Kategoria BISAC: History >> United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA)

David Franks, a colonial businessman in Philadelphia, was one of the most important figures in American Jewish history in the eighteenth century. This extensively researched biography illuminates not only Franks's personal dealings, but also his business life. Franks was involved with Indian trade, ship design and building, manufacturing, international trade, land speculation, westward exploration, and military provisioning. This volume follows Franks from his beginnings in a prominent Jewish family to his trials for treason and his exile in the postrevolutionary period, offering a unique...

Shaun O'Boyle has been photographing ruined landscapes and buildings, primarily in the mid-Atlantic region, for more than twenty-five years. This collection of photographs features some of his best work. The book is divided into four sections, each representing a type of site now abandoned--prisons and mental health institutions, steel production facilities, coal mining and processing facilities, and a weapons arsenal. These photographs are hauntingly beautiful; they are also historically and culturally instructive.

Modern Ruins begins with an introduction by architectural...

When the Disney Company ended months of controversy in 1995 by deciding against locating its historic theme park near the National Battlefield Park in Manassas, Virginia, advocates of historic preservation had won their own battle but perhaps not their war.

Few places exemplify the problems of historic preservation as urgently as Manassas. The site of this Civil War battle, also known as Bull Run, has been encroached upon by plans for an interstate highway, a cemetery, a shopping mall, and two theme parks. As Washington continues its sprawl into the Virginia countryside, pressure...

This book breaks new ground by offering the first detailed and systematic analysis of inheritance practices in New York City from the beginning of Dutch settlement in the 1620s to the onset of the American Revolution. By analyzing a broad range of original sources including more than 2,300 wills David E. Narrett shows how the transmission of property at death reflected the distribution of power and authority within the family.

The author makes an especially important contribution to early New York history by explaining the Dutch origins of social and family customs, and by tracing the...

During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Pennsylvania German, often referred to as "Deitsh" or "Dutch," was spoken by a third of the state's population, yet up until that time, few had attempted to document the typically oral tradition in writing. E. H. Rauch was considered an early leader among those dedicated to exposing the dialect to the masses through print. Defined by no particular orthography, early spelling was incredibly variable. Rauch's Pennsylvania Dutch Hand-Book was one of several dictionaries that emerged in an attempt to establish uniformity and to...