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High above Center City, Philadelphia, 548 feet high, to be exact, at the pinnacle of City Hall,

is the statue of William Penn. Billy Penn, to locals, he is 37 feet tall, one of the

largest statues at the top of a building anywhere in the world. For most of the 20th century,

when other American cities were reaching for the sky, in Philadelphia

you weren't allowed to build a building taller than Billy Penn stood.

That was the rule.

An unusual gentleman's agreement among developers.

But William Penn was an unlikely story from the start.

A nobleman's son, he was imprisoned numerous times, once in the Tower of London, for being a Quaker,

devoted to ideals of religious tolerance, nonviolence, and simplicity.

Eventually, he would cross the Atlantic to found a new English colony based on these principles. A lofty ocean indeed,

but even now in 21st century Philly, amidst spires of steel and glass, William Penn and the

ideas of his holy experiment still stand tall.

Hello and welcome to American History Hit. I'm Don Wildman.

Today, to track William Penn's journey from prosecuted troublemaker in England to the founding of Pennsylvania,

with a royal grant, no less. For this, I am joined by Thomas Hamm, Emeritus Professor of History

and Quaker Scholar in

residence at Erlem College.

So, without further ado, let's explore the Quaker founding of Pennsylvania.

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