When Washington set the world on fire… George Washington has frequently been criticized for his first military campaign, which sparked the French and Indian War. This backwoods campaign between British and French colonials eventually grew into the Seven Years’ War, a global conflict between these European empires. In 1754 Washington was an ambitious yet inexperienced […]
PA Books: “The Whiskey Rebellion” with Brady Crytzer (2023)
In March 1791 Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton shocked the western frontier when he proposed a domestic excise tax on whiskey to balance America’s national debt. The law, known colloquially as the “Whiskey Act,” disproportionately penalized farmers in the backcountry, while offering favorable tax incentives designed to protect larger distillers. Although Hamilton viewed the law as […]
PA Books: “Kaufmann’s” with Marylynne Pitz and Laura Malt Schneiderman (2022)
In 1868, Jacob Kaufmann, the nineteen-year-old son of a German farmer, stepped off a ship onto the shores of New York. His brother Isaac soon followed, and together they joined an immigrant community of German Jews selling sewing items to the coal miners and mill workers of western Pennsylvania. After opening merchant tailor shops in […]
PA Books: “American Sirens” with Kevin Hazzard (2023)
Until the 1970s, if you suffered a medical crisis, your chances of survival were minimal. A 9-1-1 call might bring police or even the local funeral home. But that all changed with Freedom House EMS in Pittsburgh, a group of Black men who became America’s first paramedics and set the gold standard for emergency medicine […]
PA Books: “Warhol” with Blake Gopnik (2020)
In “Warhol,” esteemed art critic Blake Gopnik takes on Andy Warhol in all his depth and dimensions. “The meanings of his art depend on the way he lived and who he was,” as Gopnik writes. “That’s why the details of his biography matter more than for almost any cultural figure,” from his working-class Pittsburgh upbringing […]
PA Books: “Death of the Daily News” with Andrew Conte
The City of McKeesport in southwestern Pennsylvania once had a population of more than fifty thousand people and a newspaper that dated back to the nineteenth century. Technology has caused massive disruption to American journalism, throwing thousands of reporters out of work, closing newsrooms, and leaving vast areas with few traditional news sources—including McKeesport. With […]
PA Books: “Squirrel Hill” with Mark Oppenheimer
Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in the country, known for its tight-knit community and the profusion of multigenerational families. On October 27, 2018, a gunman killed eleven Jews who were worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill–the most deadly anti-Semitic attack in American history. Many neighborhoods would […]
PA Books: “American Workman” with Maxwell King & Louise Lippincott
“American Workman” presents a comprehensive, novel reassessment of the life and work of one of America’s most influential self-taught artists, John Kane. With a full account of Kane’s life as a working man, including his time as a steelworker, coal miner, street paver, and commercial painter in and around Pittsburgh in the early twentieth century, […]
PA Books: “The Strangest Season” with Jim O’Brien (2022)
This was a time unlike any other in our lifetime. The Coronavirus pandemic hit hard and affected every aspect of our lives, from sports to politics and religion. This book contains all kinds of stories about Pittsburgh, Western Pennsylvania and national figures and events and how the hospitalizations and deaths changed things forever. Tiger Woods, […]
August 29: “August Wilson” with Laurence Glasco
In this episode of the African American Experience we talk with Laurence Glasco about the life and plays of August Wilson. Wilson was a playwright born and raised in Pittsburgh. He is known for his Century Cycle of plays each of which takes place during a decade of the 20th century. Wilson’s plays were regularly […]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 5
- Next Page »