Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson: A Woman of the American Enlightenment

Posted by on Aug 13, 2026 in | Comments Off on Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson: A Woman of the American Enlightenment By the late 1760s, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson’s name was known throughout the city of Philadelphia for her evening literary gatherings attended by the city’s intellectual elite. Dubbed “the most learned woman in America” by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, first historian of the National Society of the Colonial Dames in America, Fergusson’s poetry and journals captured the experience of a woman whose...
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Forgotten Founder: Thomas Paine and American Independence

Posted by on Apr 17, 2026 in | Comments Off on Forgotten Founder: Thomas Paine and American Independence Philadelphia was the largest, wealthiest and most cosmopolitan city in all the colonies on the eve of the American Revolution. As the major commercial hub for British North America, the city’s economy was based on trade and commerce and bolstered by shipbuilding, textiles and other industries. Philadelphia was also a hub for political activism, with town meetings and pamphlets disseminating...
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Sarah Mary Benjamin, Heroine of Yorktown

Posted by on Apr 17, 2026 in | Comments Off on Sarah Mary Benjamin, Heroine of Yorktown Histories of the American Revolution have traditionally focused on famous leaders and soldiers. Far less has been said about the everyday people, especially women, whose lives and labor shaped the struggle for independence. One such woman was Sarah Mary (Mathews Osborn) Benjamin. Sometimes compared to “Molly Pitcher,” Sarah left vivid accounts of her time accompanying her husband, Aaron Osborn,...
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Revolutionary Things: Objects from the Collection

Posted by on Jan 14, 2026 in | Comments Off on Revolutionary Things: Objects from the Collection Massachusetts has the Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill and the Shot Heard Round the World; Virginia can lay claim to Mount Vernon, Monticello and Yorktown; and New Jersey and New York bore the brunt of the fighting in the conflict. But few if any of the original 13 colonies can compete with Pennsylvania in terms of the sheer concentration of people, places and things associated with the nation’s...
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Benedict Arnold’s Daybook

Posted by on Dec 1, 2025 in | Comments Off on Benedict Arnold’s Daybook Gen. Benedict Arnold’s 1778–79 daybook is one of the most intriguing documents of the Revolutionary era held in the collection of the Pennsylvania State Archives (Record Group 4.15). In its pages, Arnold kept a record of receipts and expenditures during his military campaigns in the American Revolutionary War and his tenure as military governor of Philadelphia. Arnold was one of the most...
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Preserving Washington’s Headquarters

Posted by on Nov 18, 2024 in | Comments Off on Preserving Washington’s Headquarters On the morning of September 9, 1777, Gen. George Washington and units of his Continental Army arrived in the village of Chads (later Chadds) Ford. Its strategic location on the Great Nottingham Road (today U.S. Route 1) and along the banks of the Brandywine Creek made it a likely place for an attack as the British army crept closer to the rebel capital of Philadelphia. As his anxious troops took...
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The French and Indian War in Western Pennsylvania by Robert M. Dunkerly

Posted by on Oct 21, 2024 in | Comments Off on The French and Indian War in Western Pennsylvania by Robert M. Dunkerly The French and Indian War in Western Pennsylvania by Robert M. Dunkerly History Press, 208 pp., paperback $24.99 The French and Indian War in Western Pennsylvania is an accessible and user-friendly introduction to the commonwealth’s role in the Seven Years’ War. Beginning with an overview of the region’s Native American history, Dunkerly employs a tried-and-true approach to guide the reader...
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Hastening the Deliverance of Her Country: Esther DeBerdt Reed and the Ladies Association of Philadelphia

Posted by on Mar 27, 2024 in | Comments Off on Hastening the Deliverance of Her Country: Esther DeBerdt Reed and the Ladies Association of Philadelphia On June 10, 1780, just weeks after the British Army seized control of the city of Charleston, a broadside began circulating throughout the American colonies entitled “The Sentiments of an American Woman.” Authored in Philadelphia by 33-year-old Esther DeBerdt Reed (1746–80), the broadside was a call to action for American women. Drawing her inspiration from legendary female figures of history...
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Two Faces of Molly Pitcher

Posted by on Mar 10, 2022 in | Comments Off on Two Faces of Molly Pitcher Perhaps one of the most enduring legends of the American Revolution is that of a woman, who while carrying water to thirsty troops during the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, witnessed the death of her husband as he was manning a cannon in the heat of battle. Desperate to secure a victory, this woman takes his place, continuing to fire the cannon and inspiring the men around her to fight on as well....
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To Form a More Perfect Union: Violet Oakley’s Murals in the Pennsylvania Senate Chamber

Posted by on Apr 15, 2020 in | Comments Off on To Form a More Perfect Union: Violet Oakley’s Murals in the Pennsylvania Senate Chamber At breakfast tables on Sunday morning, December 3, 1911, readers of The New York Times were confronted with a surprising headline running across the magazine section: “A WOMAN CHOSEN TO COMPLETE THE ABBEY PAINTINGS.” Four months earlier, the news that the American artist Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911) had passed away in London raised speculation about who would receive the remainder of his...
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