“Bosom Friends”

In “Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King,” Thomas J. Balcerski explores the lives of these two politicians and discovers one of the most significant collaborations in American political history. He traces the parallels in the men’s personal and professional lives before elected office, including their failed romantic courtships and […]

“Targeted Tracks”

The Civil War was the first conflict in which railroads played a major role. The Cumberland Valley Railroad, for example, played an important strategic role by connecting Hagerstown, Maryland to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Its location enhanced its importance during some of the Civil War’s most critical campaigns. Because of its proximity to major cities in the […]

“Franz Kline in Coal Country”

“Franz Kline in Coal Country” is the first biography to examine Kline’s formative years in Lehighton, Philadelphia, Boston, and London, before he became a founding member of the New York School, the ragtag group who stole the art world away from Paris after WWII. This book, according to Kline’s sister, Dr. Louise Kline-Kelly, sets the […]

“Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution”

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” were two of the most important Founders of the United States as well as the closest of political allies. Yet historians have often seen a tension between the idealistic rhetoric of the Declaration and the more pedestrian language of the […]

“The Disaffected”

Elizabeth and Henry Drinker of Philadelphia were no friends of the American Revolution. Yet neither were they its enemies. The Drinkers were a merchant family who, being Quakers and pacifists, shunned commitments to both the Revolutionaries and the British. They strove to endure the war uninvolved and unscathed. They failed. In 1777, the war came […]

“Too Much For Human Endurance”

The bloodstains are gone, but the worn floorboards remain. The doctors, nurses, and patients who toiled and suffered and ached for home at the Army of the Potomac’s XI Corps hospital at the George Spangler Farm in Gettysburg have long since departed. Happily, though, their stories remain, and noted journalist and George Spangler Farm expert […]

It’s History!: Old Economy Village

This week on It’s History! we travel to Old Economy Village in Ambridge, PA. We learn about the history of the Harmonist Society by exploring the historic village they built in the 1820’s. The Harmonists emigrated from Germany seeking religious and economic freedom and gained world recognition for their devotion and prosperity in western PA. […]

“War, Memory, and the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion”

In the summer of 1913, thousands of veterans of the battle of Gettysburg returned to the battlefield. Most were revisiting a time and place in their personal history that involved acute physical and emotional trauma. Contrary to popular belief, veterans were not motivated to attend by a desire for reconciliation, nor did the Great Reunion […]