Philadelphia Stories by C. Dallett Hemphill

Posted by on Sep 12, 2022 in | Comments Off on Philadelphia Stories by C. Dallett Hemphill Philadelphia Stories People and Their Places in Early America by C. Dallett Hemphill; edited by Rodney Hessinger and Daniel K. Richter University of Pennsylvania Press, 349 pp., hardcover $35 This original and captivating book was a labor of love, both for its author, the late C. Dallett Hemphill, and the 13 scholars who came together to finish the almost complete manuscript Hemphill had left...
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Trailheads

Posted by on Aug 23, 2021 in | Comments Off on Trailheads After a long year of closure due to COVID-19, Pennsylvania Trails of History sites reopened to the public late this spring. Most sites operated on reduced schedules to allow staff extra time for cleaning and to help everyone get back into a routine. Visitors seemed eager to return, and they adapted to online reservations, timed tickets and mask requirements. By late June, the Wolf administration...
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The Fearless Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker

Posted by on Nov 12, 2019 in | Comments Off on The Fearless Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker The Fearless Benjamin Lay The Quaker Dwarf Who Became The First Revolutionary Abolitionist by Marcus Rediker Beacon Press, 224 pp., cloth $26.95 Who cares about Benjamin Lay (1682–1759), a 4-foot-tall, malformed, 18th-century member of a minority religious network known as the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)? Until recently, not very many people. But in seven gracefully crafted chapters...
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A Treasure Trove of Books

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Treasure Trove of Books Considered one of the finest repositories of rare books in the nation, the Rare Book Collection of the State Library of Pennsylvania was, at its conception, nothing more than an accumulation of law books necessary for the founding fathers to organize and govern the province. In­deed, for two more centuries, the collection of rarities and unique volumes, as it is known and safeguarded today, was...
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What Love Can Do: William Penn’s Holy Experiment in Education

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on What Love Can Do: William Penn’s Holy Experiment in Education The founder of Pennsyl­vania stands atop Philadelphia’s City Hall, seemingly sur­veying a “Holy Experiment” he nurtured out of the ideals of his Quaker faith. William Penn, the political theorist, is still remembered for his daring experiment in establishing a colony dedicated to pacifism, civil liberty and religious free­dom in a seventeenth century world conditioned by...
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The Consequences of the American Revolution in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Consequences of the American Revolution in Pennsylvania One of the more interesting and controversial aspects of the American Revolution concerns its consequen­ces upon colonial institutions and society in general. Was the society left almost unchanged by a movement fun­damentally conservative in its causes, or was it profoundly altered by a revolution radical in its results, if not in its origins? Specifically, what happened to the society of...
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How to Uncover Black Family History

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on How to Uncover Black Family History Genealogy has replaced astrology as America’s favorite topic at social gatherings. Several factors are responsible in sparking the present upsurge in Black genealogy. The civil rights movement of the 1960’s encouraged a feeling of Black solidarity that had not existed before. Marches, demonstrations, and mass jailings brought together diverse elements of the Black community and made...
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A Quaker Testimony to the American Revolution

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Quaker Testimony to the American Revolution On a cool, pleasant early autumn morn­ing in the year 1834, John Price Wetherill made his way hastily down the vacant streets of Philadelphia towards the city’s western edge. Most of the respectable people were already seated in their churches, listening to the angelic sound of a choir or the piercing exhortation of a min­ister. Little did Wetherill care on this Sunday morning about...
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Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pushing William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” to Its Limits: Ephrata Cloister On the banks of the Cocalico Creek in northern Lancaster County a group of remarkable individuals established Ephrata, one of colonial Pennsylvania’s most unusual communities. A place of intense spirituality, unconventional way of life, literary and artistic brilliance, and medieval-style architecture, Ephrata was the center of a religious society whose principles gave William Penn’s...
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Fanny M. Jackson and Philadelphia’s Institute for Colored Youth

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Fanny M. Jackson and Philadelphia’s Institute for Colored Youth This idea was deep in my soul. Where it came from I cannot tell. It was in me to get an education and teach my people.” The sentiment was written nearly a century ago, in 1912, by Fanny M. Jackson Coppin (1837-1913), principal of Philadelphia’s Institute for Colored Youth (ICY). All but forgotten today, Coppin and her distinguished career of nearly four decades at the Institute for...
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