🔔Pennsylvania

The Keystone State

Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 by the Quaker William Penn as a haven of religious tolerance, and it became the stage for the most important moments in the birth of the United States. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were both signed in Philadelphia, and the decisive battle of the Civil War was fought on Pennsylvania farmland at Gettysburg.

William Penn's Experiment

King Charles II granted William Penn a vast tract of land in 1681 to settle a debt owed to Penn's father. Penn, a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), envisioned his colony as a "Holy Experiment" in religious freedom and peaceful relations with Indigenous peoples. He laid out a formal plan for the city of Philadelphia — "the city of brotherly love" — with a gridded street pattern around five public squares that still define downtown today.

The colony grew quickly. Its tolerant laws attracted Quakers, German Lutherans and Mennonites, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and others fleeing religious persecution in Europe.

Cradle of Independence

Philadelphia was the largest and wealthiest city in colonial America, and it hosted the most consequential gatherings of the Revolutionary era. The First Continental Congress met at Carpenters' Hall in 1774. The Second Continental Congress convened at the Pennsylvania State House — now Independence Hall — in 1775. On July 4, 1776, that body adopted the Declaration of Independence in the same building. Eleven years later, in the summer of 1787, the U.S. Constitution was drafted and signed in the same east room.

The Liberty Bell, which is believed to have rung in Philadelphia to mark the Declaration's first public reading on July 8, 1776, is now displayed across the street from Independence Hall.

Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought from July 1 through July 3, 1863, was the bloodiest engagement of the Civil War and a decisive Union victory. Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second and final invasion of the North was turned back, and his army never again had the strength to threaten Northern territory in force. More than 50,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing over the three days.

Four months later, on November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the new national cemetery on the battlefield. In just 272 words, he reframed the war as a test of whether a nation "conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" could long endure.

Steel and Coal

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Pennsylvania led the Industrial Revolution in America. Pittsburgh became the center of the world's steel industry, producing the steel that built skyscrapers, railroads, and the ships that won two world wars. Anthracite coal mined in the state's northeastern counties heated American homes and powered the factories that made the Allegheny region an economic engine.

Pennsylvania Firsts and Facts

• Philadelphia served as the temporary capital of the United States from 1790 to 1800, while Washington, D.C. was being built.
• Pennsylvania is one of only four states officially called a "commonwealth" (along with Virginia, Massachusetts, and Kentucky).
• The state is the only one of the original thirteen colonies that does not touch the Atlantic Ocean.
• Hershey, Pennsylvania, is home to The Hershey Company and is known as "Chocolate Town, USA."
• The Pennsylvania Dutch — mostly German-speaking Anabaptist groups like the Amish and Mennonites — still maintain a large presence in Lancaster County.

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