“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 […]

“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 […]

PA Books: “Longstreet at Gettysburg”

This is the first book-length, critical analysis of Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s actions at the Battle of Gettysburg. The author argues that Longstreet’s record has been discredited unfairly, beginning with character assassination by his contemporaries after the war and, persistently, by historians in the decades since. By closely studying the three-day battle, and conducting an […]

PA Books: “Frank Furness: Architecture in the Age of the Great Machines”

Frank Furness (1839-1912) has remained a curiosity to architectural historians and critics, somewhere between an icon and an enigma, whose importance and impact have yet to be properly evaluated or appreciated. To some, his work pushed pattern and proportion to extremes, undermining or forcing together the historic styles he referenced in such eclectic buildings as […]

PA Books: “Idlewild”

Idlewild was developed by Pittsburgh’s Mellon family as a picnic grove to boost traffic on the Ligonier Valley Rail Road. When C.C. Macdonald took the helm in 1931, rides, entertainment and other attractions came to Idlewild over the next half century, along with the adjacent Story Book Forest. After joining the Kennywood family of amusement […]

PA Books: The Western Delaware Indian Nation, 1730–1795

During the early eighteenth century, three phratries or tribes (Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf) of Delaware Indians left their traditional homeland in the Delaware River watershed and moved west to the Allegheny Valley of western Pennsylvania and eventually across the Ohio River into the Muskingum River valley. As newcomers to the colonial American borderlands, these bands […]

“Unlikely General: “Mad” Anthony Wayne and the Battle for America”

In the spring of 1792, President George Washington chose “Mad” Anthony Wayne to defend America from a potentially devastating threat. Native forces had decimated the standing army and Washington needed a champion to open the country stretching from the Ohio River westward to the headwaters of the Mississippi for settlement. A spendthrift, womanizer, and heavy […]

“William Penn: A Life”

On March 4, 1681, King Charles II granted William Penn a charter for a new American colony. Pennsylvania was to be, in its founder’s words, a bold “Holy Experiment” in religious freedom and toleration, a haven for those fleeing persecution in an increasingly intolerant England and across Europe. An activist, political theorist, and the proprietor […]