Doug Gwyn, historian of Pendle Hill (Personality and Place: The Life and Times of Pendle Hill, 2014), tells the story of this experimental community, structured around the features of the campus, beginning with the beech tree and ending with New House (so called as of August 2020). The early history of Pendle Hill is entwined with the American Friends Service Committee, providing a base for activism. In the 1960s the focus began to shift to study and contemplation. With the closing of the resident program in 2014, Pendle Hill moved into an identity yet to be fully envisioned as it looks at the potential for creating a new kind of community in the wake of the pandemic and the worldwide call to grapple with systemic racism. The pamphlet includes a time line and foreword by Francisco Burgos, newly named executive director of Pendle Hill.

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Pendle Hill has published here a history of itself, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of this important institution of American Quakerism in the 20th century. It has clearly been a place of nourishment, dialogue, healing, and spiritual growth for Friends and others. While the focus is on the history of administration and buildings and grounds, this allows a little information about some Quaker greats of the time, the various program focuses as they evolved, and the challenges Pendle Hill has taken up and faces in 2020. Gwyn's writing is engaging, sensitive, and clear and keeps the reader going through the relating of the expansion of the physical plant. While Friends familiar with the place will savor this, the pamphlet may be of limited interest to those who look to this series for information, wisdom, and inspiration on spiritual life and Quaker practice. ( )

Pendle Hill is structured around the features of the campus, beginning with the beech tree and ending with New House. Its early history is entwined with the American Friends Service Committee, providing a base for activism. In the 1960s the focus began to shift to study and contemplation. With the closing of the resident program in 2014, it moved into an identity yet to be fully envisioned as it looks at the potential for creating a new kind of community in the wake of the pandemic and the worldwide call to grapple with systemic racism.

Gwyn (author also of Personality and Place: The Life and Times of Pendle Hill), writes a succinct 30 page pamphlet on the origins of Pendle Hill through to the year 2020. ( )