All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

Latest Episodes:

A Brief History of Performance Dec 16, 2025

Show notes

BBB:LHWS #051-1 Human performance...

...has ancient roots in ritual, storytelling, music, and dance, evolving from prehistoric communal activities to formalized theater. Mumming originated in pre-Christian seasonal rites that involved masked performances which symbolized death and rebirth.

In the 19th century, minstrel shows featured white performers in blackface who caricatured African Americans through music and comedy, and popularized certain instruments and songs but perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Minstrelsy influenced American entertainment forms but reinforced racist myths, using exaggerated dialects, stereotypical characters, and appropriated dances, with complex legacies acknowledged by modern scholarship.

Mummers, Minstrels, and Laurel Hill Dec 14, 2025

Show notes

BBB:LHWS #051-0 Mummery & Minstrelsy in the City of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia has been the home of Mummers for centuries and you can still see their antics every New Year's Day. For the latter part of the 19th century, Philadelphia was also the place to see a minstrel show.

The Carncross & Dixey company made both of its owners rich men and provided entertainment for thousands of Philadelphians for mere pennies.

Frank Dumont literally wrote the book on how to perform a minstrel show.

James A. Bland is not buried at Laurel Hill, his music is still beloved by millions of people around the world, and one of his songs has been adopted by the Mummers as their theme.

Benjamin Richards: Merchant, Mayor and Cemetery Cheerleader Dec 05, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #041-4 Benjamin Wood Richards...

...was mayor during a time with challenges like public health crises, infrastructure needs, and social tensions in Philadelphia. Richards helped found the Girard Trust Company in 1835 and served as its president. He was inspired by Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery on a European trip, and the helped found Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Nathan Dunn and His 10,000 Chinese Things Dec 04, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #081-3 Nathan Dunn...

...sailed as a merchant to China around 1818 and gained respect by avoiding the opium trade, rather engaging in tea, silks, porcelain, and other goods. He returned with a massive artifact collection and opened his wildly successful Chinese Museum in Philadelphia. Late in life, he was accused of illegal homosexual activity and put on trial for the crime of sodomy.

John Jay Smith: A Founder's Non-Cemetery Life Dec 03, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #081-2 John Jay Smith served diverse roles as librarian, editor, cemetery founder, and member of the Society of Friends. He introduced paper made from straw, and invented something that sounds suspiciously like the Book of the Month club a century before the real thing.

The First 20 Years of Laurel Hill Dec 02, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #081-1 In the Beginning...
Inspired by the allegory of Old Mortality, Laurel Hill was founded in 1836 by John Jay Smith, Benjamin Richards, Nathan Dunn, and Frederick Brown as response to overcrowded urban graveyards and changing attitudes toward death and memorialization.

Some Laurel Hill Founders: The First 20 Years Dec 01, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #081-0 The First 20 Years of Laurel Hill Cemetery

Laurel Hill Cemetery was founded opened in 1836 to give the people of Philadelphia a final resting place worthy of the "Athens of America."

John Jay Smith was a polymath librarian / horticulturalist who had a rather unpleasant experience in seeking the grave of a recently deceased daughter and vowed to change the way people commemorated their dead.

Nathan Dunn was initially a failed merchant who regained his fortunes in the Chinese trade and became the financial backing for the cemetery corporation.

Benjamin Richards was ex-mayor and a business partner of Smith's who on a trip to Europe was inspired by the revolutionary Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris to provide something similar in Philadelphia..

Druggist Frederick Brown was covered in a prior podcast

You will also learn about Sir Walter Scott, varying splinter sects of Christianity like the Swedenborgians, what the Opium Wars were really about, the history and significance of The Library Company of Philadelphia, with a brief look at Chinese male-male love as commemorated in the legend of the Cut Sleeve.

Lon Jourdet: The Face of Early Quaker Basket Ball Nov 16, 2025

Show notes

BBB:LHWS #052-1 Lon Jourdet...

...was an All-American footballer who also excelled at basketball. He spent 23 years as coach at Penn and captured more than 200 victories, but he left in 1943 with a bitter taste in his mouth for the University, which has come close to forgetting him. He ended his own life in 1959.

Basket Ball and Laurel Hill Nov 15, 2025

Show notes

BBB:LHWS #050 Basket Ball started...

...on the day James Naismith nailed 13 rules to a gymnasium door in Springfield Massachusetts. The game spread quickly, especially among college men (and women). University of Pennsylvania was an early adapter, and four Penn grads made their names in basketball.

Ellwood Rutschman was a decent player but found his niche as the first professional basketball referee. He set the standards for fairness and ethics in the sport.
"Kid" Keinath was the Quakers' second coach after serving as captain. He was followed by his good friend "Artie" Kiefaber, namesake of the MVP award.
Lon Jourdet won more games in the 20th century than any other Penn basketball coach and was an inventor of the zone defense. But the game passed him by, and his firing in 1943 left him an embittered man.

Hugh Craig, Jr.: The Glue That Held It All Together Nov 06, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #080-5 Hugh Craig, Jr. ...

...was a successful businessman whose life became the Troop, where he served both as treasurer and as quartermaster. The men loved him, and they still hold a "Hughie's Breakfast" at the conclusion of every deployment.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected