“Your Future Depends on Yourself”: Asa Packer as the Self-Made Man

Posted by Lorett Treese on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on “Your Future Depends on Yourself”: Asa Packer as the Self-Made Man Nineteenth-century literature abounds with stories of men who rose from humble circumstances to great wealth by virtue of their own diligence, perseverance, and courage. Several of the most famous such works, novels written by Horatio Alger Jr. (1832-1899), became best-sellers because the American public relished his stories about plucky boys achieving their goals against all odds. In his first...
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Supporting the Troops: Soldiers’ Right to Vote in Civil War Pennsylvania

Posted by Jonathan White on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Supporting the Troops: Soldiers’ Right to Vote in Civil War Pennsylvania As the presidential election of 1864 neared, the eyes of politicians in the North turned warily towards the armies of the Union. During the previous two years, nineteen northern states had passed legislation permitting volunteers to vote in the field, and many politicians believed that the soldiers’ votes would determine whether President Abraham Lincoln would be reelected in November....
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Pennsylvania’s War Governor

Posted by William Kashatus on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania’s War Governor On September 14, 1862, Pennsylvania’s Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin invited the governors of the northern and border states to a meeting to be held at Altoona, Blair County, in ten days. The purpose of the meeting that became known as the Loyal War Governors’ Conference — or, simply, the Altoona Conference – was to “take measures for a more active support of the government’s prosecution of...
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