# Quaker Oates - JOHN Penn?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quaker-oates-john-penn/121615>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [July 31, 2002, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quaker-oates-john-penn/121615 "2002-07-31T00:34:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BoodleHeimer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@BoodleHeimer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoodleHeimer)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quaker-oates-john-penn/121615/1 "2002-07-31T00:34:58Z")

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I was just checking out the mailbag archive and noticed that in response to the question “Is the guy on the Quaker Oats can John Penn?”, the answer did not include a note that America’s most famous Quaker (not counting Tricky Dick - whose ties are a bit suspect) was actually named William Penn. Did William have a brother named John who was supposed to have appeared on the can?

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quaker-oates-john-penn/121615/2 "2002-07-31T02:55:45Z")

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Hey, yeah, me wanna know, too! Who is “John Penn” and why is he in the Mailbag? 😕

[Is the guy on the Quaker Oats box John Penn?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mquaker.html)

Nobody comes up on Google under “john penn quaker” except for the Mailbag article.

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**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quaker-oates-john-penn/121615/3 "2002-07-31T14:24:16Z")

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There were several members of the Penn family who were called John, including William’s son, John (1700-46), and his grandson, John (1729-95), lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania, although the latter was never a Quaker. (A Google search actually does throw up some information about them.) One could imagine that there might be a specific portrait of one of those John Penns which was copied for the Quaker Oats artwork simply because it happened to match the common but misleading stereotype of an early-modern Quaker. That said, I think it’s just a generic depiction of a Quaker. I’m also fairly sure that it’s not based on any of the very few authentic portraits of William Penn.