Commercial Theologies and the Problem of Bubbles: The Pennsylvania Land Company and the Quaker Debate on Financial Ethics

This article analyzes the “Pennsylvania Bubble,” a religious and financial crisis that began when two Quaker ministers subscribed the Pennsylvania Land Company’s money in the South Sea Company in August of 1720. The scandal engulfed the transatlantic Quaker community in a decades long controversy and reveals how religion and capitalism evolved in dialogue with one another during the eighteenth century.