ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on what might have been in Philadelphia by taking a look at a small group of Orthodox and Gurneyite Quaker families who went through a renaissance in leadership and creativity in the city from about the time of the Civil War down to 1955. When Philadelphia Quakerism split into the irreconcilable branches of Hicksite and Orthodox Friends, most of the leaders sided with the Orthodox branch, whereas two-thirds of the Yearly Meeting eventually joined the Hicksites. Gurneyites and Wilburites, in Philadelphia at least, remained Orthodox Friends. The members of small group of Gurneyite families in turn proceeded to found and build three first-rate educational institutions in the city, the William Penn Charter School and Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges. Today the American Friends Service Committee is the most famous Quaker institution in the world. It was founded in 1917 at the Twelfth Street Meetinghouse.
