Many historic Friends meeting houses in Pennsylvania were constructed in colonial times and are listed individually by the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and others are contributing buildings in historic districts. Several Friends meetings, the equivalent of church congregations in other denominations, were founded in Pennsylvania by the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers in the early 1680s. Thirty-two extant meeting houses, the equivalent of church buildings, were constructed before 1800. Over 100 meeting houses built before 1900 were documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in a survey that led to their publication of Silent Witness, Quaker Meeting Houses In The Delaware Valley, 1695 To The Present in 2002.
In 1827, the Great Separation divided Pennsylvania Quakers into two branches, Orthodox and Hicksite. Many individual meetings also separated, but one branch generally kept possession of the meetinghouse. The two branches reunited in the 1950s. Other branches, such as the Free Quakers, are generally represented in Pennsylvania by a single historic meeting house.