Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  State or Commonwealth?

  Today, Pennsylvania is one of four U.S. states that still calls itself a “commonwealth.” (The others are Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts.) Pennsylvania’s interchangeability of the terms “commonwealth” and “state” goes back to 1776, when the state’s first constitution used both to refer to itself. Additional state constitutions in 1790, 1838, 1874, and 1968 also used the terms interchangeably.

  Rebel with a Cause

  He’s best known as the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania. But did you know that William Penn was once a highborn rebel who got tossed out of school and thrown into jail before his parents finally disowned him?

  If you want to go back to the beginning of Pennsylvania, there’s only one man to start with: William Penn. He was born in London in 1644, and his father was an English admiral who was friendly with King Charles II. William served as his father’s personal assistant and often delivered military messages to the monarch. That relationship seemed to assure young William’s future as a favorite at court.

  Seek and Ye Shall Find

  But William Penn also had a spiritual side. At the time, the Anglican Church was Great Britain’s state church; every citizen belonged to it. But at the age of about 20, Penn strayed from Anglicanism after he heard a talk by Thomas Loe, a Quaker missionary. Unlike Anglicanism, which emphasized loyalty to the church and the monarchy, the Quakers encouraged a direct and personal relationship with God, and believed that a person’s conscience should be his moral authority, not directives from the church or king. Quakers also lived and dressed simply and, instead of formal services, held meetings during which both male and female parishioners meditated in silence until someone was “moved” to speak.

  But there was no freedom of religion in 17th-century England. When he was a student, Penn spoke out at Oxford—attendance at the Anglican chapel was mandatory, and Penn was expelled for protesting the policy. His irritated father packed him off to school in France in the hopes that he would shape up into a proper young aristocrat. Eventually, William Penn returned to England, studied law, and appeared to be conforming to the mainstream. But at age 22, he shocked his family—and society—by officially becoming a Quaker.

  A Plain People

  Despite the Quakers’ peaceful ways, most Anglican authorities considered them to be dangerous, mainly because the Quakers preached that all human beings were equal in the eyes of God. That meant a commoner was as important as a king or queen. Quakers also promoted peace and refused to fight in wars, a stance that brought them persecution in England. The treatment was taken so seriously that the Quaker Act of 1662 made it illegal for anyone to participate in Quaker meetings or refuse to attend Anglican church services.

  In September 1667, William Penn was arrested at a Quaker meeting. Because he was an aristocrat, the police let him go. But when his parents heard the news, they disowned him.

  The Champ

  Penn ended up in prison several times for his Quaker activities—he even spent time in a cell in the Tower of London. But he refused to recant his beliefs. Instead, he used his time in prison to write pamphlets about the Quaker faith and religious liberty. His ideas eventually gained a wide audience throughout Europe, and when he lectured, huge crowds gathered to hear him.

  William Penn received a windfall in 1681 when King Charles II granted him a vast tract of land southwest of New Jersey, encompassing the area that is now Pennsylvania and Delaware. The story goes that the king was settling a debt he owed Penn’s now-deceased father, but it’s also possible that Charles wanted to rid England of Quakers in general and William Penn in particular. In any case, the religious rebel was given one of the world’s largest land grants—and he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.

  The Great Law

  Penn started planning his colony while crossing the Atlantic onboard the ship Welcome. In a document called “The Great Law”—which became Pennsylvania’s constitution in 1701—he wrote a line that became a cornerstone of American culture. He stated that no person in the province

  shall be in any case molested or prejudiced in his or theire person or Estate because of his or theire Conscientious perswasion or practice nor be compelled to frequent or mentaine any Religious Worship place or Ministry contrary to . . . theire Religious perswasion.

  The idea was revolutionary, and the pamphlet immediately made Pennsylvania a haven for people of persecuted faiths. It also offered men and women a level of religious liberty that was unusual in the Western world at the time.

  A Holy Experiment

  Penn arrived in his new colony on October 27, 1682. King Charles named the area Pennsylvania (or, “Penn’s woods”). Penn called it his “Holy Experiment” because he wanted to create a New World utopia. At a time when many major cities were crowded and dirty, Penn created a blueprint for Philadelphia that included parkland encircling its borders and space for each house to have a garden. He also did his best to maintain a peaceful relationship with the colony’s neighbors—Penn met with leaders from the local Indian tribes and bought (rather than simply took) their land.

  But perhaps most important, Penn tried to prevent tyranny by installing a representative government that consisted of two elected groups: one to pass laws, and another to ratify them. That government also guaranteed its citizens the right to secure private property, trial by jury, and a free press.

  The Golden Age

  Word of this new governmental experiment soon reached the other colonies and Europe. French writer Voltaire wrote, “William Penn might, with reason, boast of having brought down upon earth the Golden Age!” English commoners showed their support for Penn’s “holy experiment” by moving to Pennsylvania. Quakers, of course, flocked there. But so did Jews, Catholics, and many marginalized Protestant sects, including Amish, Mennonites, Methodists, Dunkers, Moravians, and Presbyterians.

  Although Pennsylvania was one of the last American colonies to be founded, it quickly became one of the most populated—by 1700, more than 20,000 people lived there—and Philadelphia grew into an urban center. Perhaps most importantly, Penn’s radical experiment not only worked, but laid the foundation for another government that would be founded 100 years later: the United States.

  Meet the Continental Congress

  In the 18th century, Philadelphia was a hotbed of political activity.

  These days, the United States Congress meets in Washington, D.C., but it’s not the first congress the United States had. Before the U.S. Congress, there were three other congresses: the continental congresses, a group of delegates from the 13 British colonies that governed the young nation even before it was officially a nation. And all three congresses convened in Philadelphia.

  The First Continental Congress

  When it met: September 5–October 26, 1774

  Why did it meet? In 1774, the colonists were chafing under British rule because of the Intolerable Acts, a series of punitive laws that came as a reaction to the Boston Tea Party the year before. The various acts included closing Boston Harbor until someone paid for all the dumped tea, replacing home rule of the Massachusetts Colony with direct control by the British government (until then, the British had mostly left the colonists alone), and forcing colonists to quarter British soldiers. The First Continental Congress met to decide what to do about the laws. Because they were still officially part of a British colony, the colonists had to meet in secret, and they decided that in response to the Intolerable Acts, they would boycott British goods beginning December 1, 1774, and suspend exports to Britain the following September unless the acts were repealed. They also decided to convene again in May.

  What happened? The boycott went into effect. However, before the export suspension could begin, the Revolutionary War started and rendered the ban unnecessary.

  Attendees: Fifty-six delegates from 12 colonies. (The colony of Georgia sat this one out because it was having trouble with the Creek tribe and needed the British army’s help.) The delegates included
John and Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and George Washington. Samuel Adams had proposed the idea of a congress in 1773 “to draw up a Bill of Rights and publish it to the world.”

  The Second Continental Congress

  When it met: May 10, 1775–December 12, 1776, and then at various times and in various places in Pennsylvania and Maryland until 1781

  Why did it meet? By this time, the Revolutionary War had broken out, and the Continental Congress acted as a provisional government for the colonies. It established a post office, printed money, built a navy, and appointed George Washington as commander in chief of the U.S. military. Initially, the colonies had just been fighting for representation within the British empire, but by July 1776, both the delegates to the congress and the individual colonial governments had decided they wanted the colonies to become an entirely independent nation.

  What happened? This congress approved the Declaration of Independence and then began work on the Articles of Confederation, the United States’ first constitution.

  Attendees: Most of the same delegates who attended the First Continental Congress, though Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson also participated this time. Georgia’s representatives arrived on July 20, 1775.

  The Third Continental Congress (a.k.a. the Congress of the Confederation)

  When it met: March 1, 1781–March 4, 1789 (though it was in Philadelphia only until June 21, 1783)

  Why did it meet? After the Second Continental Congress finalized the Articles of Confederation in 1781, the Congress of the Confederation took over the day-to-day business of running the new country. Its first major accomplishment: sending Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and others to negotiate peace with Britain. This culminated with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the war between Britain and its former colonies. After that, though, running the new country got harder because the Articles of Confederation didn’t give the Congress of the Confederation much power. This led to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, whose goal was to draft a document that would lay a foundation for a workable and powerful national government.

  What happened? The Constitutional Convention gave rise to the current U.S. Constitution, which the states ratified in 1788. It went into effect on March 4, 1789, when the Congress of the Confederation disbanded and the U.S. Congress as we know it today came into being.

  Attendees: Hundreds of elected representatives from the 13 states of the United States of America. The first presiding officer of the congress—called the “president”—was Samuel Huntington of Connecticut.

  Revolutionary Documents:

  Common Sense

  Philadelphia was the birthplace of three of the most important documents in American history: the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and Common Sense, a philosophical pamphlet by Thomas Paine, who turned complaining into an art form.

  Friends in High Places

  Thomas Paine’s early years were unimpressive. Born in England in 1737, he dropped out of school by the time he was 12. He later worked as a corseter’s apprentice, a seaman, and a tax officer, but he couldn’t seem to find his niche. He did, though, excel as a writer. When Benjamin Franklin met Paine in London in 1774, Paine impressed Franklin with his ability to write passionately and clearly on political issues. Paine’s most recent critique: an argument against his employer (England’s tax office, for whom Paine tracked alcohol and tobacco smugglers and then collected taxes on their goods). Paine argued that the low wages the office paid led directly to corruption. Displeased with the criticism, Paine’s employers had fired him.

  Paine seemed a perfect protégé for Franklin, who was in England because tensions between the colonies and the mother country were high. Revolutionary ideas that were swirling in colonial cities seemed like a good fit for Paine, so the statesman urged him to start life over in America.

  Paine arrived in Philadelphia in November 1774, with no job and no money, but he did have an impressive letter of introduction from Franklin. That opened doors for him, and within a year, Paine was working as an editor for the pro-Revolution Pennsylvania Magazine. He soon declared his loyalty to the Revolution and began writing a pamphlet to support its independence.

  Just Common Sense

  When the Revolutionary War began in April 1775, not all of the colonists wanted to separate from Britain. In fact, many considered themselves British citizens and urged their neighbors to remain loyal to the British monarchy. There was also disagreement at the time as to whether to merely fight for representation in the existing British government, or for complete independence. Thomas Paine believed in the latter, and in January 1776, he published a 47-page pamphlet called Common Sense that argued in favor of an all-out war with Britain.

  Paine’s experiences in England clearly influenced his opinions. He’d been poor and (he claimed) mistreated at the hands of the ruling monarchy. In Common Sense, he lashed out at the idea of obeying a king and called Britain’s George III “the royal brute of England.” He also told his readers that if the colonies remained a part of England, they would be dragged into European conflicts that had nothing to do with them. Instead, he argued, they needed to be an entirely separate country and should establish a republican government with a constitution that would spell out each citizen’s liberties.

  In Support of the Cause

  Paine was convincing. By the summer of 1776, his pamphlet had sold half a million copies, and America’s leaders were formally declaring their independence from England. Even though the profits from Common Sense could have made Paine rich, he used the money to buy supplies for the rebel troops.

  Common Sense turned out to have a lasting impact on the Revolution. Not only did it inspire the public, it also inspired lawmakers. Paine’s pamphlet directly influenced Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. (More about that document on page 182.)

  Life After Common Sense

  Thomas Paine stayed in Philadelphia and continued to write pamphlets throughout the war. He drafted several famous works, including 16 “Crisis” papers, which included now-famous lines like “These are the times that try men’s souls” and encouraged the colonists to keep fighting. (George Washington gave his troops the first “Crisis” paper to read as a means of inspiration.)

  When the war ended, Thomas Paine was on the side of victory, but he was penniless. Because he’d refused all money for his writing, he had little to show for his patriotic endeavors. In the 1780s, the State of Pennsylvania gave him 500 pounds, the State of New York gave him a plot of land, and he moved to a farm in New Rochelle, New York. He continued writing and working for freedom—in 1791, he wrote a pamphlet called The Rights of Man, in support of the French Revolution. Thomas Paine died in 1809 at the age of 72.

  Did You Know?

  According to the states’s Department of Agriculture, Pennsylvania is the United States’ second-largest producer of ice cream. (California is first.)

  Behind the Hits

  Philadelphian Will Smith first made a name for himself as the rapper “the Fresh Prince,” and Boyz II Men rose to fame after scoring a hit with “Motown Philly.” But Pennsylvania had been in the pop-music limelight before—thanks to nonPennsylvanians Billy Joel and Elton John.

  “Allentown”

  Until Billy Joel released this song in 1982, it seemed unlikely that the depressed, Rust Belt Allentown region in eastern Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley could be the subject of a catchy pop tune. But Joel used the area as a metaphor for the effects of the industrial economic recession of the 1980s and charted a hit song in the process.

  Why Allentown? The song’s lyrics evoke the despair and disillusionment of an unemployed blue-collar worker, but Allentown wasn’t the place Joel had in mind when he was writing the song. He’d read a magazine article about the decline of the steel industry in the Lehigh Valley, particularly in neighboring Bethlehem, which is mentioned in the first verse. But Joel thought “Allentown” sounded like a more generic na
me for an all-American town. In 2007, he said, “If I look at a map and I want to find where the heartland begins, I’d probably start right there in the Lehigh Valley . . . So the name Allentown worked for me as a heartland name.”

  It also worked with the chords and melody Joel had come up with in the early 1970s, while trying to write a song about his own hometown of Levittown, New York. As he tried to write that song, though, Joel discovered that Levittown seemed too boring to merit a pop song. The original lyrics went, “We’re living here in Levittown/And there’s really not much going down/And I don’t see much when I look around/The trees are green/The dirt is brown.” Joel put the song away until he played a series of concerts in Allentown, met the residents, and saw what was happening to the community. He said, “There was a kind of wearing on the area from what had happened in the steel industry.” So he decided to write about that.

  Did you know? “Allentown” isn’t the only song about Allentown. Frank Zappa’s 1975 song “200 Years Old” and a 1950s folk song by Irving Gordon, “Allentown Jail,” both mention the town.

  “Philadelphia Freedom”

  Elton John had been a longtime fan of tennis player Billie Jean King, and they became friends after running into each other at various celebrity tennis tournaments. When King gave John a personalized tracksuit, he told her he would write a song for her. “Philadelphia Freedom” was a reference to King’s team in the World Tennis League—the Philadelphia Freedoms.