image / Castner Scrapbook v.3, Events 2, Free Library of Philadelphia (1876)

I hope everyone’s Memorial Day Weekend is going well. I was up and out early yesterday to get the 7:17 train out of Moynihan Station for Philadelphia. I was there before 9:00 and got a coffee and croissant in the Old City waiting for the Betsy Ross House to open at 10:00. The more and more I visit Philadelphia the more I enjoy it. I pivoted to this era just five years ago. One of the maxims of his is: “Go there.” I made sure to walk the perimeter of Christ Church, which is where I took the photograph you see above. Philadelphia, or at least Historic Philadelphia, is much like Gettysburg in that people are visiting from across the country and world. Being the Chatty Cathy I am, I always strike up conversations with those around me. A family from Virginia, two women from California visiting the East Coast on a history road trip, and a visitor in the Museum of the American Revolution whose ancestor had served in Vermont’s Green Mountain Boys are just some of the figures I met along the way. I texted a relative with some photos and mentioned a close, late family member of ours who lived outside Philadelphia for much of her life. This person was a public school teacher for decades and took her classes to Independence Hall and the environs many times over the years.

I didn’t go in, but the line for Liberty Bell was long, which was great to see. I was especially moved by the archeological site that is now President’s House. To be there for part of Memorial Day Weekend was even more meaningful. When I got home in the early evening I texted a friend who is a retired NPS ranger here in the city and asked if he knew any of the backstory regarding that project. He did, and gave me a few insights. The memory of the Revolutionary War is fascinating and surprisingly understudied. I struck up a conversation with two of the extraordinary staff at the MOAR about the historiography of Philadelphia at the local level. They recommended a few titles, but we came to the consensus that the corpus of scholarship on Philadelphia itself is surprisingly thin.

Wherever you are, go get a little history on this weekend that kicks off the unofficial start of summer.

It is hard to believe Frank Sinatra has been gone a quarter century now. He died on this date in 1998. The late 1990s themselves feel like such a long time ago now, I suppose because they are. Here is a Sinatra’s song from one of his best and least appreciated albums, the 1967 bossa nova collaboration Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim. It is the perfect complement to this Mothers Day. Enjoy the spring day.

The Morristown National Historical Park Museum and Library has posted my article about John Glover and Loyalist William Browne. I’m not going into it here, but the hows and whys of this writing project have an interesting backstory. There was even a Brooklyn connection that I didn’t quite together until starting the work. There are many themes to discuss in the choices that Loyalists and Patriots made before and during the war. I’m going to continue with this story. Above in John Trumbull’s The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, December 26, 1776 we see Glover second from the top right. The guy got around. When the people at Morristown uploaded the article they noted that I’ll be speaking there on Saturday June 17. The talk is part of the ongoing commemoration of the park’s 90th anniversary. My talk will be based on an article I wrote for the Fall 2022 edition of The Federalist, the quarterly newsletter of the Society for History in the Federal Government. I’ll be speaking about a travel series sponsored by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in the 1910s and 1920s in which managing editor Hans von Kaltenborn annually led groups of 40-50 New Yorkers across the country, South America, North Africa, and Europe. National Park Service sites were the primary focus of the excursions. It’s a story I had always wanted to tell. I’ll tell it again in Morristown come June 17.