Modern day Quakers, that is. We heard a distant niece is engaged to a Quaker and realized we don’t know, and never hear, about Quakers. Oh, I know they were consciencious objectors in wars, are for peace and helping out humankind, but other than that, I got nothin’. We “know” about the doings of Catholics and Jews and Buddhists and what they believe and how they worship. How DO Quakers worship? Do they live everywhere in the US? Are there a lot of them? Could I become a Quaker, and if so, what would I have to do? What happens if a Quaker gets violent? Is it all right if they marry non-Quakers?
well, if it helps at all, here are the websites of the three main Quaker “denominations”…the Friends General Conference:
The Friends United Meeting:
and Evangelical Friends International
(IANAQuaker, but the area I grew up in had historically had a significant number of Quaker residents, and I went to Quaker schools, including mandatory worship services there, and knew several Quaker families.)
Who are the Quakers? Basically, think Unitarians, with much quieter church services. 
Mostly in silence. On First Day (aka Sunday, but “First Day” is traditionally preferred to avoid pagan associations), and in some places also on Fourth Day (Thursday), they go to the Meetinghouse for an (approximately) hour-long service that mostly consists of silent worship. Anyone may stand up and speak if the Spirit prompts him/her, but there are no scheduled prayers/sermons/rituals. The service is ended when one officially designated member turns to another and shakes hands with him/her. Then everybody shakes hands. Wild times in the old Meetinghouse, I tells ya!
And not much changes when the worship service includes a wedding, by the way. Non-Quakers who talk about wanting their wedding to be “quiet” and “low-key” are working with a whole different metric.
Oh, note that this is all the traditional Friends General Conference practice. The newer Friends United Meeting congregations have sermons and singing in addition to silent worship. Pagans. 
Yup, they’re all over, but mostly in the east and midwest. Apparently Indiana is tops in absolute Quaker population, but Pennsylvania (traditionally the “Quaker State”) has the highest percentage of Quaker residents. I think they’re under 1% of the total population.
Sure you could. Find a Quaker meeting in your area, attend Meeting, talk to the people there; I’m not sure exactly what, or whether, formal “conversion” procedure would be involved.
They join the UPenn football team. 
Seriously, it’s regarded like any recognized sinful behavior in any other liberal Christian denomination: it’s regretted, and if necessary, rebuked, but nobody excommunicates you or anything like that. Thee must just try not to do it again, friend. (Okay, I don’t think you’d find any except maybe a very few elderly rural Quakers who still habitually use “thee” instead of “you”.)
Used to be forbidden, but I think nowadays it’s tolerated.
Ooooooops. I mistakenly called Thursday “Fourth Day”: it’s actually “Fifth Day”.
(Will I ever forget the Fifth Day Meeting in high school when M— R----- was sitting on the facing bench* next to the teacher who was designated to do the end-of-Meeting handshake, and unbeknownst to the teacher had a detached plastic dummy hand concealed in his sleeve? When the teacher turned to him and shook hands and the hand came off…boy, that was a double-take for the ages. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Meeting conclude so non-silently.)
- Traditionally reserved for the elders of the congregation, placed facing the other benches/pews. Our school put seniors on the facing bench, which I think was kind of cool.
What school Kimstu? I went to Westtown.
Quakers are mostly like everyone else - you can’t pick them out of a crowd based on dress, like Amish or Mennonite. Worship is just as described above in my experience.
Because of the pacifist thing they often end up seeming like social progressives, but this isn’t automatically true. It is just that Quakers are mindful of their choices and actions in a very deliberate way.
The central tenet, as recalled from my 10th grade Quakerism class is that there is that of God in everyone aka the inner light. No need for the intermediary of a minister to speak with or interpret for God. This is why anyone can stand and speak at Meeting.
Quakers were badly persecuted in 17th century England which is why so many came to the US. And they were one of the first groups of people to educate boys and girls equally.
Anything wrong here is my own fault and should not be blamed on the excellent class by Teacher Foster.
Hi Hedda! Atlantic City Friends (now defunct) and Haverford College. Westtown? I think you folks used to routinely whup our butts at basketball. (This despite our highly inspiring cheer “Fight, fight, Inner Light! Kill, Quakers, kill!” :))
Our school was so traditional, and/or I’m so old, that we still used “Master” for male teachers and “Teacher” for female ones. (And even that, I guess, was still a comparatively recent radical departure from “Mistress”.)
I went to Haddonfield Friends, a Quaker elementary school in NJ. We had meeting every Wed. We also called our teachers Teacher and their first name. So it wad Teacher Paul instead of Mr. Jones. There still celebrated Christmas but I’m not sure if that was just because they were so tolerant and accepting of other cultures. I was one of the only Jews in the school and there was maybe one or two Muslims but they taught everyone about hannuka and ramadan and even kwanza. I had a few classmates who were quaker and a few teachers as well. Its usually not nice to stereotype people even if the stereotype is positive but I have to say Quakers are some of the nicest and most enlightened people you’re likely to meet.
Dup
My family were Quakers until it got to me.
I have no direct experience with them but from things I learned from my father I can confirm the above. Quakers are unobtrusive, always polite, courteous and friendly, conduct themselves and their services with dignity and restraint.
I do have an amusing story of when my grandfather went on trial for being a pacifist and not enlisting*. As it turned out, he was in a reserved occupation and prohibited from enlisting, as was my father, who had different views and attempted to enlist on several occasions, always to be rebuffed until the last time, when they threatened to jail him, reserved occupation or not.
He saw a great wrong and wanted to be active in righting it, against the Quaker doctrine.
*The Judge asked him how he would react if a German soldier were about to climb in through the window, kill him and his son and rape his wife.
Grandfather replied "Sir, I would take an axe, cut his hands off with it and say to him ‘Kindly leave, guest, thou art not welcome here!’ ".
Missed the edit window 
Both of my siblings went there, and my sister is currently teaching there.
I am a Quaker, but don’t have anything to add to all the gentile answers already given.
(Except to add that intermarriage isn’t a problem – my brother’s wife is Jewish, as are his children.)
1826 meeting minutes from either New Garden or Springfield MM (North Carolina) show my Quaker ggg-grandfather was disciplined for his marriage being “out of unity.” That means his wife wasn’t Quaker. They were probably counseled by other members of the meeting to persuade her to join. Meeting minutes from Spiceland (Indiana) show she was received in membership in 1840.
Your grandfather is kind of awesome, by the way.
This isn’t too far off the mark, but do note that modern Quakerism generally accepts the existence of God and a Holy Spirit; modern Unitarianism, however, is generally staunchly silent on matters metaphysical, focusing only on “right living” and morality. Neither religion is particularly doctrinaire, of course — I’m sure that you could easily find both atheist Quakers and believing Unitarians — and in “practical” terms, the influence of their beliefs on their day-to-day behaviour is pretty similar.
Quakers in general do accept the existence of God, though you are correct, there are atheist and agnostic Quakers. However, the Holy Spirit is a pretty alien concept to most Quakers, unless you’re referring to the “inner light”, which, IMQO (in my Quaker opinion) is something entirely different.
Am I the only actual Quaker in this thread?
I’d say more, but Kimstu covered it pretty well.
Oh, we can marry non-Quakers. I did. And if you wish to become a Quaker, there’s a committee you have to face.
Missed the edit window.
…unless you’re born into it (like me). Of course, you can attend meeting and be part of the community in pretty much every way without being an official member.
Unless you’re in my Unitarian church, which “borrows” the Quakers’ meetinghouse for services and has several Quaker-UUs who attend both services regularly. This lead me to believe that, aside from how the services are held, they aren’t all that different.
In my experience, no, not at all. I attended a Unitarian service once as a child–didn’t much care for it, but then, I don’t much care for any religious services except Quaker Meeting for Worship. It’s really hard to adjust to other services when you’re accustomed to silence. However, the Unitarians I’ve met have definitely had a Quaker feel about them.
Quoth Kimstu:
Are you sure that isn’t the other way around? Pennsylvania has a higher population than Indiana.
The population of Pennsylvania is about 12 million. The population of Indiana is about 6 million. If Indiana has more Quakers than Pennsylvania, they must have a higher percentage. At least about twice as high in fact.