The Native Americans called it shackamaxon, the place where the chiefs meet, but Kensington soon became a meeting place of a different kind. Ideologies and demagogues, industry and entrepreneurs all came together in Kensington and Fishtown. Kensington was the epicenter of the American vegetarian movement, and a decade later the area's shipyards gave birth to the U.S. Navy's first submarine. In Kensington & Fishtown, native son Kenneth W. Milano presents a collection of fascinating and diverse articles from his column The Rest is History. Relive the golden age of Kensington and Fishtown as you learn about learn about their fascinating pasts.

The docks and alleys of Philadelphia's riverward neighborhoods teem with forgotten stories and strange histories. In the overlooked corners of Kensington and Fishtown are the launching of the Industrial Revolution, the bizarre double suicide of the Rusk twins and the violent Cramp Shipyard strike. With a collection of his "The Rest Is History" columns from the Fishtown Star, local historian Kenneth Milano chronicles little-known tales from the Speakeasy War of 1890 to stories of seldom-recognized hometown hero Eddie Stanky, who went on to play for the 1951 New York Giants. Join Milano as he journeys into the secret history of two of the city's oldest neighborhoods.

An indelible portrait of three children struggling to survive in the poorest neighborhood of the poorest large city in America Kensington, Philadelphia, is distinguished only by its poverty. It is home to Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel, three Puerto Rican children who live among the most marginalized families in the United States. This is the story of their coming-of-age, which is beset by violence—the violence of homelessness, hunger, incarceration, stray bullets, sexual and physical assault, the hypermasculine logic of the streets, and the drug trade. In Kensington, eighteenth birthdays are not rites of passage but statistical miracles. One mistake drives Ryan out of middle school and into the juvenile justice pipeline. For Emmanuel, his queerness means his mother’s rejection and sleeping in shelters. School closures and budget cuts inspire Giancarlos to lead walkouts, which get him kicked out of the system. Although all three are high school dropouts, they are on a quest to defy their fate and their neighborhood and get high school diplomas. In a triumph of empathy and drawing on nearly a decade of reporting, sociologist and policymaker Nikhil Goyal follows Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel on their mission, plunging deep into their lives as they strive to resist their designated place in the social hierarchy. In the process, Live to See the Day confronts a new age of American poverty, after the end of “welfare as we know it,” after “zero tolerance” in schools criminalized a generation of students, after the odds of making it out are ever slighter.

Explore the most interesting, scenic, and historic places in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, via 30 self-guided walking tours. From Broad Street to Independence National Park, from Manayunk to the Delaware River, the City of Brotherly Love is one of the world’s most fascinating places to explore. Grab your walking shoes, and become an urban adventurer. Local author Natalie Pompilio guides you through 30 unique walking tours in this comprehensive book. Walking Philadelphia makes you feel like you’re being led by your closest friend as you soak up the architecture, trivia, and more. The tours include important historic facts, as well as Natalie’s behind-the-scenes stories and tidbits. Plus, Tricia Pompilio’s photography brings these walking tours to life. Find vintage boutiques and high-end shopping destinations. Try restaurants that showcase famed fare (like cheesesteaks, soft pretzels, and beer that make Philadelphia a foodies’ paradise). Discover Philadelphia’s many firsts: the first zoo, first library system, and first hospital—plus dozens of historic sites that you learned about in school. Explore a Museum District that’s second to none, an all-encompassing park system, and much more. Book Features 30 self-guided tours through the City of Brotherly Love America’s Most Historic Square Mile, one of the country’s liveliest and most lived-in urban centers Unique and surprising stories about people, places, and things Whether you’re looking for the Mural Mile in Center City or the historically modern charm of Society Hill, Walking Philadelphia will get you there. Find a route that appeals to you, and walk Philly!

Ghosts Stories of Historic Irish Philadelphia contains eight historic tales of some grand and some humble Irish in 19th Century Philadelphia in the throws of Industrial expansion. Two important historical events - the Duffy's Cut Murders and the Nativists Riots - act as the backdrop for these sometimes brutal tales of 19th Century Irish who came to Philadelphia seeking an escape from economic hardships in their native Ireland. Religious clashes that began in Ireland came with the new immigrants faced with hardships that they had not anticipated. The Irish men and women brought to life tell their tales of hardship that have made them ghosts that roam their old haunts in Kensington and outlaying rural lands being fitted out with new railroads.

This book supplies the evolutionary and genetic framework that Charles Murray, towards the end of Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010, predicts will one day explain revolutionary change in American society. Murray’s Coming Apart documents 50 years of changed college admissions, government incentives, mating and migration patterns that have wrought national divisions across indexes of marriage, industriousness, honesty, and religiosity. The framework discussed is life history evolution, a sub-discipline within evolutionary biology singly capable of explaining why violent crime, property crime, low marriage rates, father absence, early birth, low educational achievement, low income, poverty, lack of religiosity and reduced achievement striving will reliably co-occur as part of a complex. This complex augments facultatively, developmentally and evolutionarily in response to unpredictable and uncontrollable sources of mortality. The uncertain tenure of life wrought by unpredictable and uncontrollable mortality selects for a present-oriented use of bioenergetics resources recognizable as the social ills of Fishtown, Murray’s archetypal working class community. In turn, the thirty years of life history literature herein reviewed confirms the biological logic of elite intermarriage and sequestration. The source of life history variation, policy implications, and demography are discussed.

On a September day in 1813, as citizens watched from the rocky shore of Pemaquid, Maine, two of the last and bravest military sailing commanders engaged in a battle that would change the course of the War of 1812... Samuel Blyth was the youthful commander of His Britannic Majesty’s brig Boxer, and William Burrows, younger still, commanded the USS Enterprise. Both men valued honor above all, and on this day their commitment would be put to the ultimate test. Though it lasted less than an hour, the battle between the Boxer and the Enterprise was a brutal contest whose outcome was uncertain. When the cannon smoke cleared, good men had been lost, and the U.S. Navy's role in the war had changed. In Knights of the Sea, David Hanna brings to life a lost era, paying tribute to the young commanders who considered it the highest honor to harness the wind to meet their foes, and would be immortalized by the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The only major naval battle of the War of 1812, the battle between the Boxer and the Enterprise came to represent not only a military turning point, but a maritime era that would soon be gone forever. INCLUDES PHOTOS AND MAPS