PA Books: Powwowing in Pennsylvania

This cultural exploration offers an unparalleled presentation of Pennsylvania’s ritual healing traditions known as powwowing or Braucherei in Pennsylvania Dutch, through original primary source materials, including manuscripts, ritual objects, and books—most of which have never before been available to English-speaking readers. Although methods and procedures have varied considerably over three centuries of ritual practice within […]

PA Books: “Maine Roads to Gettysburg”

Everyone knows about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine Regiment, but there’s much more to the story of Maine at the Battle of Gettysburg. Soldiers from Maine made their presence felt all over the battlefield during three days of fighting in July 1863. There’s Oliver Otis Howard, corps commander who helped secure high ground […]

PA Books: “Pennsylvania Farming”

Pennsylvania Farming presents the first history of Pennsylvania agriculture in more than sixty years. Sally McMurry goes beyond a strictly economic approach and considers the diverse forces that helped shape the farming landscape, from physical factors to cultural repertoires to labor systems. Above all, the people who created and worked on Pennsylvania’s farms are placed […]

PA Books: “Hinsonville’s Heroes: Black Civil War Soldiers in Chester County, PA”

The free black community of Hinsonville sent its sons to serve the Union when called on. As members of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, brothers Wesley, William and George Jay survived the bloody battle at Fort Wagner, South Carolina, memorialized in the film Glory. George W. Duffy and Stephen J. Ringgold were part of the only […]

PA Books: “Looking Up: From the ABA to the NBA, the WNBA to the NCAA”

In April 2003, Jim O’Brien was the first Pittsburgher inducted into the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame. This book is a celebration of 60th anniversary of a career as a professional sports writer. O’Brien was the founding editor of Street & Smith’s Basketball Yearbook in 1970 and continued to be associated with the magazine […]

“Prohibition Pittsburgh”

When Prohibition hit the Steel City, it created a level of violence and corruption residents had never witnessed. Illegal producers ran stills in kitchens, basements, bathroom tubs, warehouses and even abandoned distilleries. War between gangs of bootleggers resulted in a number of murders and bombings that placed Pittsburgh on the same level as New York […]

PA Books: The Fearless Benjamin Lay

In The Fearless Benjamin Lay, renowned historian Marcus Rediker chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular man—a Quaker dwarf who demanded the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. Mocked and scorned by his contemporaries, Lay was unflinching in his opposition to slavery, often performing colorful guerrilla theater to shame […]