Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
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The Reluctant President: Gaylord P. Harnwell and American University Leadership after World War II
No full textThis article examines the University of Pennsylvania’s presidential search of 1952–53, which led to the election of the physicistGaylord P. Harnwell, in light of other universities’ presidential searches and literature on such searches during that era. It reveals the existence of a competitiv e market for university leaders characterized by three common themes: how universities prioritized keeping their own rising stars; the growing power of the faculty in university governance, which translated to pressure to hire an academic as university president; and how professors who directed military-oriented research during World War II parlayed that experience into postwar administrative careers
High School Yearbooks: Using and Preserving The Record
No full textHigh school yearbooks are a treasure trove for education historians. They offer glimpses into the educational past found nowhere else. Along with the changes in people and programs that occurred from year to year, they document the ways in which high schools shaped student identities and the meanings students took from their high school experiences
Pennsylvania Hall: A “Legal Lynching” in the Shadow of the Liberty Bell.
No full textOn May 17, 1838, the Liberty Bell rang out, summoning help as anti-abolitionist mobs attacked and destroyed the newly constructed Pennsylvania Hall. Christened a “Temple of Liberty,” the hall had come into existence in a rare moment of cooperation between groups of abolitionists with divergent interests. The abolitionists who supported the construction of the hall wanted to awaken American citizens to the cause of slavery, while their opponents wanted to stop abolitionists from discussing the issue. Liberator editor William Lloyd Garrison, who barely escaped the melee, described the destruction of the hall as a “legal lynching.
In the Shadow of Kinzua: The Seneca Nation of Indians since World War II.
No full textScholarly inquiry into the post–World War II experiences of the Seneca Nation of Indians has focused on the consequences of the construction of the Kinzua Dam in the 1960s. To build the dam, the US government violated a 1794 treaty and condemned some 10,000 acres of Seneca lands, roughly one-third of the nation’s territory. Laurence Hauptman, Distinguished Professor Emeritusof History at the State University of New York, New Paltz, acknowledges the devastating impact of the Kinzua crisis but calls for a broader view of the diffi - culties facing the Senecas at a time when “everything was stacked against them” (268). Hauptman chronicles the nation’s recovery from the nadir of the 1960s to becoming a major economic force in western New York in the 2010s. He regards that journey as part of the much larger and longer history of a people who have endured as a nation for centuries
The Road to Black Ned’s Forge: A Story of Race, Sex, and Trade on the Colonial American Frontier
No full textThe Road to Black Ned’s Forge is a compelling economic history of the colonial frontier told through the life of Edward Tarr, an enslaved Pennsylvania ironworker who purchased his own freedom and moved to Virginia in 1752. Through a meticulous study of fi nancial and court records, McCleskey gives his “tale of unpaid bills”in the colonial backcountry a coherent narrative drive (58). While the story seems to fl ow effortlessly, McCleskey’s painstaking research is demonstrated by over fi fty pages of appendices for readers who wish to pick up the archival trail
Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
No full textGateway to Freedom is a generously illustrated book based on Sidney Howard Gay’s recently discovered “Record of Fugitives.” It situates New York City as both the hub of an extensive Underground Railroad (UGRR) network and a treacherous place for freedom seekers. Referring to William Still’s The Underground Railroad and Gay’s journal among other sources, Eric Foner explains New York City’s pivotal role and provides context for famous escapes, kidnappings, and rescues
Running the Rails: Capital and Labor in the Philadelphia Transit Industry
No full textJames Wolfinger’s Running the Rails is an insightful and engaging analysis of Philadelphia’s mass transit system during its almost century-long period of private ownership. It nimbly shifts from national context to local example and raises interesting questions that should engage both labor and urban historians
Selling Gentility and Pretending Morality: Education and Newspaper Advertisements in Philadelphia, 1765–75
No full textIn the decade before the American Revolution, advertisements for education commonly advanced appeals to gentility while simultaneously promising that instructors oversaw appropriate moral development of students. As the consumer revolution unfolded and greater numbers of colonists possessed goods formerly reserved primarily for elites, all kinds of educators (schoolmasters and -mistresses, language tutors, dancing and fencing masters) marketed manners, morality, and comportment—their own and that learned by their pupils—as means of distinguishing the truly genteel from pretenders. In so doing, they fashioned impressions of exclusivity while simultaneously selling their services to any who paid their fees. Advertisements concerning schoolmasters who duped others demonstrated the cultural fragility inherent in pretenses of gentility and morality
Contributors
No full textThese are the contributors for the October 2017 publication of The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biology
Front Matter
No full textThis is the front matter for the April 2017 issue of Pennsylvania Magazine of Biography and History