The Delaware Valley is a distinct region situated within the Middle Atlantic states, encompassing portions of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. With its cultural epicenter of Philadelphia, its surrounding bays and ports within Maryland and Delaware, and its conglomerate population of European settlers, Native Americans, and enslaved Africans, the Delaware Valley was one of the great cultural hearths of early America. The region felt the full brunt of the American Revolution, briefly served as the national capital in the post-Revolutionary period, and sheltered burgeoning industries amidst the growing pains of a young nation. Yet, despite these distinctions, the Delaware Valley has received less scholarly treatment than its colonial equals in New England and the Chesapeake region. In Historical Archaeology of the Delaware Valley, 1600–1850, Richard Veit and David Orr bring together fifteen essays that represent the wide range of cultures, experiences, and industries that make this region distinctly American in its diversity. From historic-period American Indians living in a rapidly changing world to an archaeological portrait of Benjamin Franklin, from an eighteenth-century shipwreck to the archaeology of Quakerism, this volume highlights the vast array of research being conducted throughout the region. Many of these sites discussed are the locations of ongoing excavations, and archaeologists and historians alike continue to debate the region’s multifaceted identity. The archaeological stories found within Historical Archeology of the Delaware Valley, 1600–1850 reflect the amalgamated heritage that many American regions experienced, though the Delaware Valley certainly exemplifies a richer experience than most: it even boasts the palatial home of a king (Joseph Bonaparte, elder brother of Napoleon and former King of Naples and Spain). This work, thoroughly based on careful archaeological examination, tells the stories of earlier generations in the Delaware Valley and makes the case that New England and the Chesapeake are not the only cultural centers of colonial America.

Samuel Sloan: Architect of Philadelphia, 1815-1884 is a comprehensive study of one of America's most influential architects. Sloan created the designs that have become prototypes for many public buildings. His plan for the Hospital of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia served as the model for American general hospitals, and, with Dr. Thomas S. Kirkbride, he created the model for mental hospitals in the United States. Sloan was also an innovative designer of public schools, creating the "Philadelphia Plan" of schoolhouse design, which came to be internationally known and widely used. Sloan helped to shape the architecture of his time not only through the buildings he designed but also through his writings. He published several major pattern books, covering every aspect of the architectural profession from carpentry to furnishings. One of these, The Model Architect, went through five editions and was among the most widely distributed works of its kind in the history of nineteenth-century architectural publishing. As a result, Sloan's influence on the architectural environment of nineteenth-century America is so pervasive that a full accounting of the works which can be traced back to his books is almost impossible. From 1868 until 1871 Sloan also produced The Architectural Review, the first periodical in the United States devoted exclusively to architecture and its related arts and crafts and the unofficial organ of the reconstituted American Institute of Architects. In Samuel Sloan, Harold N. Cooledge, Jr. examines the social, economic, and environmental factors that influenced Sloan's personal and professional character and includes a consideration of the theorists and tastemakers whose ideas influenced Sloan's attitude toward architectural theory and practice. Cooledge then presents a chronological biography in which the majority of Sloan's important commissions are considered in detail, and as much information about his private life as could be documented is given. The book concludes with a detailed catalogue of Sloan's work. Samuel Sloan: Architect of Philadelphia 1815-1884 will be of value to architects and to scholars interested in art history, social history, and American studies.

The author explores Philadelphia as a part of its ecosystem and animates the lives of individual gardeners and naturalists working in the area around her home, in a portrait of the resilience and richness of the natural world in the urban environment of Philadelphia.