Centers of Progress, Pt. 19: Philadelphia (Liberal Democracy)
As the “cradle of liberty” and headquarters of the American Revolution, Philadelphia helped humanity to discover the benefits of liberal democracy.
Chelsea Follett —
Today marks the nineteenth installment in a series of articles by HumanProgress.org called Centers of Progress. Where does progress happen? The story of civilization is in many ways the story of the city. It is the city that has helped to create and define the modern world. This bi-weekly column will give a short overview of urban centers that were the sites of pivotal advances in culture, economics, politics, technology, etc.
Our nineteenth Center of Progress is Philadelphia, nicknamed the “cradle of liberty” and the “birthplace of America.” This early U.S. capital is where the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. It is also the place where a new form of government was debated and put into practice. Previously, the prevalent form of political organization was monarchy. But the Founders of the American republic attempted to create something new.
Today, Philadelphia is the largest city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and forms the heart of the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the country. The city is a major cultural center, known for its historical monuments such as the Liberty Bell, its famous cheesesteak sandwiches, the University of Pennsylvania, and cultural icons such as the famous “Rocky Steps.” The historic Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “The principles debated, adopted and signed in Independence Hall have profoundly influenced lawmakers and policymakers around the world,” according to UNESCO.
William Penn, an English Quaker, founded Philadelphia in 1682 as the capital of his new “Pennsylvania Colony.” The city’s name means “brotherly love” in Greek. It pays homage to an ancient city, in what is today Turkey, which is referenced in the Bible. Ancient Philadelphia served as an early center of Christianity. The Quakers, a Protestant denomination, were known for promoting pacifism and for their opposition to slavery. The latter was a particularly radical position at the time. Initially, about 7 percent of Philadelphian households owned slaves. It is estimated that by 1767 that figure grew to fifteen percent of Philadelphian households. In 1712, the Pennsylvania Assembly—which met in Philadelphia—banned the import of slaves into the colony. That decision was overruled by the British government under Queen Anne in early 1713. The next year (1714) and again in 1717, the Pennsylvania Assembly tried to limit slavery in the colony. Each time, the British government in London rejected the decision.
Penn founded the Pennsylvania colony as a “Holy Experiment” to be governed by Quaker values. Its laws differed from those in the other American colonies in notable ways. Pennsylvania guaranteed religious freedom, promoted education for girls as well as boys, and sought to rehabilitate prisoners by teaching them a trade, rather than simply punishing the offenders. The death penalty in Pennsylvania was reserved for those convicted of murder or treason at a time when in Britain people were put to death for a wide variety of trivial offenses. Penn, who kept at least twelve slaves, proposed before the Pennsylvania Assembly legislation that would have freed Pennsylvania’s slaves and given the latter property in a new township. Alas, his proposal was voted down.
Abolitionism, universal education, and enlightened penal practices were not the only radical ideas spreading through Philadelphia in the 18th century. Many colonists grew increasingly frustrated with their lack of political representation in the far-off, yet micromanaging, Britain. Enlightenment ideas inspired the discontented colonists to embark on an experiment that would change the world. In 1774, representatives from 12 of the 13 British colonies in America convened in Philadelphia. They formed the First Continental Congress. (The colony of Georgia did not dare send a representative as it was struggling in a war against local tribes and could not risk losing British military assistance).
The First Continental Congress endorsed the boycotting of British goods and militia-raising, but its most significant decision was to call for a Second Continental Congress. While no war against Britain was yet officially declared, George Washington (1732–1799), who was one of the delegates from Virginia, bought new muskets and military apparel. He also placed an order for a book on military discipline. As he walked the cobblestone streets of Philadelphia, the future president sensed that war was imminent.
Several events escalated the conflict. In 1775, British forces attempted to seize a Massachusetts armory. Local militiamen resisted. It is not clear which side fired first, but the resulting violence left 90 Americans and 273 Britons dead. Americans then besieged the British-held city of Boston. Those events—the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the Battle of Bunker Hill—are often seen as the start of the American Revolution.
However, at that point, the conflict between the colonists and the British still resembled a civil war, not a revolution. Many colonists wanted a resolution to the violence that did not involve separating from Britain. Rather, they wanted to receive better political representation in the British parliament. In January of 1776, the English-born American writer Thomas Paine (1737–1809) published a pamphlet titled Common Sense that argued for independence from Britain and for the formation of a liberal democratic republic. Paine published that work in Philadelphia and soon sold more than 100,000 copies. It energized public support for a break from Britain and experimentation with the republican form of government. The Founding Father and second U.S. president John Adams (1735–1826) famously opined: “Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.” The printing presses of Philadelphia thus catalyzed the American Revolution.
Philadelphia then hosted the Second Continental Congress. Although the Second Continental Congress met in several other places as well, it was in Philadelphia that Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. A Virginian, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), drafted the document while staying at a brick mason’s house in Philadelphia. The document laid out the rebel colonists’ reasoning for wishing to separate from Britain and spelled out several ideals of the new nation. The United States of America became the first country founded on Enlightenment principles, including human rights and consensual government. The Declaration’s most well-known passage reads:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Many of the ideas expressed in the document came directly from Enlightenment philosophers. For example, it paraphrased the “father of liberalism” John Locke’s belief in the rights to “life, liberty and property.” The young American republic did not always live up to its own ideals—most glaringly in the case of slavery. The founding ideals have nonetheless inspired countless Americans to strive to create a freer society with greater legal equality. The country’s founding values thus ultimately helped to bring about the end of slavery (1865), the expansion of the voting franchise to all races (1870) and women (1920), and the right to marriage for interracial couples (1967) and same-sex couples (2015). In other words, the Declaration of Independence’s eloquent statement of Enlightenment ideals has continued to resonate across generations and to encourage progress.
It is unsurprising that Philadelphia served as the headquarters, if not the official capital, of the new nation during the war. It was the young country’s most populous city. As with so many other Centers of Progress, a relatively large population helped the city thrive and act as a cultural hub. While Philadelphia had only about 40,000 residents, it would have felt crowded compared to other towns in the colonies. If you could visit Philadelphia during the American Revolution, you would enter a prospering city of shops and brick rowhouses, abuzz with the latest news about the war.
You might have run into the scientist, newspaperman, and statesman Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), one of the most prominent proponents of the Revolution. He also helped to shape Philadelphia. He first moved from his hometown of Boston, governed by Puritans, to the relatively tolerant Philadelphia at the age of 17, to seek work in the printing industry. (He had previously apprenticed for his brother’s newspaper, which the Boston authorities soon banned). In 1729 Franklin began the Pennsylvania Gazette, which became one of the top papers in the colonies. He founded Philadelphia’s Library Company in 1731, thus pioneering the concept of a lending library at a time when books were often prohibitively expensive. Membership subscriptions funded the library. In 1751, Franklin also founded the Pennsylvania Hospital, funded by charity (including financial support from many of Philadelphia’s wealthiest families) and a grant that Franklin secured from the government to match private donations. The hospital served patients free of charge, and Philadelphia soon became the medical capital of the colonies that would later become the United States.
Once the revolution began, the threat of seizure by the British loomed large in Philadelphians’ minds. In autumn of 1777, those fears came to pass. The British occupation of the city has been called “one of the greatest blunders of the Revolutionary War.” As the Philadelphians suffered from wartime shortages, the occupying British officers gained a reputation for living in luxury and for illegal looting. As Elizabeth Drinker, a Quaker diarist residing in Philadelphia at the time, described the situation: “How insensible do these people appear, while our Land is so greatly desolated, and Death and sore destruction has overtaken and impends over so many.” In 1778, as the American forces grew stronger thanks to aid from France, the British recalled their troops from Philadelphia. In 1783, the war ended in a victory for the rebels.
Toward the end of the American Revolution, Pennsylvania abolitionists—including many Quakers and Presbyterians motivated by their religious values—helped abolish slavery in Pennsylvania by passing legislation in Philadelphia in 1780 that phased out the practice. Soon after, several other U.S. states (New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) followed suit with legislation modeled closely after Pennsylvania’s. Continuing its central role in the young republic, Philadelphia served as the official U.S. capital between 1790 and 1800 while Washington, D.C. was constructed.
By being the “cradle of liberty” and headquarters of the American Revolution, Philadelphia helped humanity to discover the benefits of liberal democracy. The ideas at the heart of the new form of government proved so successful that today representative liberal democracies can be found throughout much of the world. Philadelphia was also a notable early center of anti-slavery abolitionism, Enlightenment values, medical science, and culture. It is for these reasons that Philadelphia is rightly our 19th Center of Progress.
“Global Fishing Watch was co-founded by Google, marine conservation body Oceana, and environmental group SkyTruth. The latter studies satellite images to spot environmental damage.
To try to better monitor and quantify the problem of overfishing, Global Fishing Watch is now using increasingly sophisticated AI software, and satellite imagery, to globally map the movements of more than 65,000 commercial fishing vessels, both those with – and without – AIS.
The AI analyses millions of gigabytes of satellite imagery to detect vessels and offshore infrastructure. It then looks at publicly accessible data from ships’ AIS signals, and combines this with radar and optical imagery to identify vessels that fail to broadcast their positions.”
Examining the places where major advances happened is one way to learn about the conditions that foster societal flourishing, human achievement, and prosperity.
Chelsea Follett —
Summary: Amidst the turmoil of modern times, evidence reveals significant progress across various metrics, from rising life expectancy to declining global poverty. Cities have emerged as epicenters of innovation and progress throughout history, fostering collaboration, competition, and freedom of thought. By exploring the unique environments of cities like Edinburgh and Paris, where intellectual liberty thrived, Chelsea Follett uncovers the vital role of peace, freedom, and population density in driving human achievement and societal advancement.
Has humanity made progress? With so many serious problems, it is easy to get the impression that our species is hopeless. Many people view history as one long tale of decay and degeneration since some lost, idealized golden age.
But there has been much remarkable, measurable improvement—from rising life expectancy and literacy rates to declining global poverty. (Explore the evidence for yourself). Today, material abundance is more widespread than our ancestors could have dreamed. And there has been moral progress too. Slavery and torture, once widely accepted, are today almost universally reviled.
Where did all this progress come from? Certain places, at certain times in history, have contributed disproportionately to progress and innovation. Change is a constant, but progress is not. Studying the past may hold the secret to fostering innovation in the present. To that end, I wrote a book titled Centers of Progress: 40 Cities that Changed the World, exploring the places that shaped modern life.
The origin points of the ideas, discoveries, and inventions that built the modern world were far from evenly or randomly dispersed throughout the globe. Instead, they tended to emerge from cities, even in time periods when most of the human population lived in rural areas. In fact, even before anything that could be called a city by modern standards existed, progress originated from the closest equivalents that did exist at the time. Why is that?
“Cities, the dense agglomerations that dot the globe, have been engines of innovation since Plato and Socrates bickered in an Athenian marketplace,” urban economist Edward Glaeser opined in his book The Triumph of the City. Of course, he was hardly the first to observe that positive change often emanates from cities. As Adam Smith noted in 1776, “the commerce and manufactures of cities, instead of being the effect, have been the cause and occasion of the improvement and cultivation of the country.”
One of the reasons that progress tends to emerge from cities is, simply, people. Wherever more people gather together to “truck, barter, and exchange,” in Smith’s words, that increases their potential to engage in productive exchange, discussion, debate, collaboration, and competition with each other. Cities’ higher populations allow for a finer division of labor, more specialization, and greater efficiencies in production. Not to mention, more minds working together to solve problems. As the writer Matt Ridley notes in the foreword he kindly wrote for Centers of Progress, “Progress is a team sport, not an individual pursuit. It is a collaborative, collective thing, done between brains more than inside them.”
A higher population is sufficient to explain why progress often emerges from cities, but, of course, not all cities become major innovation centers. Progress may be a team sport, but why do certain cities seem to provide ideal playing conditions, and not others?
That brings us to the next thing that most centers of progress share, besides being relatively populous: peace. That makes sense, because if a place is plagued by violence and discord then it is hard for the people there to focus on anything other than survival, and there is little incentive to be productive since any wealth is likely to be looted or destroyed. Smith recognized this truth, and noted that cities, historically, sometimes offered more security from violence than the countryside:
Order and good government, and along with them the liberty and security of individuals, were in this manner established in cities, at a time when the occupiers of land in the country, were exposed to every sort of violence. But men in this defenceless state naturally content themselves with their necessary subsistence; because, to acquire more, might only tempt the injustice of their oppressors. On the contrary, when they are secure of enjoying the fruits of their industry, they naturally exert it to better their condition, and to acquire not only the necessaries, but the conveniencies and elegancies of life. That industry, therefore, which aims at something more than necessary subsistence, was established in cities long before it was commonly practised by the occupiers of land in the country. […] Whatever stock, therefore, accumulated in the hands of the industrious part of the inhabitants of the country, naturally took refuge in cities, as the only sanctuaries in which it could be secure to the person that acquired it.
Of course, not all cities were or are peaceful. Consider Smith’s own city: Edinburgh. At times, the city was far from stable. But the relatively unkempt and inhospitable locale emerged from a century of instability to take the world by storm. Scotland in the 18th century had just undergone decades of political and economic turmoil. Disruption was caused by the House of Orange’s ousting of the House of Stuart, the Jacobite Rebellions, the failed and costly colonial Darien Scheme, famine, and the 1707 Union of Scotland and England. It was only after things settled down and the city came to enjoy a period of relative peace and stability that Edinburgh rose to reach its potential. Edinburgh was an improbable center of progress. But Edinburgh proves what people can accomplish, given the right conditions.
During the Scottish Enlightenment centered in Edinburgh, Adam Smith was far from the only innovative thinker in the city. Edinburgh’s ability to cultivate innovators in every arena of human achievement, from the arts to the sciences, seemed almost magical.
Edinburgh gave the world so many groundbreaking artists that the French writer Voltaire opined in 1762 that “today it is from Scotland that we get rules of taste in all the arts, from epic poetry to gardening.” Edinburgh gave humanity artistic pioneers from the novelist Sir Walter Scott, often called the father of the historical novel, to the architect Robert Adam who, together with his brother James, developed the “Adam style,” which evolved into the so‐called “Federal style” in the United States after Independence.
And then there were the scientists. Thomas Jefferson, in 1789, wrote, “So far as science is concerned, no place in the world can pretend to competition with Edinburgh.” The Edinburger geologist James Hutton developed many of the fundamental principles of his discipline. The chemist and physicist Joseph Black, who studied at the University of Edinburgh, discovered carbon dioxide, magnesium, and the important thermodynamic concepts of latent heat and specific heat. The anatomist Alexander Monro Secondus became the first person to detail the human lymphatic system. Sir James Young Simpson, admitted to the University of Edinburgh at the young age of fourteen, went on to develop chloroform anesthesia.
Two of the greatest gifts that Edinburgh gave humanity were empiricism and economics. The influential philosopher David Hume was among the early advocates of empiricism and is sometimes called the father of philosophical skepticism. And by creating the field of economics, Smith helped humanity to think about policies that enhance prosperity. Those policies, including free trade and economic freedom that Smith advocated, have since helped to raise living standards to heights that would be unimaginable to Smith and his contemporaries.
That brings us to the last but by no means least secret ingredient of progress. Freedom. Centers of progress during their creative peak tend to be relatively free and open for their era. That makes sense because simply having a large population is not going to lead to progress if that population lacks the freedom to experiment, to debate new propositions, and to work together for their mutual benefit. Perhaps the biggest reason why cities produce so much progress is that city dwellers have often enjoyed more freedom than their rural counterparts. Medieval serfs fleeing feudal lands to gain freedom in cities inspired the German saying “stadtluft macht frei” (city air makes you free).
That adage referred to laws granting serfs liberty after a year and a day of urban residency. But the phrase arguably has a wider application. Cities have often served as havens of freedom for innovators and anyone stifled by the stricter norms and more limited choices common in smaller communities. Edinburgh was notable for its atmosphere of intellectual freedom, allowing thinkers to debate a wide diversity of controversial ideas in its many reading societies and pubs.
Of course, cities are not always free. Authoritarian states sometimes see laxer enforcement of their draconian laws in remote areas, and Smith himself viewed rural life as in some ways less encumbered by constraining rules and regulations than city life. But as philosophy professor Kyle Swan previously noted for Adam Smith Works:
Without denying the charms and attractions Smith highlights in country living, let’s not forget what’s on offer in our cities: a significantly broader range of choices! Diverse restaurants and untold many other services and recreations, groups of people who like the same peculiar things that you like, and those with similar backgrounds and interests and activities to pursue with them — cities are (positive) freedom enhancing.
The same secret ingredients of progress—people, peace, and freedom—that helped Edinburgh to flourish during Smith’s day can be observed again and again throughout history in the places that became key centers of innovation. Consider Paris.
As the capital of France, Paris attracted a large population and became an important economic and cultural hub. But it was an unusual spirit of freedom that allowed the city to make its greatest contributions to human progress. Much like the reading societies and pubs of Smith’s Edinburgh, the salons and coffeehouses of 18th‐century Paris provided a place for intellectual discourse where the philosophes birthed the so‐called Age of Enlightenment.
The Enlightenment was a movement that promoted the values of reason, evidence‐based knowledge, free inquiry, individual liberty, humanism, limited government, and the separation of church and state. In Parisian salons, nobles and other wealthy financiers intermingled with artists, writers, and philosophers seeking financial patronage and opportunities to discuss and disseminate their work. The gatherings gave controversial philosophers, who would have been denied the intellectual freedom to explore their ideas elsewhere, the liberty to develop their thoughts.
Influential Parisian and Paris‐ based thinkers of the period included the Baron de Montesquieu, who advocated the then‐groundbreaking idea of the separation of government powers and the writer Denis Diderot, the creator of the first general‐purpose encyclopedia, as well the Genevan expat Jean‐Jacques Rousseau. While sometimes considered a counter‐Enlightenment figure because of his skepticism of modern commercial society and romanticized view of primitive existence, Rousseau also helped to spread skepticism toward monarchy and the idea that kings had a “divine right” to rule over others.
The salons were famous for sophisticated conversations and intense debates; however, it was letter‐writing that gave the philosophes’ ideas a wide reach. A community of intellectuals that spanned much of the Western world—known as the Republic of Letters—increasingly engaged in the exchanges of ideas that began in Parisian salons. Thus, the Enlightenment movement based in Paris helped spur similar radical experiments in thought elsewhere, including the Scottish Enlightenment in Edinburgh. Smith’s many exchanges of ideas with the people of Paris, including during his 1766 visit to the city when he dined with Diderot and other luminaries, proved pivotal to his own intellectual development.
And then there was Voltaire, sometimes called the single most influential figure of the Enlightenment. Although Parisian by birth, Voltaire spent relatively little time in Paris because of frequent exiles occasioned by the ire of French authorities. Voltaire’s time hiding out in London, for example, enabled him to translate the works of the political philosopher and “father of liberalism” John Locke, as well as the English mathematician and physicist Isaac Newton. While Voltaire’s critiques of existing institutions and norms pushed the boundaries of acceptable discourse beyond even what would be tolerated in Paris, his Parisian upbringing and education likely helped to cultivate the devotion to freethinking that would come to define his life.
By allowing for an unusual degree of intellectual liberty and providing a home base for the Enlightenment and the far‐ranging Republic of Letters, Paris helped spread new ideas that would ultimately give rise to new forms of government—including modern liberal democracy.
Surveying the cities, such as Edinburgh and Paris, that built the modern world reveals that when people live in peace and freedom, their potential to bring about positive change increases. Examining the places where major advances happened is one way to learn about the conditions that foster societal flourishing, human achievement, and prosperity. I hope that you will consider joining me on a journey through the book’s pages to some of history’s greatest centers of progress, and that doing so sparks many intelligent discussions, debates, and inquiries in the Smithian tradition about the causes of progress and wealth.
Over the past two centuries, humanity has become massively more prosperous, better educated, healthier, and more peaceful.
The underlying cause of this progress is innovation. Human innovation―whether it be new ideas, inventions, or systems―is the primary way people create wealth and escape poverty.
Our upcoming book, Heroes of Progress: 65 People Who Changed the World, explores the lives of the most important innovators who have ever lived, from agronomists who saved billions from starvation and intellectuals who changed public policy for the better, to businesspeople whose innovations helped millions rise from poverty.
If it weren’t for the heroes profiled in this book, we’d all be far poorer, sicker, hungrier, and less free―if we were fortunate enough to be alive at all.
Considering their impact on humanity, perhaps it’s time to learn their story?
Heroes of Progress Book Forum
On March 21st, the author of Heroes of Progress, Alexander Hammond, will present the book live at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. He will be joined by Marian Tupy, the editor of Human Progress, and Clay Routledge, the Archbridge Institute’s Vice President of Research, who will speak on the individual’s role in advancing human progress and the need for a cultural progress movement.
Making an inspiring case for progress at this time of skepticism and historical ingratitude is no easy feat. Yet, by relentlessly outlining the extraordinary ability of individuals to shape our world for the better, Alexander Hammond does just that.
— Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Innovation is a team sport achieved by people working together, using precious freedoms to change the world, so it’s sometimes invidious to single out one person for credit. But once an idea is ripe for plucking, the right person at the right time can seize it and save a million lives or open a million possibilities. Each of these 65 people did that, and their stories are both thrilling and beautiful.
— Matt Ridley, author of How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom
The figures in this book are the overlooked and often unknown figures who have transformed the lives of ordinary people, for the better… This book is a correction to widespread pessimism and is both informative and inspirational.
— Dr. Stephen Davies, author of The Wealth Explosion: The Nature and Origins of Modernity
Superman and the Avengers are all very well, of course, but the real superheroes are thinkers, scientists, and innovators of flesh and blood who saved us from a life that used to be poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Alexander Hammond tells their inspiring stories in this magnificent book that will leave you grateful to be living in the world these men and women created.
— Johan Norberg, author of Open: The Story of Human Progress
The 65 innovators honored here made us happier, healthier, and longer-lived. Indeed, it is thanks to some of them that we are here at all. Their story is the story of how the human race acquired powers once attributed to gods and sorcerers―the story of how we overcame hunger, disease, ignorance, and squalor. I defy anyone to read this book and not feel better afterwards.
— Lord Daniel Hannan, president of the Institute for Free Trade
The 65 fascinating stories in Heroes of Progress are testaments to the ingenuity of humankind in delivering a richer, healthier, and hopefully freer world. Alexander C. R. Hammond provides an inspirational reminder that when individuals are free to speak, think, innovate, and engage in open markets, the heroic potential of humanity knows no bounds.
— Lord Syed Kamall, Professor of politics and international relations, St. Mary’s University
In Heroes of Progress, Alexander Hammond reminds us that human minds are the fundamental driver of every discovery, invention, and innovation that has improved our lives. By telling the stories of pioneering men and women who have advanced civilization, this book not only honors past heroes of progress, but also provides inspiration for the next generation to use their uniquely human imaginative and enterprising capacities to build a better future.
— Clay Routledge, Vice President of Research and Director of the Human Flourishing Lab at the Archbridge Institute
“In 1990, only five percent of Americans had a passport. Today, that number is 48%. More Americans can travel abroad now than at any time in our history.”
