Bobby Rydell writes of his encounters with such giants of 20th century show business as Frank Sinatra, Ann-Margret, The Beatles, Red Skelton, Jack Benny and Dick Clark, whose Philly-based American Bandstand helped make Rydell the world’s biggest teen idol in the years between Elvis Presley’s army induction and the advent of Beatlemania. Rydell also delves […]
It’s History!: Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum
The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia showcases more than 65 racing sports cars. From a 1909 Underslung Traveler to a 1975 Alfa Romeo Tipo-33, the collection features sports cars manufactured by Ferrari, Ford, Bugatti, Mercedes, Jaguar, Bentley, Porsche, Aston Martin, and more. The museum tells the story of sports car racing in Europe and […]
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 […]
“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 […]
PA Books: Silk Stockings & Socialism
The 1920s Jazz Age is remembered for flappers and speakeasies, not for the success of a declining labor movement. A more complex story was unfolding among the young women and men in the hosiery mills of Kensington, the working-class heart of Philadelphia. Their product was silk stockings, the iconic fashion item of the flapper culture […]
PA Books: “Sesqui!: Greed, Graft, and the Forgotten World’s Fair of 1926”
In 1916, department store magnate and Grand Old Philadelphian John Wanamaker launched plans for a Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition in his hometown in 1926. It would be a magnificent world’s fair to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Wanamaker hoped that the “Sesqui” would also transform sooty, industrial Philadelphia into a beautiful Beaux-Arts […]
PA Books: “You Say To Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn”
Wendy Lesser’s “You Say to Brick: The Life of Louis Kahn” is a major exploration of the architect’s life and work. Born in Estonia 1901 and brought to America in 1906, the architect Louis Kahn grew up in poverty in Philadelphia. By the time of his mysterious death in 1974, he was widely recognized as […]
PA Books: “Last Don Standing”
As the last Don of the Philadelphia mob, Ralph Natale, the first-ever mob boss to turn state’s evidence, provides an insider’s perspective on the mafia. Natale’s reign atop the Philadelphia and New Jersey underworlds brought the region’s mafia back to prominence in the 1990s. Smart, savvy, and articulate, Natale came up in the mob and […]
PA Books: The Politics of Black Citizenship
Considering Baltimore and Philadelphia as part of a larger, Mid-Atlantic borderland, “The Politics of Black Citizenship” shows that the antebellum effort to secure the rights of American citizenship was central to black politics—it was an effort that sought to exploit the ambiguities of citizenship and negotiate the complex national, state, and local politics in which […]
“The Thousand Dollar Dinner”
In 1851, fifteen wealthy New Yorkers wanted to show a group of Philadelphia friends just how impressive a meal could be and took them to Delmonico’s, New York’s finest restaurant. They asked Lorenzo Delmonico to “astonish our Quaker City friends with the sumptuousness of our feast,” and assured him that money was no object, as […]
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