Untouched by the Conflict, edited by Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Untouched by the Conflict, edited by Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn Untouched by the Conflict: The Civil War Letters of  Singleton Ashenfelter, Dickinson College edited by Jonathan W. White and Daniel Glenn Kent State University Press, 142 pp., hardcover $29 The title of this unique collection of Civil War letters draws from an influential work of modern scholarship. The editors observe in their introduction that it was social historian J. Matthew Gallman who...
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Pennsylvania Polymath: Samuel Stehman Haldeman

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Polymath: Samuel Stehman Haldeman Samuel Stehman Haldeman was a pioneer in American science with an uncompromising empirical bent who made definitive contributions in geology, metallurgy, zoology and the scientific study of language. His groundbreaking lifework touched nearly seven decades of science and included identification of one of the oldest fossils in Pennsylvania, elucidation of a plan for an anthracite coal furnace for...
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The Gender of Assimilation: The Carlisle Indian Industrial School Experiment

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on The Gender of Assimilation: The Carlisle Indian Industrial School Experiment In his celebrated 1702 book Magnalia Christi American (The Glorious Works of Christ in America), Puritan minister Cotton Mather described local Native Americans. “The men are most abominably slothful; making their poor Squaws, or Wives,to plant and dress, and barn, and beat their Corn, and build their Wigwams for them; which perhaps may be the reason for their extraordinary Ease in Childbirth,”...
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Bringing History Out of the Closet

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on Bringing History Out of the Closet Joe Burns looks over hundreds of documents laid out in piles on the large dining room table in his sister’s central Pennsylvania home. He is carefully examining, organizing, cataloging and recording them in a timeline highlighting some of the key historical developments in the early lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) civil rights movement in small cities throughout...
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Baird of the Smithsonian

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Baird of the Smithsonian “You see sir, I have taken (after much hesitation) the liberty of writing to you. I am but a boy, and very inexperienced, as you no doubt will observe from my description of the Flycatcher.” In this way, young Spencer Fullerton Baird, seventeen years of age, introduced himself by letter to John James Audubon. His accurate description and measurements of the flycatcher enabled Audubon...
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Benjamin Henry Latrobe: The Artist as Commentator

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Benjamin Henry Latrobe: The Artist as Commentator Benjamin Henry La­trobe (1764-1820) is generally acknowl­edged to be America’s first professional architect and engineer, practicing in the United States from 1796, when he immigrated from England, until his untimely death from yellow fever in New Orleans in 1820. He worked, during that period, in cities as diverse as Richmond, Philadelphia, Balti­more, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, and...
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Watts’ Folly

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Watts’ Folly When he is remem­bered at all, Fre­derick Watts is likely to be men­tioned in connection with the McCormick Reaper, the Cum­berland Valley Railroad, the establishment of the Pennsyl­vania State University or, more recently, the controversy over the demolition of his farm­stead in Carlisle. It may seem an incongruous legacy but therein lies the charm and the extraordinary genius of this man from...
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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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Courageous Cumberland County

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Courageous Cumberland County Anxious to persuade a Scottish cleric, the Rev. Charles Nisbet, to become the first president of Dickinson Col­lege, its founding trustee Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote the Presbyterian worthy in 1784, describing central Cumberland County. The town of Carlisle lies 120 miles to the westward of Philadel­phia and about 18 miles from the river Susquehannah. It consists of about 300 houses, most of which...
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The Political Ascent of James Buchanan

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Political Ascent of James Buchanan As the nation enters the third century of the American presi­dency, only one Pennsylvanian has had the distinction of serving as its chief executive. In 1857, at the age of sixty-five, James Bu­chanan of Lancaster County became the fifteenth president of the United States. He was well prepared for the office, having spent more than thirty years in public service in various elected and appointed...
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