Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse
9781467163163
Regular price $24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%For over 125 years, Philadelphians and visitors from around the world have delighted in discovering Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse, a hidden gem within the city’s sprawling Fairmount Park.
Since opening in 1899, at the bequest of Richard and Sarah Smith, this unique play space, complete with a mansion purpose-built to support young children’s play, has provided a respite from city heat, connection to nature, and myriad opportunities for child-directed play and family recreation. The playground’s beloved Ida Newman wooden slide, originally built in 1905, has delighted generations of children. The evolution of Smith’s Playground and Playhouse and the numerous other programs and facilities it ran across the city over its first 125 years follows the development and theories of the playground movement and other child-saving campaigns of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Using the rich visual material in the Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse Archives, housed at the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University’s Charles Library, as well as holdings at other regional archives, former Smith board member, landscape architect, and play advocate Anna Forrester and play movement scholar Dr. Deborah Shine Valentine provide a nuanced, well-researched tribute to one of Philadelphia’s unique historic spaces.
Philadelphia Quakers and the American Revolution
9781467159906
Regular price $24.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Discover the history of Philadelphia's Quakers as they rose to power and prosperity and fell into peril.
Fleeing political upheavals in England for settlement in the New World, Quakers rose to unprecedented economic and political power in the Pennsylvania colony. However, the failure of the Quaker-dominated government to provide for defense in the wars from the 1730s into the 1760s was the beginning of their downfall. By the Revolution, their fortunes had waned, and they were brutally suppressed by their political foes. Seventeen influential Friends and three others were exiled to Virginia without so much as a hearing, and Quaker farms and businesses were subject to depredations. Labeled dissenters by Loyalist and Patriot alike, they stood their ground, alone and isolated.
Through the words of those who were there, author and historian Jeff Denman vividly describes the precipitous rise of the Philadelphia Quakers and their fall during the American Revolution.
Local Baby Pittsburgh
9781467196123
Regular price $11.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%Bursting with delightful colors and bright illustrations, Local Baby Pittsburgh engages babies’ attention and encourages families to explore what makes their beautiful city so great.
Families can experience all that Pittsburgh, PA, has to offer: see three rivers combine at Point State Park; ride the Monongahela Incline; explore history and culture at the Cathedral of Learning; or cheer on the championship home teams!
Explore Pittsburgh with this joyfully grabbable and wonderfully local board book that is sure to bring generations together.
