Long before the First Amendment guaranteed the free exercise of religion, William Penn envisioned Pennsylvania as a “Holy Experiment” founded on liberty of conscience. Pennsylvania became a place where people of different faiths sought to live together under laws that protected religious freedom while cultivating civic life. Yet that experiment was also marked by contradiction, compromise, and exclusion. University of Pennsylvania Professor Marci Hamilton and St. Joseph’s University Professor Emeritus Randall Miller explore how Pennsylvania’s founding shaped the nation’s understanding of religious liberty, what William Penn’s vision achieved, where it fell short, and what this history can teach us about sustaining constitutional democracy today. Julie Silverbrook, chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, moderates.
The program celebrated the opening of Pennsylvania’s Founding: How a City and a Colony Shaped America’s DNA, a special exhibition at the National Constitution Center developed in partnership with Drexel University and curated by Drexel’s Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships and Atwater Kent Collection.
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Participants
Marci Hamilton is p professor of practice in the Department of Political Science and Fox Family Pavilion Non-resident Senior Fellow in the Program for Research on Religion at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the founder and CEO of CHILD USA, a nonprofit think tank that pairs cutting-edge legal analysis with original social science research to improve laws and policies related to child abuse and neglect. Before joining the faculty at Penn, Hamilton held the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.
Randall M. Miller is professor emeritus at Saint Joseph’s University. He is a prominent scholar of Pennsylvania history and co-editor of Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth. Miller served as an advising scholar on Pennsylvania’s Founding: How a City and a Colony Shaped America’s DNA.
Julie Silverbrook is chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, where she leads the strategy, development, and delivery of the Center’s content, public programs, and educational initiatives, advancing its mission of nonpartisan constitutional education and civil dialogue. She oversees the creation of public-facing constitutional content and works to ensure the Center’s programs, scholarly engagement, and educational resources operate as a coordinated national strategy serving students, educators, families, and lifelong learners across the country.
Additional Resources
- Pennsylvania’s Founding: How a City and a Colony Shaped America’s DNA, a special exhibition at the National Constitution Center developed in partnership with Drexel University and curated by Drexel’s Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships and Atwater Kent Collection
- “Our Unseen Freedom,” Vince Stango and Rosalind Remer in The Philadelphia Citizen, Sep. 30, 2026
- Tom Riley, David Seltzer, and Shawn McCaney, in The Philadelphia Inquirer
- First Amendment: Religion - Establishment Clause, National Constitution Center
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