History Commons^™

Two Murder Confessions And The Struggle For Black Authority In Early 19th Century Philadelphia, Garrett Gaither

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

As Richard Allen Headed to the prision to help facilitate the confessions of a murder that shook the city of Philadelphia, he let his mind wander. It felt just like yesterday that he arrived in the city and started preaching and helping his Black brothers and sisters. They had made so much progress over his few decades in Philadelphia: an independent church they were still fighting to hold onto, the new law against the Atlantic slave trade, and a large Black community that was active in his church. Despite all of this success, racial tensions were rising in the city. …

The 1985 Move Bombing: A Study In Perspectives, Kaci Delisle

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a military grade bomb on 6221 Osage Avenue, a row house in a Black neighborhood in West Philadelphia. This home was occupied by a revolutionary group called MOVE. The bomb started a fire that the police and firefighters decided to “contain” rather than put out, resulting in the deaths of eleven people and the destruction of sixty-one homes. Only two MOVE members survived the fire. Using court records, documents from the investigation conducted by the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (PSIC), and other interviews regarding MOVE and the bombing, this paper reconstructs different perspectives …

Peculiar And Proper Habits: The Use And Production Of Academic Dress In Colonial, Revolutionary, And Federal Philadelphia, Nicholas Heavens

Transactions of the Burgon Society

This is a study of the adoption and use of academic dress at the University of Pennsylvania and its predecessor institutions, the College of Philadelphia and University of the State of Pennsylvania from approximately 1750–1830. Despite early interest of the College’s founder, Benjamin Franklin, to use academic dress to monitor student activities outside college bounds, there was soon contentious debate between the institution’s founding senior academics about whether academic dress should be used at all. By sheer force of will of its leading proponent, academic dress came into use at public ceremonies. These public ceremonies became a model for public …

'The Street Scene Prologue': Holocaust Survivors, The American Nazi Party, And Exodus, Jason Van

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

During the early 1960s when the American Civil Rights movement was beginning to gain momentum, another movement across the world was taking place to solidify the newly formed country of Israel as a sovereign state. To commemorate the foundation of Israel, American director Otto Preminger created the film Exodus, adapted from a book of the same name by Leon Uris. George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, decided to take action by traveling throughout the country with his closest members to protest the film. Rockwell and his group of Nazis were outraged by the pro-Zionist depictions and the …

Alfred Ayers, Sr.

African American Funeral Programs, Willow Hill Heritage & Renaissance Center, Bulloch County, Georgia

No abstract provided.

Benjamin Smith Lyman: Geologist At The Intersection Of Hokkaido, Japan, And The United States, Benjamin Ashby

Masters Theses

Benjamin Smith Lyman was a geologist from Northampton, Massachusetts, who was contracted by the Japanese government in 1872 to carry out coal surveys on the island of Hokkaidō 北海道. What started out as a standard geological survey, quickly evolved into a lifelong interest in Japan for Lyman. The large collection of letters, books, photographs, and other documents housed under the Benjamin Smith Lyman Collection at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, serve as a primary source on both early relations between the Japanese and the West and the beginnings of the large network of academic writings which today can be classified …

“By Her Needle Maintain Herself With Reputation:” Philadelphia Quaker Women And The Materiality Of Piety, 1758-1760, Laura Earls

Madison Historical Review

From the garments that they made to the ways that they spoke, Quakers grappled with the outward trappings of piety. Unofficial Quaker guidance enumerated some vague criteria for plain garments around the turn of the eighteenth century, but aside from this, pious members largely decided for themselves what was or was not plain. This paper utilizes a close study of the diaries and possessions of women including Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker, Grace Peel Dowell Parr, Hannah Callender Sansom, and their contemporaries to argue that, rather than represent lapses of faith, their material worlds represented individual interpretations of plainness within rigid social …

"At The Peril Of Our Lives": Race, Citizenship, And Philadelphia's 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic., Abigail Posey

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

The late-eighteenth century was a crucial time for determining the social role of black people in Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania at large. In 1780, the state legislature began a gradual abolition process that contributed to a growing free Black population in the city, while many other Black Philadelphians remained in bondage. Their livelihoods remained restricted by anti-Black laws that contributed to the overall poor health of Black Philadelphians. As the yellow fever epidemic began in 1793, Philadelphia’s medical community supported racist scientific myths that Black people possessed a natural immunity to yellow fever. In an agreement with the city and Dr. …

Phyllis Hammel Oral History Interview April 19th, 2021, Henry B. Hammel

Oral Histories HIST300, Spring 2021

Oral History Interview with Phyllis Hammel.

Reimagining Move: Revolutionary Black Humanism And The 1985 Bombing, Joseph E. Cranston

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the extremist group, MOVE and its founder Vincent Leaphart (a.k.a John Africa) in the context of Revolutionary Black humanism, rather than simply a footnote in the tragic events of May 13, 1985. it explores MOVE's predecessors in the Black Panther movement, including The Black Panther Party and how these organizations and individuals might have influenced MOVE and their aims. In addition, ample examination is given to the role that systemic police brutality and racism, specifically within the Philadelphia Police department and city government played in the decisions that MOVE made as they attempted to create a community …

Promises Unfulfilled: Integration And Segregation In Metropolitan Philadelphia Public Schools, 1954-2009, Nina Nayiri Mckay

Honors Projects

Even though Brown v. Board of Education outlawed segregation in public schools in 1954, many American children still attend schools that are racially and, increasingly, socioeconomically segregated. Philadelphia, a northern city that did not have an explicit policy of segregating children on the basis of race when Brown was decided, nevertheless still has entrenched residential segregation that replicates in public schools. The metropolitan area became a segregated space in the years around World War II, when housing discrimination, employment discrimination, lending discrimination, suburbanization, and urban renewal started the years-long trajectory of growing white suburbs surrounding an increasingly non-white and under-resourced …

Body Snatching In Philadelphia: A Social And Cultural History, 1762-1883, Timothy R. Dewysockie

Theses and Dissertations

In 18th-century Philadelphia the first medical school in the thirteen British colonies was established. However, cadavers for dissection could only be obtained involuntarily, a posthumous punishment generally reserved for murderers and suicides. Body snatching, the disinterment of corpses for dissection, immediately became a problem because legal sources of "subjects" did not meet demand. Body snatching was resisted in popular representations and the actions of everyday citizens in riots, petitions, and other forms of protest. However, in the late 19th century the requisition of "unclaimed" bodies for dissection - that is, dead "paupers" - became enshrined in Pennsylvania's 1883 Anatomy Act, …

Is This A Christian Nation?: Virtual Symposium September 25, 2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Move: Philadelphia's Forgotten Bombing, Charles Abraham

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

On May 13, 1985, the city of Philadelphia erupted into flames. Under the orders of Mayor Wilson Goode, the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb onto the row house containing MOVE, a cult-like organization, on Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. The resulting fire killed eleven people, including five children, and burned down sixty-one houses. By examining newspaper articles on MOVE, the bombing by the Philadelphia Police, and the public’s response, this paper investigates how Mayor Goode was able to continue his political career and how this bombing has faded into obscurity outside of the city. The media’s attitude and reporting …

John Leamy's Atlantic Worlds: Trade, Religion, And Imperial Transformations In The Spanish Empire And Early Republican Philadelphia, Linda K. Salvucci

History Faculty Research

John Leamy (1757–1839) accumulated a substantial fortune through trade with the Spanish Empire following the American Revolution. This immigrant from Ireland, via southern Spain, was the key player in establishing Philadelphia's dominant role in Cuban markets during the 1790s. Unlike his Protestant competitors, as a high-profile Catholic, Leamy nurtured successful personal and commercial relationships with those Spanish imperial bureaucrats charged with regulating the trade. In the new century, as the Spanish Empire destabilized, Leamy adjusted both his business strategies and religious practices. With his Catholic loyalties in flux, he led the lay trustees of St. Mary's during the Hogan Schism …

Arming Of The U.S. Army During War 1861, Jessica Colfer

Lesson Plans

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: 60 minutes

Learning Objectives:

• The student will be able to identify the armament of the Union army at the beginning of the Civil War.
• The student will consider the preparedness of the Union and Confederate armies.
• The student compare and contrast prior knowledge about the Civil War to interpret historical documents.
• The student will be able to analyze and interpret a primary document.

The Election Of 1860 And The Secession Of The South, Jessica Colfer

Lesson Plans

Grade Level: 9-12

Lesson Length: 80 minutes

Learning Objectives:

• Students will be able to analyze primary documents and identify the relation between student attendance and the political and societal context of the time.
• Students will be able to analyze and apply their prior knowledge to interpret the perspectives of those during the outbreak of the Civil War.
• Students will be able to identify the primary causes of South Carolina’s secession from the Union.

From Mourning To Monuments: How American Society Memorialized The Dead After 1945, Eugenia M. Wolovich

Theses and Dissertations

The following four memorials — the World War II Memorial in The Fens in Boston, the Brooklyn War Memorial in Cadman Plaza Park, the Pennsylvania Railroad World War II Memorial in the 30th Street Station, and the East Coast War Memorial in Battery Park — suggest that mid-twentieth century commemorative architecture possessed defining characteristics that differentiated them from monuments of the previous era and from each other. These unique qualities make it difficult to define this architectural period in a unified way because multiple forms of memorials arose in the wake of World War II.

Interview Of Richard Kestler, F.S.C., M.A., Richard Kestler Fsc, Alexandria Moraschi

All Oral Histories

Brother Richard Kestler, FSC. was born John Kestler on January 8, 1942 to John and Alice Kestler. He grew up in the Oxford Circle section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brother Richard attended elementary school at his parish of St. Martin of Tours and went on to La Salle College High School, graduating in 1960. By this time, he made the decision to join the Christian Brothers and began this process for about a year before attending La Salle College. He graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor’s in Mathematics and gained a Master’s in Theology soon after. Brother Richard also has Master’s …

Alexander Koppel: Pioneer - Physician - Provider, Max Koppel

Jefferson Biographies

Alexander Koppel was born to immigrant parents on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1905. Early in his life, his mother was forced to return to Austria to her tenant farmer parents with Alexander and his two sisters because of a severe downturn in the American economy. A few years later, his mother brilliantly sensed the upcoming disastrous World War in 1913, and returned with the three children to Wilmington, Delaware where by that time, her husband, Samuel Koppel, had established the Wilmington Window Cleaning Company.

Alexander Koppel seized the opportunity for higher education made available to …

Free French "Gentlemen Of Couleur” : Reconsidering Race, Ethnicity, And Migration In Philadelphia's Catering Industry, 1870-1930, Elena G. Palazzolo

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the story of Philadelphia’s elite French West Indian catering families. It takes into consideration multiple perspectives to supplement scholarship that focuses on the families solely as West Indian refugees, Creole elites, or exceptional caterers. The history of the Augustin, Baptiste, and Dutrieuille families nuances previous works on West Indian immigrants, racial hierarchies, and foodways in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Philadelphia and builds on scholarship about people of mixed racial origins in the Atlantic world. I contend that these families carefully navigated their liminal position in segregated Philadelphia as mixed-race French Creoles to the effect that they …

Jews And The Sources Of Religious Freedom In Early Pennsylvania, Jonathon Derek Awtrey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Historians’ traditional narrative regarding religious freedom in the colonial period and early republic focuses on Protestants and sometimes Catholics to the exclusion of other religious groups; the literature also emphasizes the legal dimensions of freedom at the expense of its cultural manifestations. This study, conversely, demonstrates that Jews, the only white non-Christian minority group in early Pennsylvania, experienced freedom far differently than its legality can adequately explain. Jews, moreover, reshaped religious freedom to include religious groups beyond Protestant Christians alone. But such grassroots transformations were neither quick nor easy. Like most of the Anglo-American world, William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” excluded …

Pennsylvania's Loyalists And Disaffected In The Age Of Revolution: Defining The Terrain Of Reintegration, 1765-1800, Rene J. Silva

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

PENNSYLVANIA’S LOYALISTS AND DISAFFECTED IN THE AGE OF REVOLUTION: DEFINING THE TERRAIN OF REINTEGRATION, 1765-1800

by

René José Silva

Florida International University, 2018

Miami, Florida

Professor Kirsten Wood, Major Professor

This study examines the reintegration of loyalists and disaffected residents in Pennsylvania who opposed the American Revolution from the Stamp Act crisis in 1765 through the Age of Federalism in 1790s. The inquiry argues that postwar loyalist reintegration in Pennsylvania succeeded because of the attitudes, behavior, actions and contributions of both disaffected residents and patriot citizens. The focus is chiefly on the legal battle over citizenship, …

The Grizzly, November 30, 2017, Valerie Osborne, Courtney A. Duchene, Thomas Bantley, Sarah Hojsak, Johnny Myers, Emily Jolly, Sophia Dibattista, Kevin Leon, Chloe Sheraden, David Mendelsohn

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Ursinus Lights Up the Night • UC Investment Club Stocks Up on Success • Student Perspective: Philly X Moves UC Students to a Big City with Big Opportunities • Hallelujah: Handel's Messiah Returns to Ursinus • Ursinus Students in the Theater • Great Pie Conquest of 2017 • Opinions: Temporary Protection Status Needs as Much Support as DACA; Ursinus Must Support the Humanities Through its Facilities • UC Wrestling Starts Hot • Promising Tip-off for Women's Hoops

Sawyer, Charles, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Charles Sawyer was born and raised in Philadelphia in 1940. He describes the need to be closeted as a young man, dating women, entering the military, and being discharged on suspicion of being gay. This outed him to his family who were largely supportive. He fell in love with a young man for the first time at age 21; his then lover was 17. Once the boyfriend outed himself to his parents, the boyfriend was sent to a psychiatrist who, he reported, he had sex with. Sawyer talks about gay bars and police harassment in Philadelphia and describes early monogamous …

Vance, Edward Richard, 1833-1902 (Mss 612), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 612. Correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs and family papers of Richard Vance, a Warren County, Kentucky native and U.S. Army officer. After his Civil War service, Vance spent his career at several posts in the South and on the frontier until his retirement in 1892.

Making An Impression: Butter Prints, The Butter Market, And Rural Women In Nineteenth-Century Southeastern Pennsylvania, Jennifer L. Putnam

Madison Historical Review

Pre-industrial butter-making was an arduous process, involving milking, churning, proper storage, printing, and, sometimes, transport to market. The 19th-century economy in Philadelphia was forever changed by the practice of rural women selling their surplus butter as a response to the rise of consumerism. Butter-making provided rural women with the means to earn their own income, providing economic agency and increasing their independence by allowing them to work outside of the home. Butter prints emerged as a way to brand one’s butter with a signature trademark. A print’s size and shape, the materials and methods used in its construction, and the …

Supply, Demand, And The Making Of A Market: Philadelphia And Havana At The Beginning Of The Nineteenth Century, Linda Salvucci

Linda K Salvucci

In his 1984 assessment of the state of historical research, "The Transatlantic Economy," Jacob Price comments: "The writing of most early American economic history has concentrated upon supply. For many branches of the economy, the great unexplored frontier may well be demand." The relationship between Philadelphia and Havana is a case in point. From the onset of the American Revolution until well past the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the port cities of Havana and Philadelphia were inextricably linked. As their own rich hinterlands expanded, and as established transatlantic trade routes disintegrated, Havana and Philadelphia grew ever closer, exerting profound …

Anglo-American Merchants And Stratagems For Success In Spanish Imperial Markets, 1783-1807, Linda Salvucci

Linda K Salvucci

When Josiah Blakeley, consul of the United States at Santiago de Cuba, wrote these lines to Secretary of State James Madison on November 1, 1801 he had recently been jailed by administrators on that island. This remarkable situation notwithstanding, his sentiments still neatly express the paradox of trade between the United States and Spanish Caribbean ports. The expanding hinterlands of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore furnished North American merchants with ever increasing, exportable food supplies and led to fierce competition for new markets at the end of the eighteenth century. At the same time, Spain's American colonies remained chronically, often …

Tolle Collection (Mss 524), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 524. Correspondence and papers of the Tolle family of Barren County, Kentucky. Includes data on the Tolle, Snoddy and Bransford families, William Daniel Tolle’s history of Barren County, and materials relating to his work as a veteran’s pension claims agent.