Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography
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THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY VOLUME CXXXIII April 2009 NO. 2 PENNSYLVANIA, THE MILITIA, AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT Nathan R. Kozuskanich 119 FEDERALIST DECLINE AND DESPAIR ON THE PENNSYLVANIAN FRONTIER:HUGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE’S MODERN CHIVALRY Robert Battistini 149 “I SHALL SPEAK IN PHILADELPHIA”: EMMA GOLDMAN AND THE FREE SPEECH LEAGUE Bill Lynskey 167 BOOK REVIEWS 203 BOOK REVIEWS SLAUGHTER, The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition, by Jean R. Soderlund 203 FEA, The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in Early America, by David Jaffee 204 LOCKHART, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army, by Tom Fleming 205 DAUGHAN, If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy—From the Revolution to the War of 1812, by Michael J. Crawford 206 MARTIN, Devil of the Domestic Sphere: Temperance, Gender, and Middle-class Ideology, 1800–1860, by Patricia Dockman Anderson 208 HOWE, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848, by Daniel Dupre 209 WOLENSKY and KEATING, Tragedy at Avondale: The Causes, Consequences, and Legacy of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Industry’s Most Deadly Mining Disaster, September 6, 1869, by Michael Knies 210 HEALEY, The Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Industry, 1860–1902: Economic Cycles,, Business Decision Making, and Regional Dynamics, by Kenneth C. Wolensky 211 KUKLICK, Black Philosopher, White Academy: The Career of William Fontaine, by Anita L. Allen 213 The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, from 2006 to the present, is now available online to members and subscribers at The History Cooperative, http://www.historycooperative.org. In order to access the full text of articles and reviews, subscribers will need to register for the first time using the identification number on their mailing label. To obtain your member identification number, you may also call Chris Bruno at 215-732-6200 x300, or e-mail [email protected]. Back issues, presently from 1907 through 2004, are freely available on the Penn State University Libraries Web site, at http://publications.libraries.psu.edu/eresources/pmhb. Back issues from 1877 through 2003 are also available on JSTOR to JSTOR subscribers. All three sites can also be accessed from the Historical Society’s Web site, at http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=68. COVER ILLUSTRATION: Emma Goldman, c. 1924, in England. Philadelphia Record Photograph Collection. Goldman had been deported to Russia from the United States in 1919, and two years later she fled Russia, having lost any hope in the Bolsheviks. In this issue, Bill Lynskey examines Goldman’s earlier con- frontations with Philadelphia authorities over her right to free speech in his article, “‘I shall speak in Philadelphia’: Emma Goldman and the Free Speech League.” Editorial Advisory Committee STEVEN CONN JANE MERRITT Ohio State University Old Dominion University MATTHEW COUNTRYMAN CHARLENE MIRES University of Michigan Villanova University THOMAS DUBLIN CARLA MULFORD Binghamton University Pennsylvania State University ERICA ARMSTRONG DUNBAR MARK E. NEELY JR. University of Delaware Pennsylvania State University LORI GINZBERG LESLIE PATRICK Pennsylvania State University Bucknell University JOHN HEPP DONNA J. RILLING Wilkes University State University of New York, Stony Brook RICHARD N. JULIANI Villanova University DAVID SCHUYLER Franklin & Marshall College RUSSELL KAZAL University of Toronto at THOMAS J. SUGRUE Scarborough University of Pennsylvania HOLLY A. MAYER ELIZABETH VARON Duquesne University Temple University Editor TAMARA GASKELL Editorial Intern ERIC KLINEK THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY (ISSN 0031-4587) is published each quarter in January, April, July, and October by THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107-5699. Periodicals postage paid at Philadelphia, PA and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: send address changes to PMHB, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107-5699. Yearly subscriptions: individual, $35.00; institutional, $75.00. Back issues: Selected issues and annual bound volumes are available. Query editor for availability and price. Authorization for academic photocopying: For permission to reuse material, please access www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a nonprofit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of uses. Submissions:All communications should be addressed to the editor. E-mail may be sent to [email protected]. Manuscripts should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style. Electronic submissions are wel- come. For submission guidelines, visit the PMHB Web page (http://www.hsp.org), The editor does not assume responsibility for statements of fact or of opinion made by the contributors. Contributors ROBERT BATTISTINI is an assistant professor of early American literature at Franklin & Marshall College. He is currently working on a book- length “Atlas of the Early Novel in the Americas.” Michael Cody and he are co-editors for the Literary Magazine volume of the new Charles Brockden Brown scholarly edition. NATHAN R. KOZUSKANICH is an assistant professor of history at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario. He has published articles with the Rutgers Law Journal and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. BILL LYNSKEY, a former journalist and editor in the publishing world, is currently a member of the public programs departement at the National Constitution Center, a Philadephia-based, nonpartisan museum dedicated to increasing public understanding of and appreci- ation for the U.S. Constitution, its history, and its contemporary rele- vance. In Memory WHITFIELD JENKS BELL JR., executive officer of the American Philosophical Society from 1977 to 1983, died at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on January 2, 2009. For more than half a century, as a scholar and admin- istrator, he exerted a significant influence on historical scholarship in the United States. Born on December 3, 1914, in Newburgh, New York, he spent his boyhood in New Jersey and the Philadelphia suburbs, graduating from Lower Merion High School in 1931. Bell was from the start a voracious reader and history enthusiast. Inspired by the boys’ novels of Everett Tomlinson, at age thirteen he wrote a history of the American Revolution—and soon thereafter destroyed the manuscript. It was, he later observed with his characteristic self-deprecating wit, “the only exam- ple of critical good sense I ever showed.” Bell completed his undergraduate degree at Dickinson College, where he excelled in his studies, was active socially, and became a prolific writer for college publications. After a brief foray into the law, he turned to his- tory, earning a PhD under Richard Shryock at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation, “Science and Humanity in Franklin’s Philadelphia,” was never published but was widely respected and often cited. Only two years into his graduate studies Bell returned to Dickinson to teach part time. He remained there through 1953, save for service in Europe with the American Field Service during World War II. Rejected for bad eyesight, Bell was determined to play his part in the war. His experiences as a carrier of wounded soldiers in Italy and at the Bergen- Belsen concentration camp would remain a vivid memory. From the outset of his academic career, Bell wrote widely on historical topics, mostly, though not exclusively, on early American science, medi- cine, natural history, and the multifaceted Benjamin Franklin. He was a mainstay at scholarly conferences in his field, delivering numerous papers, after-dinner speeches, and formal addresses to a wide range of audiences. His productivity earned him rapid promotion at Dickinson and the Boyd Lee Spahr Chair, which he resigned as he grew increasingly frustrated with the authoritarian governance of Dickinson president William W. Edel. During the 1953–54 academic year, Bell served as visiting editor of the William and Mary Quarterly. While in Williamsburg, he accepted an invitation to join the nascent Franklin Papers project. In New Haven, Bell worked closely with editor Leonard Labaree and a small but gifted staff. Based first in Philadelphia, then at Yale, Bell combed archives and exploited personal contacts to retrieve important Franklin documents. As a mainstay of the so-called “Franklin Factory,” he established a high stan- dard in transcribing and interpreting those documents. In 1960, the American Philosophical Society beckoned Bell back to Philadelphia as its assistant librarian. There he stayed for the rest of his professional career. Bell gradually moved up the ranks to become librarian and executive officer. At the APS Bell secured important collections, among them papers of the great scientist Charles Darwin, expanded the physical facilities, and oversaw first-class public programs and publica- tions. Among his most cherished collaborations with colleagues at other Philadelphia institutions was the curatorship of a bicentennial exhibit in 1976, complemented by a handsome catalog, A Rising People. Throughout his years as an administrator at APS, Bell continued to write and edit at an astonishing pace. His overall corpus features more than 250 scholarly articles, essays, introductions, encyclopedia entries, prefaces, afterwards, and several books, including a well-regarded biogra-