All Non-Digital Titles

Explore the building, heyday and eventual demise of Whitemarsh Hall, once considered the "Versailles of America."

Whitemarsh Hall was one of the largest and most exquisite estates in North America. Edward Townsend Stotesbury, one of the wealthiest Philadelphians in the early 20th century, commissioned renowned architect Horace Trumbauer to build the 147-room mansion in 1916 on 300 acres just outside Philadelphia. Whitemarsh Hall, which took five years to build at an estimated cost of $10 million with all the furnishings, was a wedding present for his second wife. This book explores Whitemarsh Hall's construction, its prime in the 1920s, the multiple impacts of the Great Depression, Stotesbury's death, and subsequent ownership over the next four decades, culminating in its eventual submission to decay, vandalism, and the wrecking ball in 1980.

Discover sinister stories of Erie's hidden history.

Life on the lake is not always pleasant, as these stories of scandal, robbery, murder, suicide, the mob, and more, reveal. The threatening reign of terror from the Phantom Burglar in the winter of 1926 kept Erie residents living in fear, culminating in a shocking finale. In 1927, bandits stole the payroll of the Erie County Electric Company in a harrowing robbery, and the manhunt and investigation that followed captivated the city. Extortion and blackmail were the purported tactics of local Black Hand gangsters in threatening letters sent to one of Erie’s wealthiest turn-of-the-century citizens. The tragic murder of twenty-two-year-old Mary Sobucki enraged local law enforcement and shined a light on the underworld operations of baby harvesting farms. Author Justin Dombrowski presents narratives of Erie’s wicked past.

Historian Thomas Keels tells many ribald stories in his book, ""Wicked Philadelphia: Sin in the City of Brotherly Love,"" including various methods of body snatching and murder. --Marty Moss-Coane, WHYY-FM

Prim and proper Philadelphia has been rocked by the clash between excessive vice and social virtue since its citizens burned the city's biggest brothel in 1800. With tales of grave robbers in South Philadelphia and harlots in Franklin Square, Wicked Philadelphia reveals the shocking underbelly of the City of Brotherly Love. In one notorious scam, a washerwoman masqueraded as the fictional Spanish countess Anita de Bettencourt for two decades, bilking millions from victims and even fooling the government of Spain. From the 1843 media frenzy that ensued after an aristocrat abducted a young girl to a churchyard transformed into a brothel (complete with a carousel), local author Thomas H. Keels unearths Philadelphia's most scintillating scandals and corrupt characters in this rollicking history.

Join author Richard Gazarik as he reveals the wicked history of the Steel City.

Muckraking journalist Walter Liggett dubbed Pittsburgh the Metropolis of Corruption in 1930 when he reported the city had more vice per square foot than New York, Detroit, Cleveland or Boston. Decades earlier, the Magee-Flinn political machine ruled public officials, and crooked police helped racketeers protect brothels and gambling dens. Mayor (later Governor) David Lawrence was indicted several times for graft but acquitted each time. Even Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. colluded with gangsters, according to FBI reports.

Located along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, Williamsport has a unique history.

Two key economic expansions brought millions of dollars to the area, but devastating disasters took their toll on the city, resulting in multiple transformations over time. Comparing our present to our past is how we understand our history. Arcadia’s Past & Present series makes such local comparisons available. Books in this series offer a special view of American life by placing historical images side by side with contemporary photographs.

For more than one hundred years, the Grit was small-town America's favorite family newspaper and a Sunday morning staple. Dietrick Lamade, a German immigrant and self-made man, founded the Grit and ushered it through early adversity and uncertainty, eventually initiating innovations such as direct mail and nationwide newsboy delivery, transforming the paper into a national institution. The Grit was one of the first newspapers in America to feature color photographs and fictional supplements. Williamsport: The Grit Photograph Collection documents momentous events from a turn-of-the-century city on the rise, through the end of the lumber boom, the world wars, and the great Depression, to modern times.

Dietrick Lamade, a German immigrant and self-made man, founded the Grit and ushered it through early adversity and uncertainty, eventually initiating innovations such as direct mail and nationwide newsboy delivery, transforming the paper into a national institution. The Grit was one of the first newspapers in America to feature color photographs and fictional supplements. Williamsport: The Grit Photograph Collection documents momentous events from a turn-of-the-century city on the rise, through the end of the lumber boom, the world wars, and the great Depression, to modern times.

Life was a lark at Willow Grove Park! Take a trip on a trolley back in time to one of America's most famous amusement parks.

Willow Grove Park was originally conceived by a Philadelphia traction company in order to encourage people to ride the trolley on weekends, coining the term "trolley park'? in the process. Completed in 1896, this ingenious concept proved a remarkable success, and the park set the standard for providing first-class entertainment and amusement. In addition to world-class rides, games, and food, there would be daily concerts at the music pavilion, featuring well-known musicians such as John Philip Sousa, Victor Herbert, and Arthur Pryor. The park was in business for 80 years, only conceding defeat in 1976, but its legacy lives on in photographs and in the memories of the people who spent their days there. Through a wide range of images, Willow Grove Parkcaptures the rich history of this well-known icon.

Wilmerding and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company tells the story of a town and company that grew up hand in hand through historical images.

When George Westinghouse Jr. founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, his air brakes, railroad equipment, and industrial pneumatic devices revolutionized rail travel, opening a new chapter in American industrial history. Not only were the products of his first company revolutionary, but the small borough he founded in 1890 in southwestern Pennsylvania became a model for residential and industrial development. Wilmerding, precisely planned and built according to Westinghouse's specifications, would house the workers-skilled and unskilled, black and white-who would produce George Westinghouse's air brake. Wilmerding and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company tells the story of a town and company that grew up hand in hand. This collection of historical photographs, drawn from the archive of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, shows how the citizens of Wilmerding lived-from the factories where they worked everyday to the Castle, where they bowled and swam. See the Victorian-style homes where they lived with their families, the park where they strolled, and the company band they heard at concerts and parades. Learn about the industry-changing products they produced and sold globally. Wilmerding and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company is an American story of a man and his vision-how he and the town he founded changed the face of rail travel and industry.

Since William Penn presided over the state's only official witch trial in 1684, witchcraft and folk magic have been a part of the history of the Keystone State.

English and German settlers brought their beliefs in magic with them from the Old World--sometimes with dangerous consequences. In 1802, an Allegheny County judge helped an accused witch escape an angry mob. Susan Mummey was not so fortunate. In 1934, she was shot and killed in her home by a young Schuylkill County man who was convinced that she had cursed him. In other regions of the state, views on folk magic were more complex. While hex doctors were feared in the Pennsylvania German tradition, powwowers were and are revered for their abilities to heal, lift curses and find lost objects. Folklorist Thomas White traces the history and lore of witchcraft and the occult that quietly live on in Pennsylvania even today.

The Greatest Generation of the Keystone State

The Pennsylvania Wilds comprise a tiny fraction of the state’s population, but when the United States entered World War II, the Wilds responded with characteristic courage and determination. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, young men rushed to recruitment centers to serve. Many returned as heroes. Many never returned, paying the ultimate sacrifice. Not to be left out, numerous women filled the ranks of Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps or became navy nurses overseas. On the homefront, workers bused in to fill vacancies left by those who went to war flooded the small towns of the Wilds, and all across the region, people stepped up to provide defense services and to plant victory gardens.

Compiling contemporary news accounts, letters and firsthand accounts, historian Kathy Myers celebrates and commemorates the region’s intrepid war efforts at home and abroad.

Yardley revisits the 200 year history of the borough through photographs.

In the eighteenth century, a ferry and mill marked the crossroads beginnings of Yardleyville in Makefield Township. New modes of transportation transformed the village, commerce and industry flourished, and the population increased substantially. Soon the people of Yardley yearned for their own government—their own town—and Yardley, Pennsylvania, was incorporated in 1895. When Yardley Borough celebrated its centennial, donations and loans of photographs revealing Yardley's history were collected. This volume is compiled mostly from this locally assembled selection of images, and recounts Yardley's history with eloquence.  The face of the old toll collector, the festivities of the Canal Days and Harvest Day celebrations, and countless days at Lake Afton, the canal, or the river are all captured in this treasured account of Yardley's past.

Zippo has been owned and operated by the Blaisdell family for more than seventy years. Zippo Manufacturing Company contains photographs of the Blaisdells, the Zippo Riders, the Zippo ski slope, the Zippo car, special-edition lighters, and scenes from the town of Bradford. Zippo archives and private collections have yielded rare photographs of Zippo employees at work, company and collector events, and other highlights in the company's history.