PA Books: Never Caught

When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s capital, after a brief stay in New York. In setting up his household he took Tobias Lear, his celebrated secretary, and nine slaves, including Ona Judge, about which little has been […]

It’s History!: Daniel Boone Homestead

Join “It’s History” as we explore the Daniel Boone Homestead. Frontiersman Daniel Boone was born in 1734 on this farm in Birdsboro, PA before his family moved to North Carolina. We’ll learn about Boone’s childhood as re-enactors show what life was like on an 18th century farm. The tour includes a functioning water-powered sawmill, a […]

PA Books: Shanghai Faithful

Veteran journalist Jennifer Lin takes readers from remote nineteenth-century mission outposts to Philadelphia to the thriving house churches and cathedrals of today’s China. The Lin family—and the book’s central figure, the Reverend Lin Pu-chi—offer witness to China’s tumultuous past, up to and beyond the betrayals and madness of the Cultural Revolution, when the family’s resolute […]

It’s History!: National Museum of Industrial History

The National Museum of Industrial History is housed in a shop building on the old Bethlehem Steel site. The museum includes more than 200 artifacts from the Bethlehem Steel Corporation and Bethlehem’s textile industry and it tells the story of America’s industrialization with historic machinery on loan from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. […]

PA Books: The Slide: Leyland, Bonds, & The Star-Crossed Pittsburgh Pirates

In the deciding game of the 1992 National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves, the Pittsburgh Pirates suffered the most dramatic and devastating loss in team history when former Pirate Sid Bream slid home with the winning run. Bream’s infamous slide ended the last game played by Barry Bonds in a Pirates uniform and […]

It’s History!: Antique Ice Tool Museum

Before the development of mechanical cooling systems, ice was harvested from frozen lakes and rivers and transported around the world. Housed in a stone barn built in 1834, the museum includes tools, hand-carved wooden ice chests and coolers, wagons and trucks, and memorabilia from the natural ice trade era. Join It’s History for a tour […]

PA Books: “Pennsylvania: A Military History”

Founded in 1682 by a society that had no military, eschewed violence as a means of solving conflicts, and tolerated a wide variety of religions, Pennsylvania began as a “peaceable kingdom”—but war was essential to both Pennsylvania’s founding and its history. Pennsylvania was the site of some of the most important military events in American […]

It’s History!: Eldred World War II Museum

The Eldred World War II Museum is located in northern Pennsylvania near the site of the National Munitions Company. The museum educates visitors about the war, and serves to spotlight the contributions made by the local munitions workers, most of whom were women. A wide array of exhibits are on display including: the Eastern Front, […]

“The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution”

“The Framers’ Coup” narrates how the Framers’ clashing interests shaped the Constitution–and American history itself. The Philadelphia convention could easily have been a failure, and the risk of collapse was always present. Had the convention dissolved, any number of adverse outcomes could have resulted, including civil war or a reversion to monarchy. Not only does […]