A study of the death of Franklin B. Gowen. Suicide was the official verdict, but the author documents that all the forensic evidence points to murder.

The authors have combed the Mid-Atlantic region, including Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Washington, DC, to write about and visit the graves of some of the most horrendous murders, massacres, and calamities in our nation's history. Included in the volume: Enoch Brown School MassacreMollie MaguiresLattimer MassacreHerman MudgettJohnstown FloodPhiladelphia SinnersHarry ThawBabes in the WoodsFlight 93Kelayres MassacreMary MeyerTitanicMalcolm XMary MallonNY MobTriangle Factory FireAlexander Hamilton & BurrJoe PetrosinoAnthony WayneJack JablonskiMenendez MurdersLincoln AssassinsRhoads Opera House FireGeneral Slocum Disaster

A fascinating history of law and power, Pennsylvania's Coal and Iron Police documents the law enforcement group which ruled these communities from 1865 to 1931. Pennsylvania's Coal and Iron Police ruled small patch towns and industrial cities for their coal and iron company bosses from 1865 to 1931. Armed with a gun and badge and backed by state legislation, the members of the private police force were granted power in a practically unspecified jurisdiction. Set in Pennsylvania's anthracite and bituminous regions, including Luzerne, Schuylkill, Westmoreland, Beaver, Somerset, and Indiana Counties, at a time when labor disputes were deadly, the officers are the story behind American labor history's high-profile events and attention-grabbing headlines. Paid to protect company property, their duties varied but unfortunately often resulted in strikebreaking, intimidation, and violence.

Jaclyn Fowler was destined to write a novel about John (“Black Jack”) Kehoe. Kehoe’s unflinching courage stands in sharp contrast to the perfidious, relentless opposition of Franklin B. Gowen, the anti-union railroad lawyer. Her research is impeccable; her characters jump off the page and her story will turn over the heart of any reader who has one. I must add that this is a novel ensconced in a brilliant frame—Jaclyn’s own story of growing up in an Irish-American family. Fowler’s stunning rendering of Kehoe’s heroic tale is dramatic, Dreiserian and delicious. J. Michael Lennon, author most recently of Mailer’s Last Days: Remembrances of a Life in Literature. Jaclyn Fowler has created an unforgettable historical novel. Her powerful writing is enhanced by extensive research as she debunks Pennsylvania lore concerning Jack Kehoe, the falsely accused Molly Maguire, charged with practicing vigilante justice in the northeastern coalfields. Fowler seasons the story with an autobiographical slant. Having grown up in the area listening to her father, also named Jack, render tales of the mining atrocities, Fowler aims to right the wrongs of that difficult time. Jackie Fowler’s novel deserves to be set alongside Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel. A storyteller at heart, Jaclyn Maria Fowler comes from a long line of raconteurs and wanderers who all trace their lineage back to Ireland. She, too, travels to write and writes to travel, and following in the footsteps of her ancestors, tells the stories of Ireland and the Irish diaspora. To pay for her obsession, she works as Chair of the English Department at American Public University System (APUS). She is the author of It is Myself that I Remake and No One Radiates Love Alone. Fowler has also published many short stories, including The Other Day I Found a Penny in the Street in the 2020 Colorado Book Award winning anthology, Women of the Desert in the Wanderlust Best of ‘20 anthology, and In the Summer Before Third Grade in the 2022 Fish Anthology. Fowler received her Doctorate from The Pennsylvania State University and her MFA from Wilkes University. She is the proud mother of two grown children—Katlyn and Collin—who tell their own stories in writing, and lives with Doodles, a pampered shitzu mix.

The story of the legendary Pinkerton detective who took down the Molly Maguires and the Wild Bunch The operatives of the Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency were renowned for their skills of subterfuge, infiltration, and investigation, none more so than James McParland. So thrilling were McParland’s cases that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle included the cunning detective in a story along with Sherlock Holmes. Riffenburgh digs deep into the recently released Pinkerton archives to present the first biography of McParland and the agency’s cloak-and-dagger methods. Both action packed and meticulously researched, Pinkerton’s Great Detective brings readers along on McParland’s most challenging cases: from young McParland’s infiltration of the murderous Molly Maguires gang in the case that launched his career to his hunt for the notorious Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch to his controversial investigation of the Western Federation of Mines in the assassination of Idaho’s former governor. Filled with outlaws and criminals, detectives and lawmen, Pinkerton’s Great Detective shines a light upon the celebrated secretive agency and its premier sleuth.

This three-volume work traces the history of revolts and rebellions from the colonial era to the 20th century. America has a long history of rebellions extending back before 1776. Revolts have taken place because of economic hard times, the denial of civil rights, racism, sexism, and classism. Studying the reasons for and results of these uprisings provides a window into the life of the American body politic—and what moves the American people to action. Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia details the history of popular actions from the colonial era to the 20th century. Each event in the three-volume encyclopedia is covered by an overview entry that details who was involved, why the revolt took place, what happened, and what the aftereffects were. Shorter subentries provide further detail on the important people, places, events, and ideas that were a part of the action. By presenting both the broad themes and the specifics, the encyclopedia enables readers to gain a general knowledge of the event or drill down to acquire a greater understanding.

Part of the Myths and Legends series, Myths and Legends of Pennsylvania explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in Pennsylvania’s history. Each episode included in the book is a story unto itself, and the tone and style of the book is lively and easy to read for a general audience interested in Pennsylvania's history. Featuring stories about the notorious Murder Swamp, the coal mine that turned a vibrant town into a virtual ghost town, the USS Eldridge vanishing from the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and many more.

This book is a work of political archaeology. It focuses on the people and events at a particular colonial farm in Germantown, Pennsylvania; their stories provide a micro and macro view of economic, social, demographic, and agro-ecological change. Cresheim Farm shows how one mostly unknown but strategically placed piece of land—home to an extraordinary array of people, including early anti-slavery and anti-Nazi activists, the first woman editor of the Saturday Evening Post and a robber baron—can tell, affect and reflect the history of a nation. The writing is historically grounded and academic, future-oriented, deeply researched, and immediate. Cresheim Farm serves as a lens through which to observe and understand social forces, such as the launching point of freedom and democracy movements, white privilege, slavery, and genocidal westward expansion. The past lives on in all of us.