The Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, has been in Ireland since the 17th century. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was imprisoned in Cork for his beliefs. Clara Pierre traces their roots.
The late Glen Jeansonne, long a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, once began a profile this way: "In August 1936, Gerald L.K. Smith addressed a packed Cleveland stadium at the convention of Father Charles E. Coughlin's National Union of Social Justice. The afternoon was hot, and the audience sweltered. Smith, sweating profusely, stripped off his coat and tie and gulped directly from a pitcher of water without bothering to use a glass.