ABSTRACT
QUAKERS are members of the Society of Friends, a Protestant church, who hold a core belief that within each human being dwells an “inward” or “inner light.” This light, they maintain, is the spirit of Christ and is followed by members during worship. With roots in seventeenth-century England, the church flourished in America with the help of Quaker convert William Penn, who founded the colony of Pennsylvania in 1681. Often called the “Friendly Persuasion,” or one of the “Peace Churches” (along with the Brethren and Mennonites) because of a pacifist orientation, the Society of Friends exerted significant cultural influence in colonial settlement patterns and architecture in Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley.
