“a Representative Of America”
Vain, snobbish, distinctly upper-class in his libertine social habits, Gouverneur Morris nevertheless saw himself justifiably asArnold WhitridgeJune 1976Of all the remarkable men who forgathered in...
View ArticleThe Revolution Continues
Bruce CattonJune 1976The bell is old and it is badly cracked and it has not been rung for years, nor will it ever be rung again. But although it is quite useless from a practical standpoint, it is...
View ArticlePorn In Philly, 1912
October 1976Pornography seems to be doing very well these days. Every fair-sized town has its “adult-book store,” and x-rated feature films have advanced from their first big-city beachheads of the...
View ArticleGeorge Washington’s Beautiful Nelly
Donald JacksonFebruary 1977Miss Eleanor Custis … has more perfection of expression, of color, of softness, and of firmness of mind than I have ever seen before or conceived consistent with mortality....
View ArticleBig Grizzly
Gargantuan, gross, and cynical, the patrician boss Boies Penrose descended from aristocracy to dominate Pennsylvania Republican politics for thirty yearsJohn LukacsOctober/November 1978The history of...
View ArticleFairmount
How the Philadelphia waterworks became a potent symbol of our lost belief that nature and technology could live together in harmonyMichal McmahonApril/May 1979Charles Dickens apparently found little...
View ArticleFrederick Winslow Taylor
The Messiah of Time and MotionSpencer KlawAugust/September 1979Toward the end of the last century an idea took form in the mind of a Philadelphia factory engineer that was destined to change, in...
View ArticleThe Philadelphia Ladies Association
Although it has been disparaged as “General Washington’s Sewing Circle,” this venture was the first nationwide female organization in AmericaMary Beth NortonApril/may 1980When news that the British...
View ArticleYou Are Invited To A Mischianza
Saluting a departing general, the British dazzled Philadelphians with the grandest party the city had ever seen; the tiny army that had toppled the general bided its time nearbyMorris BishopAugust...
View ArticleThe Witch & We, The People
Did the fifty-five statesmen meeting in Philadelphia at the Constitutional Convention know that a witch-hunt was taking place while they deliberated? Did they care?Edmund S. MorganAugust/september...
View ArticleThe Oddest Of Characters
Slovenly, impulsive, impoverished, and grotesque, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque was the greatest naturalist of his age. But nobody knew it.Peggy RobbinsJune/july 1985It is quite fitting,” wrote a...
View ArticleMade In Philadelphia
Artfully composed still-life photographs from a rare 1871 album transform brushes, sponges, and stationery supplies into symbols of a proud, industrial societyKenneth KinkelAugust/september 1985Five...
View ArticleUnexpected Philadelphia
A fond, canny, and surprising tour of the town where the Constitution was bornJohn LukacsMay/June 1987Two hundred years ago Philadelphia was the natural place for the constitution-makers. There was...
View ArticleHow Did Our Prisons Get That Way?
The penitentiary was invented in the United States as a more rational and humane way of punishing. It quickly ran into problems that still overwhelm us.Roger T. PrayJuly/August 1987Prisons are a fact...
View ArticleThe Peales
‘The ingenious Captain Peale” sired a dynasty of painters and started America’s first great museum.Oliver JensenApril 1955The aide-de-camp strode into the painting room and handed a message to General...
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