Mailbox

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Mailbox For its fall conference, the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society (CHBTS) of the Hagley Museum and Library is issuing a call for papers. The theme of this year’s conference is “Significant Locales: Business, Labor, and Industry in the Mid-Atlantic Region.” Proposals are being sought for papers dealing with aspects of business, labor, and industrial...
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Firm Foundations in Philadelphia: The Lewis and Clark Expedition’s Ties to Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Firm Foundations in Philadelphia: The Lewis and Clark Expedition’s Ties to Pennsylvania For a century and a half, from 1807 until the early 1960s, the celebrated expedition undertaken by Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838) between 1803 and 1806 was generally perceived to be strictly a western United States phenomenon. Historians and educators who discussed it in their writings or in their teaching usually described the twenty-eight month ordeal as beginning...
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Into the Woodlands

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Into the Woodlands Rarely does his name enjoy prominence in horticultural history, but William Hamilton (1745-1813), owner of The Woodlands, a picturesque eighteenth-century countryseat on the banks of the Schuylkill River in West Philadelphia, made sev­eral significant contributions that forever changed the landscape of North America. An avid plant collector he filled his English-style garden with as many new...
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Sowing a Wealth Uncommon

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Sowing a Wealth Uncommon When Pennsylvania’s thirty-seven-year-old founder William Penn (1644-1718) drew plans for Philadelphia, he specified a central park of ten acres and four symmetrically placed squares of eight acres each “for the comfort and recreation of all forever.” In his September 30, 1681, instructions to his commissioners, he also mandated private space. “Let every House be placed,...
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