Print Resources

To find additional library materials on this topic, use authorized subject headings to browse in in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Suggested linked subject browses are listed below:

Also try searching by town or county name to see a list of subject headings for matching communities, such as:

The following selected titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

African American History

African Americans in Pennsylvania: Above Ground and Underground: An Illustrated Guide by Charles L. Blockson
Call Number: E185.93.P41 B55 2001
ISBN: 1879441853
Published/Created: 2004-09-01
Explores sites significant to the African American experience in Pennsylvania and includes maps with highlighted events from each part of the state.
African Americans in Pennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives by Joe William Trotter (Editor); Eric Ledell Smith (Editor)
Call Number: F160.N4 A37 1997
ISBN: 0271016868
Published/Created: 1997-10-13
This volume, co-published with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, offers the most comprehensive history of the state's black history to date. Chapters emphasize the interplay of class and race from the origins of the Commonwealth during the seventeenth century, through the era of deindustrialization in the late twentieth century. We see not only poor and working-class people but also educated business and professional people. And although scholarship has traditionally focused on the experiences of black men, this volume includes significant research on black women. Most important, this volume suggests a conceptual framework for a historical synthesis of the state's African American experience. The book shows how ordinary people have influenced the culture, institutions, and politics of African American communities in Pennsylvania. In the process, it documents the ways that black people have influenced, and continue to influence, the state as a whole.
The Civil War in Pennsylvania: The African American Experience by Samuel W. Black
Call Number: FLM2014 024613
ISBN: 9780936340203
Published/Created: 2013-01-01
The Civil War in Pennsylvania: The African American Experience goes beyond the battlefield or usual Civil War history with essays from eight scholars of civil rights, emigration, abolitionism, armed resistance, service in the war, and more. It treats the war with circumspection from a point of view that defined the conflict as a war over slavery and the opportunity to liberate the masses of Africans from bondage. That view did not see the war as an opportunity to restore the Union but to build a new Union that included liberty for all - the enslaved and free.
Guide to African American Resources at the Pennsylvania State Archives by Ruth E. Hodge; Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Staff (Contribution by)
Call Number: Z1361.N39 H63 2000
ISBN: 089271087X
Published/Created: 2000-01-01
An easy-to-use reference book for identifying and locating information, in both manuscript and in print, on African Americans available at the Pennsylvania State Archives. View the online version of this resource on the web site for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission External.

Architecture and Historic Buildings

Pennsylvania Architecture by Deborah Stephens Burns; Richard J. Webster; Candace Reed Stern; Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Staff (Contribution by); Historic American Buildings Survey Staff (Contribution by)
Call Number: NA730.P4 B867 2000
ISBN: 0892710888
Published/Created: 2000-01-01
This groundbreaking volume surveys three hundred years of Pennsylvania architecture through an extensive introduction, geographical essays, and through the catalog holdings of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) recorded from 1933 up to 1990. The book is lavishly illustrated with stunning photographs and meticulously drawn floor plans and elevations providing the critical level of detail that distinguishes the HABS survey. View the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) / Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) Collections in the Library of Congress Digital Collections.
Pennsylvania's Historic Places by Ruth Hoover Seitz (Text by); Blair Seitz (Photographer)
Call Number: F150 .S45 1989
ISBN: 093467275X
Published/Created: 2013-05-01
Captures the spirit and vitality of Pennsylvania's historic sites and museums in striking color photos and fascinating text. Published in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. "Bravo for this fine summary of what I knew as a boy." -- James A. Michener "Unlike most other similar picture/text books extolling the tourist treasures of the Commonwealth, the writing of this one is historically accurate." -- Bookends

Guides and Handbooks for State Research

Red Book: American State, County & Town Sources by Alice Eichholz; Ancestry Publishing Staff (Contribution by)
Call Number: CS49 .R44 2004
ISBN: 1593311664
Published/Created: 2004-06-01
Organized state-by-state, the Red Book provides specific county and town record listings. Discover dates vital records were kept, years of state censuses, county court breakdowns, major repositories, and more. This resource is also available digitally on RootsWeb External.
Research in Pennsylvania-3rd Edition by Kay Haviland Freilich
ISBN: 1935815237
Published/Created: 2016-08-01
National Genealogical Society Research in the States Series.

Land Records

Statewide guidebooks explain the variety and importance of land records to local history and genealogical research.

Pennsylvania Land Records by Donna B. Munger
Call Number: Z1329 .M85 1991
ISBN: 0842023771
Published/Created: 1991-06-01
Helps the genealogist trying to locate families, the surveyor or attorney researching old deeds, or the historian seeking data on land settlement.

Early Landowners of Pennsylvania Series

Also explore series such as the Early Landowners of Pennsylvania books by Sharon Cook MacInnes. These books of warrantee maps are arranged by county.

Township Warrantee Maps of the tracts which the Penn family, and then the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, sold to the first settlers. The atlases contain images of the original large maps housed in the Pennsylvania Archives in Harrisburg. The information on each tract is a gold mine: names of the warrantee and patentee, if the patentee is different; name of the tract; dates of the warrant, survey, and patent; and patent book and page number where the tract is registered. Each chapter contains the map of the township showing its tracts (reduced to 8.5 X 11" size), followed by a chart containing all data on each tract in alphabetical order by the warrantee's name. The chart also shows the coordinates where the tract will be found on the map page at the beginning of the chapter. Numerous footnotes from a variety of sources document further information on pioneers, as well as family relationships in some cases. In addition to documenting the first landowners, the atlases can often reveal family relationships or clues to possible relationships since relatives usually congregated near one another. Secondly, since people usually moved in groups, tracking sets of families and neighbors as a whole can frequently suggest routes of migration. Finally, later owners of these tracts can be traced back to the exact location of their plat by following their transactions through deed and will books. In some cases, names on the Township Warrantee Maps are the only record that certain people actually existed.

Since the books all carry the Early Landowners of Pennsylvania title, you can refine your search in the Library of Congress Online Catalog by using the Advanced Search option.

Input Early Landowners of Pennsylvania in the first search field and set the criteria to Title.
Next enter your ancestor's county in the second search field and set the criteria to keyword or title to narrow your focus.

The results will show you if such a book has been compiled for that county. Here are a few examples of what you may discover:

Early landowners of Pennsylvania. Atlas of Township Warrantee Maps of Berks County, PA by Sharon Cook MacInnes
Call Number: G1263.B5G46 M3 2006
ISBN: 1558564683
Published/Created: 2006
Early landowners of Pennsylvania. Atlas of Township Warrantee Maps of Lancaster County, PA by Sharon Cook MacInnes
Call Number: G1263.L3G46
ISBN: 9781558564978
Published/Created: 2008-07-01
Early Landowners of Pennsylvania. Atlas of Township Warrantee Maps of Washington County, PA by Sharon Cook MacInnes
Call Number: G1263.W3G46 M3 2004
ISBN: 1558564209
Published/Created: 2004-01-01

Military History

American Revolution and War of 1812

Pennsylvania archives, second series by John B. Linn and Wm. H. Egle (editors). Reprinted under direction of the secretary of the commonwealth.
Call Number: F146 .P43
Published/Created: 1896
Contents include Revolutionary War officers, soldiers and navy personnel; muster rolls for the War of 1812; oaths of allegiance, and Whiskey Insurrection. This book is also available digitally via FamilySearch External and Fold3 External.

Civil War

The Civil War in Pennsylvania: A Photographic History by project director and managing editor, Brian Butko; editors, Tamara Gaskell, Michael J. O'Malley III
Call Number: FLM2015 258879
ISBN: 0936340193
Published/Created: 2013
Pennsylvania fulfilled its role as the Keystone State when the Civil War erupted in 1861. Its large size and varied economy contributed 315,000 men and more munitions than any other state, while on the home front, women and children tended to vast farms and filled factory jobs. The Civil War in Pennsylvania: A Photographic History presents for the first time in a single volume the story of the war's impact on the state as told through photographs. Hundreds of images from private collections offer a rare glimpse of images over the past 150 years.
History of Pennsylvania volunteers, 1861-5 by Samuel Penniman Bates
Call Number: E527.B32
Published/Created: 1869-1871
This five volume series is considered the standard reference for Pennylvania's Civil War regimental rosters and histories. It is also available digitally via Google Books: Volume 1 External, Volume 2 External, Volume 3 External, Volume 4 External, Volume 5 External.
Keystone State in Crisis: The Civil War in Pennsylvania by Judith Giesberg
Call Number: F153 .G54 2013 OVERFLOWA5S
ISBN: 193230441X
Published/Created: 2013-02-15
An introduction to the social and political issues that emerged on Pennsylvania’s home front during the war―those that led to, helped to shape the nature of and determine the outcome of the national crisis.

Pennsylvania's National Guard in World War I and World War II

The First Century: A History of the 28th Infantry Division by Uzal W. Ent; Robert Grant Crist
Call Number: UA423.5 28th .F57
ISBN: 0811706206
Published/Created: 1979-01-01
A history of the 28th Infantry Division, one of the oldest National Guard divisions in the United States. The book covers years 1879-1979.
The Twenty-eighth Division, Pennsylvania's Guard in the World War by Edward Martin
Call Number: D570.3 28th .M3
Published/Created: 1923-1924
The history of the Keystone or Iron division in World War I. Also the history and traditions of the Pennsylvania national guard and its predecessor the Pennsylvania militia. Compiled from official and private records, by Colonel Edward Martin, assisted by officers and men of the various units. Including identified soldier photographs, accounts of battles, company rosters, and more.
Guard Wars by Michael E. Weaver
Call Number: D769.3 28th .W43 2010 CABIN BRANCH
ISBN: 9780253355218
Published/Created: 2010-10-29
An inventive study of relations between the National Guard and the Regular Army during World War II, Guard Wars follows the Pennsylvania National Guard's 28th Infantry Division from its peacetime status through training and into combat in Western Europe. The broader story, spanning the years 1939-1945, sheds light on the National Guard, the U.S. Army, and American identities and priorities during the war years. Michael E. Weaver carefully tracks the division's difficult transformation into a combat-ready unit and highlights General Omar Bradley's extraordinary capacity for leadership--which turned the Pennsylvanians from the least capable to one of the more capable units, a claim dearly tested in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest. This absorbing and informative analysis chronicles the nation's response to the extreme demands of a world war, and the flexibility its leaders and soldiers displayed in the chaos of combat.

Native American History

First Pennsylvanians by Kurt W. Carr; Roger W. Moeller
Call Number: E78.P4 C37 2015 OVERFLOWJ34
ISBN: 0892711507
Published/Created: 2015-07-24
In First Pennsylvanians, Kurt Carr and Roger Moeller provide a broad, accessible, and wide-ranging overview of the archaeological record of Native Americans in Pennsylvania from early prehistory through the Paleoindian, Archaic, Transitional, Woodland, and Contact periods, stretching from 16,500 years ago to 1750 C.E. The authors present and analyze specific traits of each archaeological time period covered and use the archaeological record to provide a glimpse of Native Americans' daily life in Pennsylvania. First Pennsylvanians also includes personal stories and anecdotes from archaeologists about their experiences in the field as well as a wealth of illustrations and diagrams. The chapters examine the environment, social groups, tools, subsistence, and settlement patterns of Native Americans in Pennsylvania and describe how these factors profoundly affected the populations and cultures of these early inhabitants of the region.
Indians in Pennsylvania by Paul A. W. Wallace
Call Number: E78.P4 W15 1981 OVERFLOWA5S
Published/Created: 1981
The classic study of the history of Pennsylvania's Indians from the time of the European contact forward.
Pennsylvania Chert by Gary L. Fogelman
Call Number: E78.P4 F632 1999 OVERFLOWA5S
ISBN: 0941777820
Published/Created: 1999-11-01
Identifying some of the materials used by the Indians in Pennsylvania and the surrounding area.
Treaty with the Pennsylvania Indians, 1748 by Benjamin Shoemaker
Call Number: MMC at Oversize 4:18
Published/Created: 1748

Pennsylvania: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide

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