PA BOOKS on PCN

Latest Episodes:

"The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields" with Donald Miller and Richard Sharpless Mar 11, 2019

Show notes

Considered by scholars and history buffs alike to be the best survey history of the rise and fall of the anthracite mining industry in Pennsylvania, this volume chronicles the discovery of anthracite, the building of canals to transport it to market, the era when anthracite was a major stimulus for the building of railroads and the development of the iron industry, the struggles of miners to organize, and the effects that successive waves of immigrants had on northeastern Pennsylvania. It concludes with an examination of the continuing legacy of anthracite mining in the region, and of the economic and technological factors that brought about the decline of the Kingdom of Coal. The chapters on the people of the anthracite region are particularly absorbing.

First published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 1985.

Although the authors have an academic background, Kingdom of Coal is written in an easy-to-read style.

Description courtesy of Amazon

"Abolitionists of Sounth Central Pennsylvania" with Cooper Wingert Mar 04, 2019

Show notes

Close to the Mason-Dixon line, South Central Pennsylvania was a magnet for slave catchers and abolitionists alike. Influenced by religion and empathy, local abolitionists risked their reputations, fortunes and lives in the pursuit of what they believed was right. The sister of Benjamin Lundy, one of America's most famous abolitionists, married into an Adams County family and spent decades helping runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad. National figures such as Frederick Douglass toured the region, delivering antislavery orations to mixed receptions. In 1859, John Brown planned his Harpers Ferry raid from Chambersburg while local abolitionists concealed his identity. Author Cooper Wingert reveals the history of the antislavery movement in South Central Pennsylvania.

Cooper Wingert is the author of ten books, including "The Confederate Approach on Harrisburg" and "Slavery and the Underground Railroad in South Central Pennsylvania." He is the recipient of the 2012 Dr. James I. Robertson Literary Award for Confederate History. Wingert currently resides in Enola, Pennsylvania.

Description courtesy of the History Press.

"Remembering Lattimer: Labor, Migration, and Race in Pennsylvania Anthracite Country" with Paul Shackel Feb 18, 2019

Show notes

On September 10, 1897, a group of 400 striking coal miners--workers of Polish, Slovak, and Lithuanian descent or origin--marched on Lattimer, Pennsylvania. There, law enforcement officers fired without warning into the protesters, killing nineteen miners and wounding thirty-eight others. The bloody day quickly faded into history. Paul Shackel confronts the legacies and lessons of the Lattimer event. Beginning with a dramatic retelling of the incident, Shackel traces how the violence, and the acquittal of the deputies who perpetrated it, spurred membership in the United Mine Workers. By blending archival and archaeological research with interviews, he weighs how the people living in the region remember--and forget--what happened.

Paul Shackel is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland-College Park.

Description courtesy of University of Illinois Press.

"Insight Philadelphia: Historical Essays Illustrated" with Kenneth Finkel Feb 11, 2019

Show notes

Each of the nearly 100 essays in Insight Philadelphia tells a succinct, compelling, and little-known tale of the city's past. Some stories are quirky, like how early gas stations were designed to resemble classical temples, or the saga of how a museum acquired a 2000-year-old Greek statue, then had it demolished with a sledgehammer. Other stories turn serious, exploring the tragic deaths of child laborers in the city's textile mills and a century-old case of racial profiling that led to a stationhouse murder. Historian Kenneth Finkel introduces readers to the many brave souls and colorful characters who left their mark on the city, from the Irish immigrant "coal heavers"—who initiated the nation's first general strike—to the teenage Josephine Baker making a flashy debut on the Philadelphia stage.

Kenneth Finkel is a professor of history at Temple University in Philadelphia, and the author of nine books on Philadelphia. He was a former curator of prints and photographs at the Library Company of Philadelphia, program officer at the William Penn Foundation, and executive director of arts and culture service at WHYY.

Description courtesy of Rutgers University Press.

"The Elite of Our People: Joseph Willson's Sketches of Black Upper-Class Life in Antebellum Philadelphia" with Julie Winch Feb 04, 2019

Show notes

Sketches of the Higher Classes of Colored Society in Philadelphia, first published in 1841, was written by Joseph Willson, a southern black man who had moved to Philadelphia. He wrote this book to convince whites that the African-American community in his adopted city did indeed have a class structure, and he offers advice to his black readers about how they should use their privileged status. The significance of Willson's account lies in its sophisticated analysis of the issues of class and race in Philadelphia. It is all the more important in that it predates W. E. B. Du Bois's The Philadelphia Negro by more than half a century.

Julie Winch has written a substantial introduction and prepared extensive annotation. She identifies the people Willson wrote about and gives readers a sense of Philadelphia's multifaceted and richly textured African American community. The Elite of Our People will interest urban, antebellum, and African-American historians, as well as individuals with a general interest in African-American history.

This volume has withstood the test of time. It remains readable. Joseph Willson was well read, articulate, and had a keen eye for detail. His message is as timely today as it was in 1841. The people he wrote about were remarkable individuals whose lives were as complex as his own.

Description courtesy of Amazon.

"Blue-Collar Conservatism: Frank Rizzo's Philadelphia and Populist Politics" with Timothy Lombardo Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

The postwar United States has experienced many forms of populist politics, none more consequential than that of the blue-collar white ethnics who brought figures like Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump to the White House. "Blue-Collar Conservatism" traces the rise of this little-understood, easily caricatured variant of populism by presenting a nuanced portrait of the supporters of Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo. In 1971, Frank Rizzo became the first former police commissioner elected mayor of a major American city. Despite serving as a Democrat, Rizzo cultivated his base of support by calling for "law and order" and opposing programs like public housing, school busing, affirmative action, and other policies his supporters deemed unearned advantages for nonwhites. Out of this engagement with the interwoven politics of law enforcement, school desegregation, equal employment, and urban housing, Timothy Lombardo argues, blue-collar populism arose. "Blue-Collar Conservatism" challenges the familiar backlash narrative, instead contextualizing blue-collar politics within postwar urban and economic crises. Historian and Philadelphia-native Lombardo demonstrates how blue-collar whites did not immediately abandon welfare liberalism but instead selectively rejected liberal policies based on culturally defined ideas of privilege, disadvantage, identity, and entitlement. While grounding his analysis in the postwar era's familiar racial fissures, Lombardo also emphasizes class identity as an indispensable driver of blue-collar political engagement.

Timothy Lombardo teaches history at the University of South Alabama.

Description courtesy of University of Pennsylvania Press.

"Archaeology at the Site of the Museum of the American Revolution" with Rebecca Yamin Jan 21, 2019

Show notes

When the Museum of the American Revolution acquired the land at Third and Chestnut streets in Olde City, Philadelphia, it came with the condition that an archaeological investigation be conducted. The excavation that began in the summer of 2014 yielded treasures in the trash: unearthed privy pits provided remarkable finds from a mid-eighteenth-century tavern to relics from a button factory dating to the early twentieth century. These artifacts are described and analyzed by urban archaeologist Rebecca Yamin in "Archaeology at the Site of the Museum of the American Revolution." Yamin, lead archaeologist on the dig, catalogues items—including earthenware plates and jugs, wig curlers, clay pipes, and liquor bottles—to tell the stories of their owners and their roles in Philadelphia history. As she uncovers the history of the people as well as their houses, taverns, and buildings that were once on the site, she explains that by looking at these remains, we see the story of the growth of Philadelphia from its colonial beginnings to the Second World War.

Rebecca Yamin is an historical archaeologist specializing in urban archaeology and the former director of the Philadelphia branch office of John Milner Associates, Inc., a company that specialized in historic preservation and cultural resource management.

Description courtesy of Temple University Press.

"The King of the Movies: Film Pioneer Siegmund Lubin" with Joseph Eckhardt Jan 07, 2019

Show notes

In addition to detailing the life and career of Siegmund Lubin of Philadelphia, this work explores the complex character of America's first Jewish movie mogul and separates his accomplishments as a film pioneer from the myths he himself helped create. Along with descriptions of his studios in Pennsylvania, the book also provides accounts of Lubin's studios in California and Florida and his company's location work in Arizona, New Mexico, New Jersey, and New England.

Description courtesy of Amazon.

"Doo-dah!" with Ken Emerson Dec 31, 2018

Show notes

Stephen Foster (1826-1864) was America's first great songwriter and the first to earn his living solely through his music. He composed some 200 songs, including such classics as "Oh! Susanna," "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," "Old Folks at Home (Way down upon the Swanee River)," and "Camptown Races (Doo-dah! Doo-dah!)." He virtually invented popular music as we recognize it to this day, yet he died at age thirty-seven, a forgotten and nearly penniless alcoholic on the Bowery. The author reveals Foster's contradictory life while disclosing how the dynamics of nineteenth-century industrialization, westward expansion, the Gold Rush, slavery, and the Civil War infused his music, and how that music influenced popular culture.

"The Goodfella Tapes" with George Anastasia Dec 24, 2018

Show notes

Goodfella Tapes by George Anastasia is the true story of how the FBI recorded a mob war and brought down a mafia don. A riveting, eye-opening true crime masterwork in the vein of "Wiseguy", "Underboss", "Havana Nocturne", "The Valachi Papers", and other bestselling exposés of life in La Cosa Nostra, Goodfella Tapes is an astonishing story of the brutal acts and remarkable blunders of soldiers, capos, and kingpins of the Philadelphia mob and the ingenuity of government agents that, combined, help topple a powerful criminal enterprise.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected