The Quakers' Rebellious Origins

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How could walking naked through town be seen as religious? What about digging up a corpse? Or bursting into church services to cause mayhem?

In this episode, Dr Erica Canela takes Don back to the first years of Quakerism to explore where this religion came from, and how it ended up in the United States.

Erica is the author of Zealous: A Darker Side of the Early Quakers.

Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the year 1805 here in Philadelphia, and we're approaching the Arch Street Meeting House of the Society of Friends.
0:08.0	Red Breck with cream trim looks a lot like the old State House a couple blocks away where the Declaration of Independence was signed.
0:15.0	And it's brand new, just built. That doesn't mean the door hinges won't be squeaking.
0:22.1	Come on here.
0:23.8	Here, take a seat.
0:28.5	So this is first day, what friends call Sundays.
0:31.7	It's a packed house, lots of friends here in Philadelphia.
0:35.8	The members are all dressed in typical grays and blacks and whites.
0:38.6	They sit side by side on plain wood benches.
0:44.7	Women and girls wearing bonnets. There's nothing on the walls. The whole idea is plainness and utter simplicity in every regard. Worship is underway. An hour of silence, stillness, simplicity.
0:53.1	In a million years, you'd never imagine that these people,
0:55.9	this society of friends, so quiet and humble, back when this movement was started in England
1:02.2	in the mid-1600s, they were anything but. Those friends were radicals, rabble-rousers,
1:09.3	and some so violently trembled and shook in the presence of the Lord,
1:14.0	they earned themselves a nickname, the Quakers.
1:26.8	Hello, all, Don Wildman here, host of American History Hit.
1:30.7	Now in our third year and still going strong.
1:33.1	All thanks to you, our listeners.
1:34.8	Thank you for punching us up.
1:36.8	Today's episode is a very personal one for me, and for many I know and love, friends and family.
1:42.3	I was raised in the Quaker faith, a birthright member,
1:46.0	we're called, of the Society of Friends, born in Philadelphia, capital of American Quakerism.
	...

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