“From My Own Observation and Familiar Acquaintance”: Phebe Earle Gibbons Introduces the Pennsylvania Dutch to the World

Posted by on Jun 4, 2021 in | Comments Off on “From My Own Observation and Familiar Acquaintance”: Phebe Earle Gibbons Introduces the Pennsylvania Dutch to the World   “It was on a Sunday morning in March, when the air was bleak and the roads were execrable, that I obtained a driver to escort me to the farm-house where an Amish meeting was to be held,” wrote Phebe Earle Gibbons (1821–93), describing a Lancaster County Amish religious gathering in the late 1860s. “The floors were bare, but on one of the open doors hung a long white towel,...
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Two Gentlemen of the China Trade

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Two Gentlemen of the China Trade The American Revolution ended with the surrender of the British at the Virginia tobacco port of Yorktown on October 19,1781. For merchant traders eager to engage in commerce with China, the war would not be over until a treaty with Great Britain recognizing American independence was signed. The British Acts of Trade had forbidden the import of any goods into the colonies that had not passed...
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1876 Centennial Craze Sweeps into Philadelphia!

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on 1876 Centennial Craze Sweeps into Philadelphia! This spring marks the one hundred and thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the International Exhibition of Art, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine, better known as the Centennial International Exhibition, staged to mark the one hundredth anniversary of American independence. Opening Day, Wednesday, May 10, 1876, welcome more than one hundred thousand visitors, and by closing day,...
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