “And that’s just basic preliminary background that you would want to do before even thinking about doing planetary engineering,” she said, underscoring the magnitude of work that still needs to be done and the associated expense. “The planet is not the same everywhere. The southern hemisphere is very different from the northern hemisphere. We’ve never flown modern instrumentation to study stratospheric aerosols in the southern hemisphere of our own planet.”

Initially, a decision on Moyer’s proposal was delayed because Congress had not passed a budget. Moyer has since learned that NASA rejected the proposal.

“We’re proposing planetary geoengineering, and our government is not capable of passing a budget allocation,” she said, pointing to the kind of governance and implementation hurdles that geoengineering would face even if it were deemed technologically feasible and environmentally safe.

Others were careful to draw a line between solar geoengineering research and implementation.

“I’m a strong proponent of doing the research,” said Robert Rosner, an astrophysicist at the university, former director of the Argonne National Laboratory, a member of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors, and part of the group overseeing the Climate Systems Engineering initiative. “I’m not a strong proponent of actually doing it [solar radiation management].”

It is important to learn as much as possible about what geoengineering would entail and what the potential consequences would be, Rosner said, “and to suss out in particular what the unintended consequences could be, what kinds of things could happen that we didn’t really think hard enough about, because we didn’t do the work that’s necessary.”

The two University of Chicago faculty members who expressed greater skepticism about the initiative were unwilling to go on the record with their doubts, but geoengineering critics outside the university had no such reservations.

“In [my book] The New Climate Wars I talk about that nexus of despair and techno-optimism, and geoengineering as weaponized doomism and despair,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. “The primary thing [that worries me] is the possibility that we could actually accelerate climate changes. You know, we’re not confident enough to know that we couldn’t change regional climate, [and] end up warming the Arctic, parts of the Arctic, even faster, at the expense of cooling the continents, [or] slowing down the hydrological [cycle].”

Mann also fears that researching solar radiation management could derail other climate action. “Why is it that Rex Tillerson says that climate change is an engineering problem?” Mann asked. “Isn’t that convenient that the [former] CEO of ExxonMobil wants us to think that?” He flagged the techno-optimism of wealthy business figures like Bill Gates as a particular concern, for funding technological solutions to climate change while downplaying or rejecting more effective political solutions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Gates supports geoengineering research and helped  fund  the aborted Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment ( SCoPEx ) that David Keith worked on at Harvard. Gates was also  an early investor  in Keith’s direct air capture start-up, Carbon Engineering, and Keith has advised the billionaire on topics related to climate and energy.

These prior efforts might have made Keith an appealing candidate to lead what the University of Chicago committee explicitly said would be an expensive initiative. In their report, the committee wrote, “it is important to note that for UChicago to become a global leader in climate systems engineering, especially geoengineering, it will be necessary to make substantial investment because the field is emergent and largely unrepresented on the University’s campus.”

“If you wanted to do it today or tomorrow you couldn’t, because the technology doesn’t exist. So you’d have to invent airplanes that could fly that high and carry this stuff.”

The university recently was in the news because of the poor state of its finances, and last December, administrators said they planned to reduce the  operating budget by a quarter .

When asked whether the university would partner with private donors or companies, Alivisatos said, “Not ready to say what we’re going to do in that space yet, honestly.”

But he pointed to the University of Chicago’s participation in the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, along with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University, as an example of “philanthropic dollars that are really being focused for the long-term understanding of something that is deeply important.”

“In my opinion, the great universities will be ones that are good and adept at partnering with other institutions and other stakeholders in society, to help bring everything to bear to make it happen,” Alivisatos added. “And we shouldn’t be afraid of that.”

The government is another potential partner for the program, specifically the US Energy Department’s Argonne National Laboratory, a University of Chicago affiliate, although what that partnership might look like is still up in the air. “We really want [the partnership with Argonne] to work,” Keith said. “I think there’s plenty of people at Argonne who want it to happen. There’s no really substantive thing that’s happening yet.”

Alivisatos was the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2009 to 2016, and as the president of University of Chicago, is currently the chair of the Board of Governors at Argonne.

Whether the world is warming up to the idea of solar geoengineering wasn’t something the people interviewed for this article could agree on. “Things are moving so quickly,” Keith said. “And this feels like a year that’s sort of pivotal, where people’s thinking about this is really changing.”

Last year, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a  congressionally mandated report  that explored the pros and cons of federal research into solar radiation management, although it explicitly said there are “no plans underway to establish a comprehensive research program focused on solar radiation modification.” A few months later, the UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology published a report on  the ethics of climate engineering .

Earlier this year, Keith attended  a meeting hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund  that convened several dozen scientists, activists, and philanthropists to discuss an expected infusion of funding into solar geoengineering by techno philanthropists. He also said he’s seen a proposal related to solar geoengineering that EDF made to one of its funders. “Don’t mistake this for me thinking EDF is arguing for implementation, but if they do this, then EDF clearly will be advocating for research in a serious way,” he said.

“People say it might be a slippery slope to deployment. And my answer is, it might be a sticky slope. The more research we do, the more problems we might find.”

Earlier this month, the Environmental Defense Fund’s plans were made public by the  New York Times , which  reported  that the group will spend millions on research of solar geoengineering technologies. The group hopes to begin issuing grants this fall. “We are not in favor, period, of deployment. That’s not our goal here,” Lisa Dilling, the associate chief scientist at EDF running the program, told the  Times . “Our goal is information, and solid, well-formulated science.”

Others pointed out how far solar geoengineering is from being a reality, in spite of the argument Keith made in his 2013 book that it would be easy and cheap and that the “specialized aircraft and dispersal systems required to get started could be deployed in a few years for the price of a Hollywood blockbuster.”

Over a decade later, very little practical progress has been made on that front. “If you wanted to do it, today, or tomorrow, you couldn’t, because the technology doesn’t exist,” Robock said. “So you’d have to invent airplanes that could fly that high and carry this stuff up there.”

Robock—an environmental scientist perhaps best known for his atmospheric modeling work supporting the concept that nuclear war could inject smoke into the stratosphere, cooling Earth and causing “nuclear winter”—thinks that more research is likely to provide even more reasons  not  to do solar geoengineering. “People say it might be a slippery slope to deployment,” he said. “And my answer is, it might be a sticky slope. The more research we do, the more problems we might find.”

It’s hard to reconcile the strong opinions on the relative risks and benefits of solar geoengineering.

Robock, who recently attended the Gordon Research Conference on Climate Engineering, an event he and Keith jointly started, succinctly summed up the quandary: “The number one reason it would be a good idea is if you could reduce global warming, you decrease many of the negative impacts of global warming. The question is, which is riskier: doing it or not doing it?”

Keith still leans towards the latter. “I think, a cold read of the literature is that if you did a relatively small amount, meaning that’s just one of the things you do, as well as emissions cuts, not instead of emissions cuts, and if you balance it between the hemispheres, then I think it’s fair to say that the evidence that the risks would be small compared to the benefits is pretty strong,” Keith said. His calm, matter-of-fact manner and style of writing—his book makes for a compelling read—are persuasive.

But so are the arguments of solar geoengineering skeptics, like Pierrehumbert, who easily lists all the things that could upset anything like Keith’s ideal scenario. If, for example, solar geoengineering is deployed successfully, and it cools the Earth and lessens the impacts of global warming, people may continue emitting carbon dioxide as they do now. Atmospheric carbon dioxide will continue to rise—and remain there for centuries—and the amount of solar geoengineering necessary to counteract it will also increase.

In the meantime, the oceans will continue to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide, leading to ocean and coastal acidification that, the US  Environmental Protection Agency says , would “affect entire ecosystems, including one animal at the top of the food chain—humans. Humans rely on the ocean for food and other economic resources. Ocean and coastal acidification may not just affect life underwater, but ultimately all of us.”

“Aaron Tang, a scholar of climate governance, has argued that the robust, global system necessary to monitor and manage any implementation of solar geoengineering is a “pipe dream.”

Or say Russia wants to keep its Arctic ports clear of ice, and it introduces countermeasures to interfere with solar geoengineering. If the solar geoengineering that masks global warming is suddenly cut off, that could create a sudden rate of warming called termination shock that could be worse than what the world is experiencing now.

“People say that climate change is different from nuclear war, because it doesn’t set on all at once,” explained Pierrehumbert. “And that’s pretty much true. It’s a sort of a creeping increase. But the one thing that could make the catastrophe of climate change as much of a mega-death/almost-instant-catastrophe as nuclear war is solar geoengineering, and the nightmare scenario where we start deploying it. And then the world uses that as an excuse to continue emitting CO2…and then we have an event which might even be nuclear war, that causes it to stop. And then all that warming instead of playing out over centuries, that warming plays out over a matter of a decade or a half decade.”

Keith has not overlooked these risks. “When I consider geoengineering scenarios that lead to outright disaster, or converse scenarios in which geoengineering is prematurely abandoned despite its social and environmental benefits, all involve geopolitical failures,” he wrote in his 2013 book. He also argued that geoengineering is a geopolitical leveling technology, similar to the internet or nuclear weapons, and that “like other levelers—most notably nuclear proliferation—this fact is disturbing in its potential to lead to international conflict.”

Certainly any future implementation of solar radiation management would require a monumental effort on the part of global leaders to ensure adequate and fair consideration of potential and actual impacts, and to make incredibly difficult decisions about how much cooling to engineer, and exactly how that cooling will be achieved.

Such cooperation would have to continue for decades, if not indefinitely, and it would need to be durable enough to respond—sanely—to the inevitable questions that would arise, like whether a particular natural disaster on one continent could be attributed to climate engineering or to normal climatic variations. Aaron Tang, a scholar of climate governance at the Fenner School of Environment & Society at the Australian National University, has  argued in the  Bulletin  that the robust, global system necessary to monitor and manage any implementation of solar geoengineering is a “pipe dream.”

This challenge was  front and center at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi this year . A Swiss resolution called for a working group to assess the feasibility of solar radiation modification, as well as the risks, benefits, and uncertainties of deployment. The United States supported research, but argued it should be conducted by a different mechanism—specifically, within a climate research program at the World Meteorological Organization.

In contrast, a group of African states—including Senegal, Kenya, Cameroon, Djibouti and South Africa, joined by Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, Barbados, Argentina, and Ecuador—called for a moratorium on solar geoengineering. Fiji, Vanuatu, and Pakistan—all extremely climate-vulnerable countries—largely supported that position. This divide underscores the vast challenge of fair and equitable representation and decision-making on solar geoengineering.

Moyer said she hoped that the Climate Systems Engineering initiative would study these governance issues in addition to the science and engineering aspects of climate systems engineering. “I think that an important component of this initiative would be hiring somebody who thinks very hard, in very practical terms, about international negotiations,” she said.

Keith said that he is working to hire someone who is “mostly on the social science side.”

But when it came to specific and concrete goals for the program or the research questions he hopes to tackle, Keith was frustratingly vague. “I should be doing less of my own research,” he said. “I think it’s really important to be getting other people to do stuff, and then they decide what they’re doing. Which sounds kind of evasive.”

He also deflected questions about whether he would encourage or push for outdoor solar geoengineering research, like what he tried to do at Harvard with SCoPEx: “Not me personally, again, because I don’t think I’m going to do a lot of research myself. So I think the answer is, I don’t really know.”

Wherever the University of Chicago initiative leads, it will be into terra incognita—which was a good part of the motivation behind the initiative in the first place.

“Every university has some kind of climate effort now,” said Keith. “Quite apart from what’s good or bad about climate systems engineering or so on, universities do need to figure out how to focus a little bit to do something useful.”

It’s a “much-needed gap in the literature,” said one of the anonymous faculty members. “It is the kind of thing no one really wants to talk about or think about for various reasons. Most people would say that’s appropriate. It’s a needed gap. But it is definitely a gap. And there is no clear leadership there … so it’s a place where focused investment could create a real mark. Making a mark generically on climate change research is hard, a lot of institutions are all over that. There’s huge investment across the world. How are you going to do that? Here’s a way to do that.”

The question is whether boldly going where no other university has gone before is, in this instance, something to be lauded—or cause for extra scrutiny and skepticism. And worry.

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