PA BOOKS on PCN

Learn about the stories of the men and women who traveled across the mountain ranges and through the valleys that made up the Appalachian region, focusing on the 18th century leading to the American Revolution and events that occurred mainly in Pennsylvania and New York. Donate | Signup | pcntv.com

Pittsburgh contains multitudes. From the decline of the steel industry and the exodus of a vast diaspora of Pittsburghers to its reinvention as a trendy mid-sized metropolis, the ethos of the Steel City remains ever-changing. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Community and Economic Development. Donate | Signup | pcntv.com

From the 1920s through the 1960s, Pittsburgh's Hill District was the heart of the city's Black cultural life and home to a vibrant jazz scene. In Jazz in the Hill: Nightlife and Narratives of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood, Colter Harper looks at how jazz shaped the neighborhood and created a way of life. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department...

A born daredevil, John Homan joined the Army Air Forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By 1944, he was co-piloting a B-24 Liberator over Nazi Germany, raining death and destruction on the enemy. The tale will leave readers staggered by the determination and grit of World War II aviators. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Department of Commun...

From the origins of "Penn's Woods" to the controversial practice of fracking, Cradle of Conservation provides the first comprehensive study of Pennsylvania's environmental history. The story starts with forester Ralph Brock at the dawn of the conservation era and continues through the eras of energy production using coal, oil, natural gas, and other resources. This project was financed in part by...

"Never To Be Forgotten" tells the story of York County Pennsylvania residents just living their lives, building homes, raising families, making things and growing communities. The general history of this south central Pennsylvania county shows - with concise writing and more than 250 pictures - a community that is working hard at getting better - a place and people that are building on a worthy pa...

Take a new definitive look through the eyes of a misunderstood backcountry merchant, Major William Trent, who not only overcame obstacles and suffered loss, but whose strong quill and rebellious interactions with future founding fathers Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, ambitiously helped shape and form the future United States of America. This project was financed in part by a grant from...

Philadelphia is famous for its colonial and revolutionary buildings and artifacts, but Philadelphia existed long before the Liberty Bell was first rung, and its history extends well beyond the American Revolution. This book presents a comprehensive portrait of the city, from the region's original Lenape inhabitants to the myriad of residents in the twenty-first century. This project was financed i...

Gathering a treasure trove of powerful, rare, and haunting original documents, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo presents a uniquely readable and intimate oral history of the Civil War's turning point. We hear from a Union staff officer, a Confederate amputee, artilleryman, a sympathetic Northern woman, a Union prisoner-of-war, Union colonels and Confede...

This book provides a comprehensive examination of the Keystone State's formal and informal political institutions and players, past and present, and elucidates the place each holds in governing the commonwealth today. Covering a period of more than three hundred years, this volume presents a clear and succinct overview of the commonwealth's political history, culture, and geography. Donate | Signu...

In 1918, Bethlehem Steel started the world's greatest industrial baseball league. Appealing to Major League Baseball players looking to avoid service in the Great War, teams employed "ringers" like Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, and Shoeless Joe Jackson in what became scornfully known as "safe shelter" leagues. Donate | Signup | pcntv.com

Beginning in the early 1990s, Pittsburgh's South Side neighborhood began to transform from the post-industrial morass it had been suffering for the last few decades. Artists began to rent empty apartments, what were once shot-and-a-beer bars became hip dive bars and entrepreneurs found inexpensive real estate to follow their visions. It was in this landscape that the Beehive Coffeehouse began to a...

In 1917, at the start of World War I, among global war and a global pandemic, Harrisburgers stepped up and served. The city experienced tribulations as residents feared espionage, suspected foreigners and demanded loyalty. Hospitals struggled with the 1918 flu at their doorstep. Join author Rodney Ross as he charts the World War I era and the Harrisburg home front. Donate | Signup | pcntv.com

George Washington has frequently been criticized for his first military campaign, which sparked the French and Indian War. While his campaign failed to meet its objectives, Washington experienced his first taste of military command, dealing with situations that ultimately proved beyond his control, and learned lessons that made him into the man who led the Continental Army to victory in the Revolu...

In late 1975 and early 1976, at the height of the Cold War, two of the Soviet Union's long-dominant national hockey teams traveled to North America to play an eight-game series against the best teams in the National Hockey League. The culmination of the "Super Series" was reigning Soviet League champion HC CSKA Moscow's face-off against the defending NHL champion Flyers in Philadelphia on January...

"Telling of the Anthracite" explores the various ways in which anthracite history has been represented and remembered since 1960, the chosen date for the start of the "posthistorical" era coinciding approximately with the Knox mine disaster (1959) and the beginning of the Centralia mine fire (1962-), two cataclysmic and fateful events that symbolize the beginning of the end for wide scale deep ant...

Irving College was the first college to offer degrees in the arts and sciences to women and that two of its buildings still stand to this day. Named after famed author Washington Irving, this college for women was part of a nationwide trend in the nineteenth century to finally educate women, but a trend that was always fraught with opposition. Donate | Signup | pcntv.com

Of the more than seventy sites associated with the Civil War era that the National Park Service manages, none hold more national appeal and recognition than Gettysburg National Military Park. In "On a Great Battlefield," Jennifer M. Murray chronicles the administration of the National Park Service and how it educates the public about the battle and the Civil War as a whole since it acquired the si...

The September 11, 1777, battle of Brandywine, a defeat for General George Washington, is too often forgotten by historians. Brandywine was one of the most important engagements of the war, also the largest land battle. Lafayette began his rise to an American hero that afternoon when he shed his blood for American freedom. Artist Karl J. Kuerner and author Bruce E. Mowday grew up near the main batt...

Turbulent rapids and wild shorelines of the Youghiogheny River highlight natural wonders of the Appalachian Mountains, and midway on the stream's revealing path, Ohiopyle State Park is a showcase of beauty and has become a recreational hotspot where the river thunders over its iconic falls and cascades through the wooded gorges of Pennsylvania. Now, in this revised and expanded edition of his clas...

The British Army in North America conducted two campaigns in 1777. John Burgoyne led one army south from Canada to seize control of the Lake Champlain-Hudson River corridor resulting in the battle of Saratoga. Rather than assist Burgoyne's campaign, William Howe led his army from New York City on the Philadelphia campaign. Although Howe captured Philadelphia, the events of 1777 led to the French A...

The first installment (June 3-22, 1863) carried the armies through the defining mounted clash at Battle of Brandy Station, after which Lee pushed his corps into the Shenandoah Valley and achieved the magnificent victory at Second Winchester on his way to the Potomac. Caught flat-footed, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker used his cavalry to probe the mountain gaps, triggering a series of consequential mounte...

In 1777, Congress labeled Quakers who would not take up arms in support of the War of Independence as "the most Dangerous Enemies America knows" and ordered Pennsylvania and Delaware to apprehend them. In response, Keystone State officials sent twenty men-seventeen of whom were Quakers-into exile, banishing them to Virginia, where they were held for a year. Donate | Signup | pcntv.com

Historic Philadelphia has long yielded archaeological treasures from its past. Excavations required by the National Historic Preservation Act have recovered pottery shards, pots, plates, coins, bones, and other artifacts relating to early life in the city. This updated edition of Digging in the City of Brotherly Love continues to use archaeology to learn about and understand people from the past....

George Marshall was one of America's most significant statesmen during the mid twentieth century. He was born and raised in Uniontown, PA and attended VMI before earning a commission in the U.S. Army in 1902. During World War II he led the Army as Chief of Staff and after the war served as Secretary of State where he initiated the Marshall Plan for the recovery of Europe. In this episode, Army War...