PA Books: “Translingual Inheritance” with Elizabeth Kimball

“Translingual Inheritance: Language Diversity in Early National Philadelphia” tells a new story of the early days of democracy in the United States, when English had not yet become the only dominant language. Drawing on translingual theory, which exposes how language use contrasts with the political constructions of named languages, Elizabeth Kimball argues that Philadelphians developed […]

PA Books: “Moravian Soundscapes” with Sarah Justina Eyerly

In “Moravian Soundscapes,” Sarah Eyerly contends that the study of sound is integral to understanding the interactions between German Moravian missionaries and Native communities in early Pennsylvania. In the mid-18th century, when the frontier between settler and Native communities was a shifting spatial and cultural borderland, sound mattered. People listened carefully to each other and […]

PA Books: “Salut!: France Meets Philadelphia” with Lynn Miller & Therese Dolan

One highly visible example of French influence on the city of Philadelphia is the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, modeled on the Champs-Élysées. In “Salut!”, Lynn Miller and Therese Dolan trace the fruitful, three-centuries-long relationship between the City of Brotherly Love and France. This detailed volume illustrates the effect of Huguenots settling in Philadelphia and 18-year-old William […]

PA Books: “Back from Battle” with Jim Remsen

In the final year of the American Civil War, a special Union Army post was constructed just outside Philadelphia to handle a jumble of returning citizen-soldiers. Many soldiers bore bullet wounds, broken bones, and other scars of combat. Some had lost limbs. Some were laid low by illness. Hundreds arrived half-dead as survivors of wretched […]

PA Books: “The Chiefs Now in This City” with Colin Calloway

During the years of the Early Republic, prominent Native leaders regularly traveled to American cities–Albany, Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Quebec, New York, and New Orleans–primarily on diplomatic or trade business, but also from curiosity and adventurousness. They were frequently referred to as “the Chiefs now in this city” during their visits, which were sometimes for […]

PA Books: “Sewn in Coal Country” with Robert Wolensky

By the mid-1930s, Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal industry was facing a steady decline. Mining areas such as the Wyoming Valley around the cities of Wilkes-Barre and Pittston were full of willing workers (including women) who proved irresistibly attractive to New York City’s “runaway shops”—ladies’ apparel factories seeking lower labor and other costs. The International Ladies’ Garment […]

PA Books: “John Marshall: The Final Founder” with Robert Strauss

Eighteenth- and 19th-century contemporaries believed Marshall to be, if not the equal of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, at least very close to that pantheon. “John Marshall: The Final Founder” demonstrates that not only can Marshall be considered one of those Founding Fathers, but that what he did as the Chief Justice was not just […]

PA Books: “Never I Shall Forget These Human People” with Roger Rank

From September 1944 to February 1946, the Reading Army Air Field outside of Reading, Pennsylvania, maintained a camp for German prisoners of war, who served as workers at the air base and on the farms around Berks County. Several of the POW’s were assigned to the base Paint Shop, which was managed by a civilian […]

PA Books: “Frederick Watts and the Founding of Penn State” with Roger Williams

Frederick Watts came to prominence during the nineteenth century as a lawyer and a railroad company president, but his true interests lay in agricultural improvement and in raising the economic, social, and political standing of Pennsylvania’s farmers. After being elected founding president of The Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society in 1851, he used his position to […]

PA Books: “Made Free and Thrown Open to the Public” with Bernadette Lear

“Made Free and Thrown Open to the Public” charts the history of public libraries and librarianship in Pennsylvania. Based on archival research at more than fifty libraries and historical societies, it describes a long progression from private, subscription-based associations to publicly funded institutions, highlighting the dramatic period during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries […]