Contact: mwokeck@iupui.edu
Marianne S. Wokeck is Chancellor’s Professor of History at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where she teaches early American history and directs the Institute for American Thought. She was educated in Germany and the United States. Her major research interests in the history of the North Atlantic World (1600-1800) focus on immigration and ethnicity, including the role of religion in defining identity, and also on scholarly editing. Those interests are reflected in her publications as author and editor (Trade in Strangers; The Papers of William Penn; Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania; The Works of George Santayana; and Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies.
Lecture Notes
Highlights
Why is William Penn not a prominent, well-known founding father? Three things have contributed to his obscurity: Penn wrote a lot but his writings were not known, he was born and died in England long before the American Revolution, as a Quaker, he was considered an outsider. Click HERE to learn more about those who have come to be known as America’s Founding Fathers. It is important to understand that Penn was not a liberal, even though he affirmed toleration.
Click HERE for a copy of her lecture notes. [Links to a file]
Click HERE for a copy of her lecture handout. [Links to a file]
Other Recommended Resources
Murphy, Andrew. Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration: The Political Thought of William Penn. Oxford University Press, 2016.
Murphy, Andrew. William Penn: A Life. Oxford University Press, 2018.
Wokeck, Marianne. Trade in Strangers: The Beginnings of Mass Migration to North America, 1999.
Wokeck, Marianne. The Papers of William Penn, volumes 3-4, 1986, 1987.
Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003)
Soderlund, Jean R. Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016)
