Making of America

Taking the name Pennsylvania Dutch from a corruption of their own word for themselves, "Deutsch," the first German settlers arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683. By the time of the American Revolution, their influence was such that Benjamin Franklin, among others, worried that German would become the commonwealth's official language. The continuing influence of the Church peoples-the Amish and Mennonites and others who constitute the still-vibrant Dutch culture-can be seen today in icons of Americana from apple pie to log cabins.

With an industrial foundation laid down more than 200 years ago, Beaver Falls quickly secured a role in history as one of the most well-established manufacturing towns in western Pennsylvania. Further recognition as a "Pittsburgh in miniature" soon followed as the town's commercial base grew and prospered during the halcyon days of the nineteenth century. Early residents strove to build the town into a self-supporting community committed to family values, and Beaver Falls continued to grow and thrive after the mills and factories gave way to the social experiments of the Harmony Society and the founding of Geneva College.

Beaver Falls: Gem of Beaver County devotes a chapter to local football legend Joe Namath's first season of greatness, complete with play-by-play details of the exciting Friday night high school games. "Broadway Joe's" early team picture is here, along with dozens more rare and compelling, never-before-published images. Readers will also find telling narratives of the Big Snow of 1950 and the Great Race of 1908, with more than 100 vintage photographs and maps detailing the gripping stories and unique memories chronicled here.

Once a Native American hunting ground, the industrial melting pot of Monessen, in western Pennsylvania, rises over a horseshoe bend in the Monongahela River. Established in 1898, this powerhouse town boomed for close to 60 years, producing vast amounts of steel and other crucial industrial materials. Known for its cultural diversity, Monessen's predominantly immigrant population-with the highest naturalization rate in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century-and the vibrant neighborhoods they established were entirely sustained by the local mills. The battles for decent pay, job protection, benefits, and an 8-hour day kindled fiercely for decades until Monessen and towns like it in the Monongahela Valley gave the average person a dignity denied them for centuries: decent pay for decent work. Families thrived. Children went to college. It was the American dream. Then, neighborhoods began to unravel, foreign imports stole jobs, and finally the mills, the only support of the town, closed.

Demonstrating their unyielding spirit, Monessen residents have struggled to fight for the recovery and rebirth of their hometown. In this new history, Monessen: A Typical Steel Country Town, informative narrative highlights the rapid expansion and gradual demise of a society built almost solely on its industrial endeavors and recounts how a disjointed populace has come together to restore their proud community. Over 100 striking photographs depict the dominating presence of the mills, the quiet faces of the people who toiled there, scenes of daily life, and memorable events through the years, as well as the dramatic changes that have marked Monessen's unique history.

Harrisburg was the capital of an increasingly urban and progressive Pennsylvania at the turn of the twentieth century, with the remnants of an older, more diverse city thriving in its midst. As the streets were paved for the first time and the new state capitol building rose over a humming industrial city ready to embrace change, Harrisburg's Eighth Ward clung to its rambunctious past. When the "Old Eighth" stood in the way of the new Capitol Park, one journalist asked his readers to take a stroll through the streets one last time.

J. Howard Wert's "Passing of the Old Eighth" articles-awash in images of decrepitude and vice-appeared in the Harrisburg Patriot in 1912-1913 and introduced readers to such cheats, fools, and boozers as Harry Cook and "Billy Jelly." This volume presents the complete series of 35 articles chronicling the adventures of people who lived through some of the most sweeping changes in American history. More than 100 photographs-most never before published-evoke Wert's tales of a turbulent Harrisburg now long gone. Through the captivating, rarely objective voice of turn-of-the-century journalism, readers visit vanished churchyards, stroll the halls of forgotten hotels, and walk with the ghosts of gangs through crumbling alleys to brothels, gambling dens, and speakeasies. No history of Harrisburg can match this one for detailed stories of the successes and scandals of the city's "good old days."

Noted educator, journalist, and Civil War veteran J. Howard Wert's articles bring to life the colorful characters and day-to-day grit and drama of his time. By turns pious, hard-nosed, and folksy, Wert's prose veers wildly among literary modes but never fails to entertain. A melding of nineteenth-century moral sensibility and modern appreciation for progress makes this work as accessible to today's readers as it was to Wert's contemporaries.

Old City Philadelphia is the heart of the City of Brotherly Love, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution written. From the Delaware Indians and early Swedish settlers to the artisans and craftspeople who lived along Elfreth's Alley-the oldest residential street in the United States-this town represented the backbone of the new nation until the city's priorities shifted. As change buffeted the city and the nation, Old City Philadelphia resisted passing into oblivion and recreated itself as a place committed to tradition, craftsmanship, and history that is a resident's, and visitor's, delight.

Nestled at the foot of the Appalachian mountains and divided by the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, Williamsport's striking landscape provided inspiration as well as protection even before the town's inception in 1796. What was once the beacon of a thriving lumber industry and in time became the cradle of our nation's pastime with baseball's Little League World Series, has evolved into a city with a dynamic story rich in culture and tradition.

Born at the dawn of America's great canal era, Girard thrived on the streams of commerce and life flowing through Pennsylvania on the Erie Canal. Home also to the nation's first Civil War monument and one of the few banks to remain open during the Great Depression, the town stayed in the mainstream of history even after the canals dried up and time passed on.