PA BOOKS on PCN

In "Philadelphia's Germans: From Colonial Settlers to Enemy Aliens," Richard N. Juliani examines the social, cultural, and political life, along with the ethnic consciousness, of Philadelphia's Germans, from their participation in the founding of the colony of Pennsylvania to the entry of the United States into World War I. This book focuses on their paradoxical transformation from loyal citizens, who made great contributions as they became increasingly Americanized, to a people viewed as a foreign threat to the safety and security of the city and nation. It also considers the policies and treatment of government and views of the local press in reporting and interpreting the dilemma of German Americans during the transition.

Richard N. Juliani is emeritus professor of sociology at Villanova University.

Johnstown is synonymous with floodwaters and steel. When the city was decimated by a flood of biblical proportions in 1889, it was considered one of the worst natural disasters in American history and gained global attention. Sadly, that deluge was only the first of three major floods to claim lives and wreak havoc in the region. The destruction in the wake of the St. Patrick's Day flood in 1936 was the impetus for groundbreaking federal and local flood control measures. Multiple dam failures, including the Laurel Run Dam in July 1977, left a flooded Johnstown with a failing steel industry in ruins. Author Pat Farabaugh charts the harrowing history of Johnstown's great floods and the effects on its economic lifeblood.

Pat Farabaugh is a faculty member in the Communications Program at Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania.

"American Workman" presents a comprehensive, novel reassessment of the life and work of one of America's most influential self-taught artists, John Kane. With a full account of Kane's life as a working man, including his time as a steelworker, coal miner, street paver, and commercial painter in and around Pittsburgh in the early twentieth century, the authors explore how these occupations shaped his development as an artist and his breakthrough success in the modern art world. A rough-and-tumble blue-collar man prone to brawling and drinking, Kane also sought out beauty in the industrial world he inhabited. This Kane paradox—brawny and tough, sensitive and creative—was at the heart of much of the public's interest in Kane as a person. The allure of the Kane saga was heightened all the more by the fact that he did not achieve renown until he was at the age at which most people are retiring from their professions. Kane's dedication to painting resulted in a fascinating body of work that has ended up in some of America's most important museums and private collections. His dramatic life story demonstrates the courage, strength, and creativity of his generation of workmen. They may be long gone, but thanks to Kane they cannot be forgotten.

Maxwell King is the former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and president of the Heinz Endowments.

Louise Lippincott is a historian and former curator specializing in American and European art from the Enlightenment to the modern era.

In 1675, eastern North America descended into chaos. Virginia exploded into civil war, as rebel colonists decried the corruption of planter oligarchs and massacred allied Indians. Maryland colonists, gripped by fears that Catholics were conspiring with enemy Indians, rose up against their rulers. Separatist movements and ethnic riots swept through New York and New Jersey. Dissidents in northern Carolina launched a revolution, proclaiming themselves independent of any authority but their own. English America teetered on the edge of anarchy. Though seemingly distinct, these conflicts were in fact connected through the Susquehannock Indians, a once-mighty nation reduced to a small remnant. Forced to scatter by colonial militia, Susquehannock bands called upon connections with Indigenous nations from the Great Lakes to the Deep South, mobilizing sources of power that colonists could barely perceive, much less understand. Although the Susquehannock nation seemed weak and divided, it exercised influence wildly disproportionate to its size, often tipping settler societies into chaos. Colonial anarchy was intertwined with Indigenous power.

Matthew Kruer is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago, where he teaches early North American history.

In her concise history Slavery and Abolition in Pennsylvania, Beverly Tomek corrects the long-held notion that slavery in the North was "not so bad" as, or somehow "more humane" than, in the South due to the presence of abolitionists. While the Quaker presence focused on moral and practical opposition to bondage, slavery was ubiquitous. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania was the first state to pass an abolition law in the United States. Slavery and Abolition in Pennsylvania traces this movement from its beginning to the years immediately following the American Civil War. Discussions of the complexities of the state's antislavery movement illustrate how different groups of Pennsylvanians followed different paths in an effort to achieve their goal. Tomek also examines the backlash abolitionists and Black Americans faced. In addition, she considers the civil rights movement from the period of state reconstruction through the national reconstruction that occurred after the Civil War.

Beverly C. Tomek is Associate Professor of History and Associate Provost for Curriculum and Student Achievement at the University of Houston-Victoria.

Italian arts and culture have been a significant influence on Philadelphia dating back to Thomas Jefferson and colonial times. Throughout the ensuing decades, Italian art and architecture styles flourished, and wealthy Philadelphians traveled to Italy and brought back objects to display in emerging institutions of art and culture. New immigration formed neighborhoods—such as South Philly, home to the Italian Market—and Italian business leaders, politicians, artists, musicians and sports figures came to prominence and became part of the social fabric of the city. This glorious volume, "The Italian Legacy in Philadelphia," celebrates the history, impact, and legacy of this vibrant community, tracing four periods of key transformation in the city's political, economic, and social structures. The editors and contributors chronicle the changing dynamics of the city as Italian immigrants established themselves and as they continue to have lively interactions with people and institutions in Italy.

Judith Goode is Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Urban Studies at Temple University.

A thorough investigation of how Jane Jacobs's ideas about the life and economy of great cities grew from her home city, Scranton

Jane Jacobs's First City vividly reveals how this influential thinker and writer's classic works germinated in the once vibrant, mid-size city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Jane spent her initial eighteen years. In the 1920s and 1930s, Scranton was a place of enormous diiversity and opportunity. Small businesses of all kinds abounded and flourished, quality public education was available to and supported by all, and even recent immigrants could save enough to buy a house. Opposing political parties joined forces to tackle problems, and citizens worked together for the public good.

Through interviews with contemporary Scrantonians and research of historic newspapers, city directories, and vital records, author Glenna Lang has uncovered Scranton as young Jane experienced it and shows us the lasting impact of her growing up in this thriving and accessible environment. Readers can follow the development of Jane's acute observational abilities from childhood through her passion in early adulthood to understand and write about what she saw. Reflecting Jane's belief in trusting one's own direct observation above all, this volume has been richly illustrated with historic and modern color images that help bring alive a lost Scranton. The book demonstrates why, at the end of Jacobs's life, her thoughts and conversations increasingly returned to Scranton and the potential for cohesion and inclusiveness in all cities.

Author Glenna Lang's previous work about Jane Jacobs—Genius of Common Sense: The Story of Jane Jacobs and "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"—aimed to inspire young adults but appealed to all ages in the general public and at universities. It was chosen as a 2009 Notable Book by both the New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine. As an illustrator, she produced four classic poems as picture books for children with David R. Godine, Publisher. Lang wrote and illustrated Looking Out for Sarah, about a day in the life of a seeing-eye dog, which won the American Library Association's Schneider Family Award. Although she grew up mainly in New York City, she has lived for many years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teaches at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, now part of Tufts University. She has loved spending time in Scranton with her husband, Alexander von Hoffman, and their dog, Easy.

Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in the country, known for its tight-knit community and the profusion of multigenerational families. On October 27, 2018, a gunman killed eleven Jews who were worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill–the most deadly anti-Semitic attack in American history. Many neighborhoods would be understandably subsumed by despair and recrimination after such an event, but not this one. Mark Oppenheimer poignantly shifts the focus away from the criminal and his crime, and instead presents the historic, spirited community at the center of this heartbreak. He speaks with residents and nonresidents, Jews and gentiles, survivors and witnesses, teenagers and seniors, activists and historians. Together, these stories provide a kaleidoscopic and nuanced account of collective grief, love, support, and revival. But Oppenheimer also details the difficult dialogue and messy confrontations that Squirrel Hill had to face in the process of healing, and that are a necessary part of true growth and understanding in any community. He has reverently captured the vibrancy and caring that still characterize Squirrel Hill, and it is this phenomenal resilience that can provide inspiration to any place burdened with discrimination and hate.

Mark Oppenheimer is the author of five books, including Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture and The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia. He was the religion columnist for The New York Times from 2010 to 2016 and has written for The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Mother Jones, The Nation, and The Believer, among other publications. The host of Tablet magazine's podcast Unorthodox, Oppenheimer has taught at Stanford, Wellesley, and Yale, where since 2006 he has directed the Yale Journalism Initiative. He lives with his family in New Haven, Connecticut.