William Penn's Imperial Georgic and the Vernacular Landscapes of Pennsylvania in Eighteenth-Century Quaker Journals

This essay analyzes changes in the way Quaker writers represented the landscape of Pennsylvania, particularly the economic features of its built environment, over time. I argue that the promotional writing of William Penn constituted an "official" representation of the landscape, using the genre of imperial georgic to highlight the colony's productive and lucrative potential for an audience of investors while minimizing the role of indentured servitude, African enslavement, and Indigenous dispossession in the process of economic development. Eighteenth-century Quaker reformers, however, developed a more "vernacular" portrayal of the landscape that was attentive to the privations of those who inhabited its built environment. In reading the journals of Elizabeth Ashbridge, John Churchman, Jane Hoskens, Daniel Stanton, and John Woolman, I show how Quaker reformers ironically moved beyond the limits of Penn's vision because of the degree to which they took his articulated ideals seriously.