to one religious or economic group, I can only plead that their
colonial contemporaries had the same bias.

I did, however, feel the subject was complex enough to require
an approach which would render it manageable for both reader
and writer, a perspective which -- when I recognized it -- was
surprisingly and gratifyingly logical. The first fifty years of
Pennsylvania's history were dominated by the personality and
the plans of William Penn, a seventeenth-century English
Quaker who had definite ideas for New World development. The
second half century of provincial life reflected the influence of
Benjamin Franklin, an eighteenth-century Yankee whose behav-
ior was pragmatic rather than dogmatic, whose expressions were
aphoristic rather than philosophical or theological. He was an
indigenous American, rejecting the authority of tradition. I hope
my use of these characterizations has not been heavy-handed as I
have moved through the century of Pennsylvania's colonial
history.

I began this work at the urging of Jacob E. Cooke, who has
steadfastly supported me while I took far too long to do it. He,
Elsie Kearns, and Milton M. Klein have read the full manu-
script and given me helpful suggestions, not all of which were
followed, and I have profited also from comments by Jack D.
Marietta and Thomas Wendel. My cousin, John F. Walzer, who
was raised with me in the Pennsylvania countryside and drew on
that experience to write about the inland trade of the province,
has been an unfailing source of sustenance. He and a number of
other historians will recognize, not too clearly, I hope, their work
here; I have tried to acknowledge those debts in my bibliog-
raphy. David Lundberg regularly brought me books from the
University of California library, along with wry remarks about
their contents, helping me keep a sense of humor if not historical
perspective. Sally Cohen met every typing deadline with a smile
and words of encouragement; Diane Litchfield was also unfail-
ingly and good-naturedly willing to aid in the typing; Carol W.
Williams gave last-minute aid on the illustrations; and Kati
Boland saved me from stylistic errors with her copyediting.

At one point my work was interrupted, or so I then thought, by
my service as president of AFL-CIO # 1352. Only later did I

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