Shall Liberty Dwell? James Forten and the Struggle for Black Rights in Early Pennsylvania

Posted by on Dec 1, 2023 in | Comments Off on Shall Liberty Dwell? James Forten and the Struggle for Black Rights in Early Pennsylvania James Forten “is not the most well-known of Revolutionary War–era patriots,” Stephan Salisbury observed in The Philadelphia Inquirer of November 14, 2021. The qualification enabled Salisbury to emphasize the importance of Forten’s contribution to the construction of the United States: “But his story is an essential American story.” It is appropriate to proclaim Forten’s life “essential” to the...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Dec 1, 2023 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter Fifty years ago, the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission published its first issue of Pennsylvania Heritage. It’s been a long journey — 198 editions with more than 700 features and hundreds of shorter department articles collectively recounting the compelling saga of Pennsylvania. You can read about the history of our history magazine in “Pennsylvania Heritage at 50.” On this golden...
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The Black Absence

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Black Absence Should it come as a surprise that no history of black Pennsylvanians in the American Revolution has been written? That the best modern study of the Negro in the American Revolution devotes less than four pages to his role in Pennsylvania? That the challenge to American historians to recover this aspect of the black past remains unmet at the time of the Bicentennial? There are a number of reasons...
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The Emergence of Black Religion in Pennsylvania, 1776-1850

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Emergence of Black Religion in Pennsylvania, 1776-1850 The emergence of Black churches at the beginning of the nineteenth century was crucial to the survival of Black people in Pennsylvania and in the North because it provided two key resources. First, it provided a sense of meaning and destiny grounded in hope. Secondly, the Black church provided the institutional base for the economic, social, and political struggle of Blacks, including the...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Carnegie By Peter Krass John Wiley and Company, Inc., 2002 (612 pages, cloth $35.00) The name Carnegie, like several others of its day – Westing­house, Morgan, Ford, Rockefeller, Winchester, Chrysler, Du Pont, Edison, Hershey – stands apart, apparently requiring lit­tle, if any, introduction. Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) stands next to J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller as one of the...
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African Americans and Civil Rights in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on African Americans and Civil Rights in Pennsylvania Summer and swimming go hand in hand – or so thought the Creative Steps Day Care Camp. The camp’s leaders had signed a contract to use the pool at a private swim club, but when the children – 46 African Americans and ten Hispanics ranging from kindergarten through seventh grade – arrived for their summer swim, they were subjected to harsh criticism by some club members....
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Civil War Muster Rolls

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Civil War Muster Rolls The son of wealthy Philadelphia sailmaker and noted abolitionist James Forten (1766–1842), Robert Bridges Forten was born in Philadelphia on May 12, 1813, and followed in his father’s footsteps as a successful businessman and distinguished antislavery activist. Although he was more than fifty years old and in London when he learned the Union Army was enlisting African Americans in dedicated...
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Cremation’s Fiery Beginnings

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Cremation’s Fiery Beginnings Franz Lee Rickaby (1889–1925), a bone-thin man of thirty-five, was a much-loved professor of English and drama at Pomona College in Claremont, California, when he died of rheumatic fever. An adventurous wanderer, he left a respected historical legacy with folklorists when Harvard University posthumously published his collection of songs of the Midwest lumberjack, Ballads and Songs of the...
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