Young William Penn

Posted by on Dec 13, 2016 in | Comments Off on Young William Penn There’s an old idiom that says “the child is father of the man,” but this is complicated by the stage between childhood and adulthood – adolescence. The usual image of William Penn is of a pious, peaceable Quaker who rejected anything loud, proud or worldly. But his upbringing took place in the extremism, violence and carnality of mid-17th-century England. By the end of...
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A Colonial Christmas

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Colonial Christmas The December holidays are ideal focuses for special exhibitions and activities at museums, historic sites, villages and history-oriented visitors attrac­tions throughout Pennsyl­vania. Eighteenth century Christmas observances are popularly re-created and inter­preted because many settle­ments on the East Coast were established prior to 1800. By interpreting this seasonal living history program,...
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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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Revisiting Valley Forge

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Revisiting Valley Forge I will never forget the Bicentennial of 1976. The year before I had volunteered to work at Valley Forge State Park after seeing a notice asking for people to staff the buildings. We were given paper patterns with which to make our outfits, hopefully resembling those from the eighteenth century. Mine was comprised of a knee-length white shift, long skirt, lace-up vest, and a “mob”...
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