Books Received

The current editors regret that due to several turnovers in all of the editorial positions of Pennsylvania History in recent years, the journal has been unable to review all of the works received in a timely manner. The failure to do so is no reflection on these books, however, and we now want to acknowledge receipt of and draw our readers’ attention to the following monographs:

William and Peggy Bailey. Murder in Muncy Creek: A True Account of the 1836 Trial, Conviction, and Hanging of John Earls, 175th Anniversary Edition (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley, 2011). Paperback. Illustrations, notes. Pp. 375. Paper. $19.95 Available from the Muncy Historical Society, 40 North Main Street, P.O. Box 11, Muncy, PA 17756. Story of the trial and execution of John Earls, an abusive husband who murdered his wife in 1836. The authors have integrated with their compelling narrative a set of documents, illustrations, court records, and news stories including the testimony of fifty-seven witnesses, the legal arguments, results of autopsies, the verdict, sentence, appeal, and petition for pardon, as well as Earls’s confession and eyewitness account of the hanging.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar. A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008). Pp. xvi, 196. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $55.00. Examines networks, friendships, community building, and antislavery and literary activity among black women in Philadelphia. Highly praised by leading scholars of African American and women’s history.

Betsy Fahlman and Eric Schruers. Wonders of Work and Labor: The Steidle Collection of American Industrial Art (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008). Pp. 176. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $50.00. One of the largest (over 500 items) and finest collections of industrial art in the world may be found in the Museum of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State University. Collected by the College’s dean Edward Steidle during the Great Depression, this beautifully prepared volume contains images of many of the paintings that can only be shown a few at a time due to space limitations.

J. K. Folmar I. California, Pa., 1849–1881: The History of a Boat Building Town. Steamboats, Including Transports, Tinclads and Rams in the Civil War; Education, Politics, Temperance, Religion and Social Life &c. (California, PA: Yohogania Press, 2009). Pp. 466. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Paper, $29.95. A retired professor of history at California University of Pennsylvania, Folmar presents a detailed study of the early years of Pennsylvania’s California, integrating social, economic, and political history in an excellent portrait of this town.

J. K. Folmar I. Gleanings: From Pittsburgh and W. Pa.: Newspaper &c, Views, 1786–1886. (California, PA: Yohogania Press, 2006). Pp. 260. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Paper, $20.00. Professor Folmar here presents documents that detail and enliven the important role of the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania and U.S. history.

Nancy M. Heinzen. The Perfect Square: A History of Rittenhouse Square (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009). Pp. xiv, 203. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $29.50. Written by a political activist who has helped shape the square’s history, this well-illustrated and researched book is a history of this important neighborhood in Philadelphia, famous as the home of high society during the Victorian era, now the residence of wealthy apartment dwellers and site of fashionable shops.

Susan Colestock Hill. Heart Language: Elsie Singmaster and Her Pennsylvania German Writings (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009). Pp. xviii, 280. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $40.00. Contains sixteen essays by a once-popular author who did much to describe and popularize the virtues of the Pennsylvania Germans at the turn of the twentieth century.

Ralph Ketcham, editor. Selected Writings of James Madison (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006). Pp. xxxii, 396. Bibliography, index. Cloth, $55.00. Contains 81 documents, selected and introduced by the foremost living Madison scholar, from his early political writings during the Revolution to his final thoughts on the nation’s course in the 1830s.

Sarah Knott. Sensibility and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009). Pp. ix, 338. Illustrations, notes...