All Non-Digital Titles

Northeast Philadelphia chronicles this area's history of transformation, from scattered communities to an urban center.

Before the Consolidation Act of 1854 more than tripled the former capital's population, Northeast Philadelphia was a scattered group of pastoral communities just beyond the city limits. Holmesburg, Somerton and other small villages initially struggled but ultimately triumphed in their transition from rural townships to a bustling urban center. Dr. Harry C. Silcox has collaborated with Frank W. Hollingsworth to chart this fascinating evolution, from the demise of the family farm to neighbors uniting on the homefront during World War II. With such lively characters as Mary Disston, the founding mother of Tacony, and tales of the local effort for suffrage, Silcox and Hollingsworth create a brilliant and affectionate portrait of Northeast Philadelphia.

Northern Chester County follows a path of progress and preservation in an area often referred to as "the New Main Line." Starting out in the late 19th century, vintage postcards illustrate the area's transformation from pastoral countryside to a much-sought-after suburban locale. Look through a window into the past and see Simpson's General Store in Lionville, the Paoli Inn on Lancaster Avenue, and the French Creek Falls Hotel in St. Peter's Village.

Visit the Philadelphia neighborhood  that has gone from Leni-Lenape territory to an amazing industrial riverside community.

Since the time of William Penn, the Philadelphia neighborhood of Northern Liberties has had a tradition of hard work and innovation. This former Leni-Lenape territory became one of the industrial River Wards of North Philadelphia after being annexed by the city in 1854. The district's mills and factories were powered not just by the Delaware River and its tributaries but also by immigrants from across Europe and the city's largest community of free African Americans. The Liberties' diverse narrative, however, was marred by political and social problems, such as the anti-Irish Nativist Riots of 1844. Local historian Harry Kyriakodis traces over three hundred years of the district's evolution, from its rise as a premier manufacturing precinct to the destruction of much of the original cityscape in the 1960s and its subsequent rebirth as an eclectic and vibrant urban neighborhood. In this first history of Northern Liberties, Kyriakodis unearths the story of this remarkable riverside community.

The story of Pittsburgh's university center comes to life with over 150 years of rare photos

Oakland, located two miles east of downtown Pittsburgh, is a destination for rustic tranquility, culture, socialization, entertainment, and education. Through more than 150 years, much has changed in this neighborhood. Where children once caught crayfish, a fantastic skyscraper rose, a Greek Revival villa yielded to a hospital, a trolley barn turned into a sports arena, a fountain was created on a buried bridge, and a hillside cow pasture became a university campus. Bit by bit, this municipal showplace came into being through an attempt to improve the Smoky City by establishing a sprawling museum complex, a vast park, universities, clubhouses, auditoriums, a glamourous hotel, apartments, and a model neighborhood of houses.

Enjoy a fun look at behind-the-scenes politics and personalities in the history of Harrisburg and the Keystone State.

Pennsylvania, first home of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, has a tradition of political progress. However, along with the good, the political playground of Pennsylvania has also seen the brazenly bad behavior of its political leaders. For over twenty-five years, political columnist John Baer has had a front-row seat to the foibles and follies of the Keystone State's political system. Baer takes readers through his memories of covering state politics for the last quarter century, from Democratic governor Milton Shapp's short-lived run for president--in which he finished behind no preference in the Florida primary--to highlights of some of the game-changing campaign missteps and maneuvers that moved administrations in and out of the capital. With a delightfully gruff wit, Baer gives readers a behind-the-scenes view of the politics and personalities that have passed through Harrisburg.

Panther Pride: University of Pittsburgh Men's Basketball is the pictorial history of Pittsburgh's basketball program, before and since the Big East Conference. Well before Dr. Roy Chipman, there was eccentric Doc Carlson. Long before All-American Charles Smith, there was Charley Hyatt. Twenty-eight years before Brandin Knight led his team to the Sweet Sixteen, Billy Knight led another remarkable Panther squad to the Elite Eight. From Motor Square Garden in East Liberty to the Pitt Stadium Pavilion and Fitzgerald Field House in Oakland, Pittsburgh basketball teams have provided their fans with exciting victories and heartbreaking defeats for close to a century.

Penn State University was founded in 1855. Then known as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, the 400-acre campus had only one main building.

With almost 100,000 current students (including students at the Commonwealth Campuses) and having the largest dues-paying alumni association in the world, Penn State continues to be a world leader in education. Since its founding, picture postcards have been published to showcase the buildings and highlight the student activities while documenting the school's narrative.

For nearly 80 years, Pennhurst State School and Hospital was a reminder of how society viewed and treated people with intellectual disabilities.

Over its existence, Pennhurst was home to more than 10,600 people. Many spent decades there, working to keep the institution running by performing various jobs. While some enjoyed the lives they had fashioned for themselves at Pennhurst, for many others, life there was crushing. Pennhurst also played a central role in the lives of its employees and in the rural Pennsylvania community where it was located. Controversy plagued the institution for its entire existence, and it is remembered primarily as a place where bad things happened. However, it was much more than that. This book provides a window into that separate world, reminding those who were part of it of what they saw and did there and giving those who know only what they have heard or seen a different picture of what Pennhurst truly was.

Author Jeff Mauro will keep you on the edge of your seat with stories and photographs of some of the biggest coaches, players, and teams in Pennsylvania high school hockey championship history.

In 1857, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) took over Pennsylvania's Main Line of Public Works, a state-owned railroad and canal system built in the 1830s. Most are gone, but fortunately some still stand and are in use today.

Costly to build and maintain, and never attracting the traffic needed to sustain it, the state was eager to let it go. Keeping the rail portion and combining it with its own lines, the PRR ultimately developed a well-built and well-run rail line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh all while keeping the main line moniker. The eastern section between Philadelphia and Harrisburg was especially successful, particularly after the railroad built new communities along the line that were at first summer destinations and later year-round homes for daily commuters. Other towns and cities along the main line had a strong industrial or agricultural base needing rail access, and many of these communities had attractive train stations. Images of America: Pennsylvania Main Line Railroad Stations: Philadelphia to Harrisburg documents many of these passenger stations through vintage photographs and other images.

Join author Amy Strauss as she traces the sizzling history and culture of a beloved and sustaining Pennsylvania Dutch iconic dish, scrapple.

The name may remind you of a certain word-based board game, but scrapple has been an essential food in Mid-Atlantic kitchens for hundreds of years, the often-overlooked king of breakfast meats. Developed by German settlers of Pennsylvania, scrapple was made from the scraps of meat cut from the day's butchering to avoid waste. Pork trimmings were stewed until tender, ground like sausage, and blended with broth, cornmeal, and buckwheat flour. Crispy slabs of scrapple sustained the Pennsylvanians through the frigid winter months and brutal harvest months, providing them with a high-energy and tasty breakfast meal that people enjoy even today.

A fascinating history of law and power, Pennsylvania's Coal and Iron Police documents the law enforcement group which ruled these communities from 1865 to 1931.

Pennsylvania's Coal and Iron Police ruled small patch towns and industrial cities for their coal and iron company bosses from 1865 to 1931. Armed with a gun and badge and backed by state legislation, the members of the private police force were granted power in a practically unspecified jurisdiction. Set in Pennsylvania's anthracite and bituminous regions, including Luzerne, Schuylkill, Westmoreland, Beaver, Somerset, and Indiana Counties, at a time when labor disputes were deadly, the officers are the story behind American labor history's high-profile events and attention-grabbing headlines. Paid to protect company property, their duties varied but unfortunately often resulted in strikebreaking, intimidation, and violence.

This book invites the reader to step back in time and imagine the days when ancestors traveled through wooden spans to reach their daily destinations.

Starting in the early 1800s, Pennsylvania's rich forests provided natural material for the construction of more than 1,500 covered bridges across the state. The first covered bridge was built in 1805. Pennsylvania's Covered Bridges looks at the earliest covered bridges as well as those that have survived modern progress. Images also show rare railroad covered bridges that have been saved from destruction over the years.

DO YOU KNOW… WHY Pennsylvania is known as the birthplace of the nation? (Hint: It has to do with ideas and ink!)

WHAT famous place in Pennsylvania has more than 1,400 monuments and markers? (Hint: It honors both "sides.") Find these answers and more in the Pennsylvania edition of What's So Great About This State?

Perkasie, named after William Penn's country manor in Upper Bucks County, was a boomtown that sprang up along the North Pennsylvania Railroad in the late 1870s.

From the 1880s to the 1920s, Perkasie grew rapidly, becoming a transportation and cultural center and drawing crowds with commerce, industry, summer retreats, and even an amusement park. Through nearly 200 vintage postcards, Perkasie chronicles the expansion of this once small town as well as its impact on neighboring rural communities such as Rockhill, Bedminster, and Silverdale. The postcards in this book re-create a visual memory of the economic and social changes that worked to shape this dynamic community.

Navigate the treacherous waters of Lake Erie, Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay to discover the fates of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and his fleet.

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's defeat of the British at the Battle of Lake Erie was a defining moment both in the War of 1812 and American naval history. Yet the story of Perry's fleet did not end there. Come aboard as author David Frew chronicles the years and decades after Perry's victory. Heroic acts and bitter defeats unfold as Frew details the lives of fleet surgeon Usher Parsons, shipwright Daniel Dobbins and fleet commander Oliver Hazard Perry and his successors. The adventure moves from the tribulations of Misery Bay and a crafty British victory in the Lake Huron Campaign to the closing of the naval base in Erie and the raising of the Niagara in the twentieth century. Navigate the treacherous waters of Lake Erie, Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay to discover the fates of Perry and his fleet.

Discover and celebrate the untapped history of Philadelphia beer.

The finely aged history of Philadelphia brewing has been fermenting since before the crack appeared in the Liberty Bell.

By the time thirsty immigrants made the city the birthplace of the American lager in the nineteenth century, Philadelphia was already on the leading edge of the country's brewing technology and production. Today, the City of Brotherly Love continues to foster that enterprising spirit of innovation with an enviable community of bold new brewers, beer aficionados and brewing festivals. Pennsylvania brewery historian Rich Wagner takes readers on a satisfying journey from the earliest ale brewers and the heyday of lager beer through the dismally dry years of Prohibition and into the current craft-brewing renaissance

Author Thom Nickels presents the city's most iconic homes and the stories behind them.

Philadelphia's grand mansions and architectural treasures reflect its iconic status in American history, for each Greek Revival home and Corinthian column tells a compelling story of the people behind it. Historic Strawberry Mansion in North Philadelphia was home to Judge William Lewis, a Patriot who defended colonists accused of treason and was Aaron Burr's defense lawyer. Socialite, millionaire and world-renowned art collector Henry McIlhenny made his home at Rittenhouse Square and left his art collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Famed architect Addison Mizner's Spanish Colonial Revival house La Ronda brought the stark contrast of South Florida to Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard has a long history, from its beginnings pre-Civil War to its decommissioning in the late 1990's.

The first government-owned navy yard in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the nation and the largest city in the young republic, was started with two docks in 1798. Workers at the yard numbered seventy thousand at its peak. The area was enlarged and shipbuilding at this site increased, notably during the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The yard's area was not dramatically increased, however, until the federal government purchased the 800-acre League Island and closed the former facility in 1868. The golden age of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard came during World War II, when it built fifty-three ships and converted or overhauled some twelve hundred more. After the 1970s, however, shipbuilding was discontinued. The yard continued to serve its country through the modernization of existing craft, but it was closed by the government in 1990 and officially decommissioned in 1996.

Philadelphia Neighborhoods is a compendium of historic views of the major residential sections of Philadelphia.

This book presents a snapshot into the past when old neighborhoods were not so old and when currently established ones were as yet new construction. Through the medium of postcards, readers are invited back to an era before automobiles dominated the streets, before many city roads were paved, and when the local grocery store was not located in a mall. Using chapters divided into subsections that detail the various regions of North, South, Southwest, and West Philadelphia, as well as the ""new"" Northeast Philadelphia, the author chronicles the vibrant, diverse communities that have helped shape the city's rich history.

Philadelphia Organized Crime in the 1920s and 1930s explores a little-known but spirited chapter of the Quaker City's history.

The hoodlums, hucksters, and racketeers of Prohibition-era Philadelphia sold bootleg booze, peddled illicit drugs, ran numbers, and operated prostitution and insurance rings. Among the fascinating personalities that created and contributed to the Philadelphia crime scene of the 1920s and 1930s were empire builders like Mickey Duffy, known as Prohibition's Mr. Big, and Max Boo Boo Hoff, dubbed the King of the Bootleggers; the violent Lanzetti brothers, who ran their own illegal enterprise; mobster Harry Nig Rosen Stromberg, a New York transplant; and the arsenic widows poison ring, which specialized in fraud and murder. Bringing to light rare photographs and forgotten characters, the authors chronicle the underworld of Philadelphia in the interwar era. The upheaval caused by the gangs and groups herein mirrors the frenzied cultural and political shifts of the Roaring Twenties and the austere 1930s.

Join Allen Meyers and Joel Spivak as they journey through the history of the railways that connected the Philadelpia communites.

Philadelphia became the railroad capital of the world in the 1830s when 12 distinct lines opened within a 100-mile radius of the city to carry people and freight. The railroad boom in the 19th century was made possible by the development of rural communities surrounding the city, the Industrial Revolution, excellent access to raw materials, and an influx of European immigrants. Philadelphia manufactured locomotives, railroad track, and other rail components and exported them around the world. The ability to move agricultural goods, manufactured products, and people commuting from home to work helped to unite the 27 boroughs, districts, and townships into one metropolis by 1854. Philadelphia Railroads features many unseen images and rare photographs documenting the leaders of Philadelphia's transportation world.

Held in Philadelphia from May 10 through October 10, the 1876 Centennial Exhibition celebrated the 100th anniversary of American independence.

Philadelphia hosted 37 nations in five main buildings and 250 additional structures on 285 acres of land. The celebration looked backward to commemorate the progress made over the 100-year period, and it announced to the world that American invention and innovation was on a par with that of our foreign counterparts. Patriotism abounded, as did messages of industrial and commercial prowess that promised a brighter future for all. Over nine million people attended this awesome consumer spectacle, an event that set the tone for a long series of world's fairs yet to come.

Philadelphia's Boxing Heritage: 1876-1976 retraces the legacy of determined battlers such as Joe Frazier, Benny Bass, Gil Turner, Bob Montgomery, and Bennie Briscoe. Philadelphia has also produced legions of highly skilled craftsmen such as Tommy Loughran, Jack O'Brien, Midget Wolgast, Harold Johnson, and Joey Giardello. In 1926, the Gene Tunney-Jack Dempsy heavyweight championship bout was witnessed by more than one hundred thousand fans. In 1956, Rocky Marciano brought his guns to town and won the heavyweight title from Jersey Joe Walcott. In 1971, Philadelphia-trained Joe Frazier won the "Fight of the Century" from Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden in New York. Philadelphia's Boxing Heritage: 1876-1976 showcases these legends and retraces their championship bouts through more than two hundred dazzling photographs.

In the 1860s, Broad Street formed the western edge of downtown Philadelphia and was little more than railroad tracks and train depots.

However, with the building of Philadelphia City Hall in the 1870s, Broad Street rapidly developed into one of the city's premier streets. Rows of mansions sprung up south of Spruce Street, and the area north of Spruce became known as ""hotel row."" Four-story brownstones lined both sides of North Broad Street, interspersed with the mansions and gardens of the nouveau riche and punctuated by clubs, theaters, schools, churches, and synagogues. Philadelphia's Broad Street: South and North is the first photographic history devoted exclusively to Broad Street in its ""gilded age."" These vintage images provide a vivid reminder, if one is needed, of how dramatically the street has changed in the last one hundred years.

Stunning photographs highlight a marvel of masonry and community vision created by a city hungry to prove its worth on the world stage.

At the crossroads of Center City, Philadelphia, stands city hall, an architectural and sculptural masterpiece whose size and beauty rival the grand structures found in the capitals of Europe. Shortly after the Civil War, city hall embraced the community's need for a new municipal building while filling the visionary desire of its designers to underscore Philadelphia's reputation as ""the Athens of America."" Thirty years later stood a monumental structure that was easily the largest building in North America and one of the most beautiful, displaying over two hundred fifty pieces of sculpture. Philadelphia's City Hall illuminates the fascinating account of the building's controversial origin, its symbolic sculptural program, and the largest statue topping a building in the world.

"C.C.A. Baldi ruled Little Italy, and everyone who wished to deal with the Italians knew it."

Go back to turn of the century Philadelphia and discover the incredible immigrant success story of C.C.A. Baldi and his brothers as they build a business empire while pathing a path for the Italian community and becoming the King of Little Italy.

Join Harry Kyriakodis as he strolls Front Street, Delaware Avenue, and Penn's Landing to rediscover the story of Philadelphia's lost waterfront.

The wharves and docks of William Penn's city that helped build a nation are gone lost to the onslaught of over 300 years of development. Yet the bygone streets and piers of Philadelphia's central waterfront were once part of the greatest tradecenter in the American colonies. Local historian Harry Kyriakodis chronicles the history of the city's original port district from Quaker settlers who first lived in caves along the Delaware and the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1793 to its heyday as a maritime center and then the twentieth century that saw much of the historic riverfront razed.

Southwark's deep history is tied to its relationship to the waterfront and the multitude of immigrant communities that settled its streets.

The area along the banks of the Delaware River originally known as Philadelphia's Southwark District encompasses the present-day neighborhoods of Queen Village, Pennsport, and Dickinson Square West. The Washington Avenue Immigration Station, Southwark's counterpart to Ellis Island, was a testament to the waves of immigrants reaching America's shores in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of the immigrants who stayed in Philadelphia found inexpensive housing in Southwark and employment along the waterfront. Today, the neighborhoods of old Southwark continue to embrace diversity. Many of the area's historic houses still stand alongside newly built homes. While the construction of high-volume roadways cut off the neighborhoods from the waterfront, new efforts are reconnecting Southwark to the river through improved access points and attractive waterfront recreation areas.

Images of America: Philadelphia's River Wards captures the history of these five neighborhoods in more than two hundred vintage photographs, rare maps, and historical drawings.

Philadelphia's River Wards is the story of five remarkable neighborhoods that line the banks of the Delaware River from Vine Street to the Frankford Creek: Northern Liberties, Kensington, Port Richmond, Frankford, and Bridesburg. The first white settlers arrived in the area in the 1600s, and the population grew with the influx of European immigrants in the 1800s and early 1900s. Industry flourished as fabric and textile mills sprang up and shipyards and terminals lined the waterfront. In 1922, the Frankford El, a technological marvel, forever changed the face of transportation in the area, connecting the River Wards to the far reaches of the city. Philadelphia's River Wards captures this history in more than two hundred vintage photographs, rare maps, and historical drawings.

Become Part of the Store Family

From its flagship store on Market Street in the heart of Philadelphia, Strawbridge & Clothier strove to meet the needs of its customers for over a century. Built on a foundation of integrity and character, the store and its founders, Justus Strawbridge and Isaac Clothier, made sure the customer was always right and the price just. The department store later branched out to nearby New Jersey and Delaware in the mid to late Twentieth Century. At the time of its sale in 1996, Strawbridge & Clothier was the oldest department store in the country with continuous family ownership.

Author Margaret Strawbridge Butterworth charts the history of Philadelphia’s Strawbridge & Clothier through vivid stories from past employees and customers alike as she invites readers to join the “store family./p>