PA Books: “How The French Saved America”

To the rebelling colonies, French assistance made the difference between looming defeat and eventual triumph. Even before the Declaration of Independence was issued, King Louis XVI and French foreign minister Vergennes were aiding the rebels. After the Declaration, that assistance broadened to include wages for our troops; guns, cannon, and ammunition; engineering expertise that enabled […]

PA Books: “Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect”

This major retrospective catalogue explores the impact of time and place on the work of beloved American painter Andrew Wyeth (1917–2009). While previous publications have mainly analyzed Wyeth’s work thematically, this publication places him fully in the context of the long 20th century, tracing his creative development from World War I through the new millennium. […]

PA Books: “Death of an Assassin”

The first volunteer killed defending Robert E. Lee’s position in battle was really a German assassin. After fleeing to the United States to escape prosecution for murder, the assassin enlisted in a German company of the Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Mexican-American War and died defending Lee’s battery at the Siege of Veracruz in 1847. Lee […]

PA Books: The Historic Barns of Southeastern Pennsylvania

For anyone who has ever admired a barn on an old country lane, this is the story of that barn and many others in Southeastern Pennsylvania, or, specifically, “the hearth,” the area east of the Susquehanna River and South of the Blue Mountains. One of the earliest-settled areas in North America, this region of the […]

PA Books: “Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father”

Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years Franklin had abandoned the exclusive Christian faith of his family and embraced deism. But Franklin, as a man of faith, was far more complex than […]

PA Books: “George Washington: A Life in Books”

Based on a comprehensive amount of research at the Library of Congress, the collections at Mount Vernon, and rare book archives scattered across the country, Kevin Hayes reconstructs in vivid detail the active intellectual life that has gone largely unnoticed in conventional narratives of Washington. Despite being a lifelong reader, Washington felt an acute sense […]

PA Books: The LaPorte Inheritance

A mostly forgotten episode of US history is brought to life in fascinating detail by historian and author Deborah deBilly dit Courville. Working from primary sources such as letters and household accounts, she has reconstructed the rhythm and rationale of daily life at the 18th century French immigrant colony along the Susquehanna River known as […]

PA Books: Therese Rocco: Pittsburgh’s First Female Assistant Police Chief

Therese Rocco is known to her colleagues as “The Rock.” At the age of nineteen, she began her career in law enforcement as a clerk in a small, all-female missing persons unit of the Pittsburgh Police Department. Her career ended nearly fifty years later as an honored and acclaimed Assistant Police Chief—the first woman in […]

PA Books: “Gettysburg Rebels”

“Gettysburg Rebels” is the gripping true story of five young men who grew up in Gettysburg, moved south to Virginia in the 1850s, joined the Confederate army – and returned “home” as foreign invaders for the great battle in July 1863. Drawing on rarely-seen documents and family histories, as well as military service records and […]

PA Books: “John W. Garrett and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad”

Historian Kathleen Waters Sander tells the story of B&O Railroad President John W. Garrett and the B&O’s plan to build a rail line from Baltimore over the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River. The B&O’s success ignited “railroad fever” and helped to catapult railroading to America’s most influential industry in the nineteenth century. After the […]