PA Books: “Vigilance” with Andrew Diemer

The remarkable and inspiring story of William Still, an unknown abolitionist who dedicated his life to managing a critical section of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia—the free state directly north of the Mason-Dixon Line—helping hundreds of people escape from slavery. Born free in 1821 to two parents who had been enslaved, William Still was drawn […]

PA Books: “Time of Anarchy” with Matthew Kruer (2022)

In 1675, eastern North America descended into chaos. Virginia exploded into civil war, as rebel colonists decried the corruption of planter oligarchs and massacred allied Indians. Maryland colonists, gripped by fears that Catholics were conspiring with enemy Indians, rose up against their rulers. Separatist movements and ethnic riots swept through New York and New Jersey. […]

January 22: “The Deviant Prison” with Ashley Rubin (2021)

Early nineteenth-century American prisons followed one of two dominant models: the Auburn system, in which prisoners performed factory-style labor by day and were placed in solitary confinement at night, and the Pennsylvania system, where prisoners faced 24-hour solitary confinement for the duration of their sentences. By the close of the Civil War, the majority of […]

PA Books: “River Boots” with Robert Lynn Steiner (2022)

River Boots is a career synopsis, a training manual, a history book and one conservation officer’s slightly twisted view of a quarter century in the business. It is a sometimes “belly laughing” look at a profession that can turn deadly serious in a second and can leave tears running down your face from laughter a […]

PA Books: “Beethoven in Beijing” with Jennifer Lin

In 1973, Western music was banned in the People’s Republic of China. But in a remarkable breakthrough cultural exchange, the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted a tour of closed-off China, becoming the first American orchestra to visit the communist nation. Jennifer Lin’s “Beethoven in Beijing: Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Historic Journey to China” provides a fabulous […]

PA Books: “Out of the Woods” with Ellen Williams

In the spring of 1861, as the nation balanced on the brink of the Civil War, a farmer from the Hudson Valley brought a pedigreed colt to his new home in the Cowanesque Valley of northern Pennsylvania. What were his intentions for the young stallion? For the next three decades, the stallion was controlled by […]

PA Books: “Up to Heaven and Down to Hell” with Colin Jerolmack

Shale gas extraction—commonly known as fracking—is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. “Up to Heaven and Down to Hell” is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being […]

PA Books: “All Roads Led to Gettysburg” with Troy Harman

Most Civil War battles took place along major roads, railroads, and waterways; the armies needed to move men and equipment, and they needed water for men, horses, and artillery. And yet this perspective hasn’t been fully explored when it comes to Gettysburg. Look at an 1863 map, says Harman: look at the area framed in […]