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...
read more

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...
read more

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...
read more

Sentiments of a British-American Woman by Owen S. Ireland

Posted by on Nov 12, 2019 in | Comments Off on Sentiments of a British-American Woman by Owen S. Ireland Sentiments of a British-American Woman Esther Deberdt Reed and The American Revolution by Owen S. Ireland Pennsylvania State University Press, 264 pp., cloth $89.95 Esther DeBerdt Reed led a remarkable and significant life. Born in 1746, this daughter of a prosperous London merchant fell in love with Joseph Reed, a young American law student with whom she sustained a years-long transatlantic...
read more

The Pocono Forests and the Military Movements of 1779

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Pocono Forests and the Military Movements of 1779 The forests of Monroe County’s Pocono Mountains are widely known for their “flaming foliage” of autumn and their springtime laurel and rhododendron blossoms. In this era of ecological and conservation concerns, those who know the Poconos hope that this natural beauty may be a heritage for unnumbered future generations to enjoy. The Pocono Forestry Association perceives in these...
read more

James Wilson, Forgotten Founding Father

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on James Wilson, Forgotten Founding Father Carlisle buzzed that night with festivities. On the streets of the usually quiet little Cumberland County town bonfires blazed while spirited political speeches rang out on every corner, all in celebration of Pennsylvania’s vote to ratify the new Constitution of the United States. The Federalists had finally won their cause, and it was time to savor the victory. But not everyone was in a...
read more

Remember the Ladies: Women and the American Revolution

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Remember the Ladies: Women and the American Revolution Today, American women are barred by law from most combat roles, but they have played a part in battle since the American Revolu­tion, a tradition that continued through the Civil War, the World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam Conflict, the invasion of Panama in 1989 and, most recently, the Persian Gulf War. During the Civil War, at least four hundred women – those actually caught and...
read more

A Step Back In Time: Graeme Park, Colonial Country Estate

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Step Back In Time: Graeme Park, Colonial Country Estate Some call it a time capsule from the eighteenth century, others, a place hallmarked by beauty and tranquility, ambition and greed, deceit and scan­dal, joy and happiness, sadness and sorrow – all of which have left an indelible spiritual imprint. But mostly, Graeme Park, a country estate less than twenty miles north of Philadelphia in Horsham, Montgomery County, is a place of pure paradox....
read more