An intimate account of the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of a Quaker pacifist couple living in Philadelphia Historian Richard Godbeer presents a richly layered and intimate account of ...the American Revolution as experienced by a Philadelphia Quaker couple, Elizabeth Drinker and the merchant Henry Drinker, who barely survived the unique perils that Quakers faced during that conflict. Spanning a half†'century before, during, and after the war, this gripping narrative illuminates the Revolution's darker side as patriots vilified, threatened, and in some cases killed pacifist Quakers as alleged enemies of the revolutionary cause. Amid chaos and danger, the Drinkers tried as best they could to keep their family and faith intact. Through one couple's story, Godbeer opens a window on a uniquely turbulent period of American history, uncovers the domestic, social, and religious lives of Quakers in the late eighteenth century, and situates their experience in the context of transatlantic culture and trade. A master storyteller takes his readers on a moving journey they will never forget.
During the colonial era, ordinary Philadelphians played an unusually active role in political life. Because the city lacked a strong central government, private individuals working in civic ...associations of their own making shouldered broad responsibility for education, poverty relief, church governance, fire protection, and even taxation and military defense. These organizations dramatically expanded the opportunities for white men—rich and poor alike—to shape policies that immediately affected their communities and their own lives.
In Governed by a Spirit of Opposition, Jessica Choppin Roney explains how allowing people from all walks of life to participate in political activities amplified citizen access and democratic governance. Merchants, shopkeepers, carpenters, brewers, shoemakers, and silversmiths served as churchwardens, street commissioners, constables, and Overseers of the Poor. They volunteered to fight fires, organized relief for the needy, contributed money toward the care of the sick, took up arms in defense of the community, raised capital for local lending, and even interjected themselves in Indian diplomacy. Ultimately, Roney suggests, popular participation in charity, schools, the militia, and informal banks empowered people in this critically important colonial city to overthrow the existing government in 1776 and re-envision the parameters of democratic participation.
Governed by a Spirit of Opposition argues that the American Revolution did not occasion the birth of commonplace political activity or of an American culture of voluntary association. Rather, the Revolution built upon a long history of civic engagement and a complicated relationship between the practice of majority-rule and exclusionary policy-making on the part of appointed and self-selected constituencies.
666 days of diary entries documenting the life of a Union officer held in Confederate prisons
Captured on October 11, 1863, James Riley Weaver, a Union cavalry officer, spent nearly seventeen months ...in Confederate prisons. Remarkably, Weaver kept a diary that documents 666 consecutive days of his experience, including not only his life in a series of prisons throughout the South, but his precaptivity cavalry duties, and his eventual return to civilian life. It is an unparalleled eyewitness account of a crucial part of our history.
Weaver’s observations never veer into romanticized descriptions; instead, he describes the “little world” inside each prison and outdoor camp, describing men drawn from “every class of society, high and low, righ and poor, from every country and clime.” In addition, Weaver records details about life in the Confederacy that he gleans from visitors, guards, new arrivals, recaptured escapees, Southern newspapers, and even glimpses through windows.
As the editors demonstrate, Weaver’s diary-keeping provided an outlet for expressing suppressed emotions, ruminating on a seemingly endless confinement that tested his patriotism, religious faith, and will to survive. In the process, he provides not only historically important information but also keen insights into the human condition under adversity.
This book provides an in-depth look into the systemic undereducation of high school English learners and the role of high schools in limiting ELs' postsecondary options, despite the availability of ...resources and the best of intentions, through a longitudinal ethnographic case study of a diverse high school in Pennsylvania.
True accounts of major disasters in Texas history are retold in this engagingly written collection. From the Johnstown floods of 1889 to the heroic actions on United Flight 193 on 9/11, Pennsylvania ...has been home to some of the nation's most dramatic moments. Each story reveals not only the circumstances surrounding the disaster and the magnitude of the devastation but also the courage and ingenuity displayed by those who survived and the heroism of those who helped others, often risking their own lives in rescue efforts.
Translingual Inheritance 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 complex metalinguistic conceptions of what
language is and how it mattered in their relations. In-depth
chapters introduce the democratically active communities of
Philadelphia between 1750 and 1830 and introduce the three most
populous: Germans, Quakers (the Society of Friends), and African
Americans. These communities had ways of knowing and using their
own languages to create identities and serve the common good
outside of English. They used these practices to articulate plans
and pedagogies for schools, exercise their faith, and express the
promise of the young democracy. Kimball draws on primary sources
and archival texts that have been little seen or considered to show
how citizens consciously took on the question of language and its
place in building their young country and how such practice is at
the root of what made democracy possible.
For her time, Mira Lloyd Dock was an exceptional woman: a university-trained botanist, lecturer, women’s club leader, activist in the City Beautiful movement, and public official—the first woman to ...be appointed to Pennsylvania’s state government. In her twelve years on the Pennsylvania Forest Commission, she allied with the likes of J. T. Rothrock, Gifford Pinchot, and Dietrich Brandeis to help bring about a new era in American forestry. She was also an integral force in founding and fostering the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy in Mont Alto, which produced generations of Pennsylvania foresters before becoming Penn State Mont Alto campus. Though much has been written about her male counterparts, Mira Lloyd Dock and the Progressive Era Conservation Movement is the first book dedicated to Mira Lloyd Dock and her work. Susan Rimby weaves these layers of Dock’s story together with the greater historic context of the era to create a vivid and accessible picture of Progressive Era conservation in the eastern United States, and Dock’s important role and legacy in that movement.
From his early work as a lawyer on the Warren Commission
investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to his
days as Philadelphia's district attorney to his thirty-year career
as a ...United States Senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Spector found
himself consistently in the middle of major historical events.
During his five terms as senator, Spector met with the likes of
Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Cuban
Prime Minister Fidel Castro and made significant contributions
during the fallout of both the Iran-Contra scandal and the Clinton
impeachment. His work had a profound influence on the configuration
of the United States Supreme Court, the criminal justice system,
LGBTQ rights, and stem cell research. Photographs from Specter's
personal collection highlight many of these key moments, revealing
the rich narrative not only of one man's political career, but how
it helped shape a nation. While it will probably be long debated
whether Specter's complex and controversial political legacy merits
mainly praise or criticism, Arlen Specter sheds new light
on the life of a man who fought to make a difference.
The nicest kids in town Delmont, Matthew F
2012., 20120123, 2012, 2012-02-22, Letnik:
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American Bandstand, one of the most popular television shows ever, broadcast from Philadelphia in the late fifties, a time when that city had become a battleground for civil rights. Counter to host ...Dick Clark's claims that he integrated American Bandstand, this book reveals how the first national television program directed at teens discriminated against black youth during its early years and how black teens and civil rights advocates protested this discrimination. Matthew F. Delmont brings together major themes in American history—civil rights, rock and roll, television, and the emergence of a youth culture—as he tells how white families around American Bandstand's studio mobilized to maintain all-white neighborhoods and how local school officials reinforced segregation long after Brown vs. Board of Education. The Nicest Kids in Town powerfully illustrates how national issues and history have their roots in local situations, and how nostalgic representations of the past, like the musical film Hairspray, based on the American Bandstand era, can work as impediments to progress in the present.
