All Episodes

ABC:LHS #058-3   Wyeth Brothers...
...invented a machine that standardized the size of pills and tablets.  It changed the pharmaceutical industry. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #058: Laurel Hill & Big Pharma, Part 2
William Weightman, with his partner Thomas Powers made millions by selling quinine to the US government. He spent it wisely.  

ABC:LHS #058-1   Philadelphia became the
...pharmaceutical capital of the country primarily because of the College of Pharmacy, which has trained thousands of pharmacists over the past two centuries.  

ABC:LHS #058   Several pharmaceutical companies...
...started as Philadelphia as neighborhood drug stores. 
Weightman, Powers, and Rosengarten made their money by selling quinine to the US government.
James Smith and Clayton French did not know each and both started as neighborhood druggists; but family and business partners kept their businesses going and their names prominent long after their deaths.
The Wyeth Brothers invented a machine that standardized the size of pills and tablets, and William Warner learned how to sugarcoat them.  Warner’s pharmacopeia was distributed internationally and served as the standard reference for doctors and pharmacists for years.
McNeil Laboratories introduced Tylenol Elixir for Children in 1955, then watched it become one of the best-selling over-the-counter meds of all time.  
 

Anna Weightman Penfield, the only daughter of quinine king William Weightman, became the richest woman in the world when her father died.  In 1929 when she was in her 80s, she decided that she wanted to produce a Broadway musical featuring songs by two young friends.  She even managed to convince impresario Earl Carroll, the so-called “troubadour of the nude”, to write the book and produce it.  He called it “Fioretta”.  Carroll used it as a vehicle for his current girlfriend Dorothy Knapp, a chorus girl who could not sing, act, or dance.  Despite the casting of vaudeville legends Leon Erroll and Fanny Brice, the show flopped and closed after just a few months, and Mrs. Penfield lost a bundle of money.  Then, the talentless Knapp sued Penfield, Carroll, and the composers for lost wages.  To tell this story, I read you a newspaper article from 1947 and part of a chapter from Carroll’s biography.  It's a story not to be missed.  

BBB:LHWS #027   Jack Rose...
...was an old soul guitarist who took John Fahey and other fingerpickers as role models.  He taught himself the primitive styles of Blind Blake, Charlie Patton, and others, and took on the name “Dr. Ragtime." He died far too young.  
 

ABC:LHS #057-5   C. Morgan Knight...
...was a very successful Chestnut Hill businessman who stopped at Wanamaker's for a quick shopping trip before he headed home after work.  He tried to stop a robbery and was shot; his murderer got the chair. 

ABC:LHS #057-4   Archibald McCurdy...
...was the least gregarious of the McCurdy brothers, but he found his niche in the family's store as night watchman.  A botched robbery attempt ended his life. 

ABC #057-3   George Haas...
...was considered an excellent boss by most of his employes; one man felt otherwise and shot him as he left work.

ABC:LHS #057-2   Historian and fellow volunteer tour guide Thomas Keels reads from his book Wicked Philadelphia about an honor killing of Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton by Singleton Mercer that author George Lippard turned into a best-selling novel.

ABC:LHS #057-1   George K. Smith...
...was a mine supervisor at a time when secret societies were rampant.  His death at the hand of home invaders was blamed on the Molly Maguires, but the details aren't as specific. 

ABC:LHS #057 Murder Most Foul
Hundreds of people buried at Laurel Hill were victims of personal violence – accidental, intentional, and self-inflicted.  This month’s episode tells you of nine people who were killed by others. 
Author / historian Thomas Keels will read you a chapter from his book Wicked Philadelphia that tells the amazing story of Singleton Mercer and Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton.
I will tell you of
Mine supervisor George K. Smith who was purportedly killed by the Irish terrorist group the Molly Maguires
Businessman George Haas, shot and killed on his lunch break by a disgruntled former employee
Archibald McCurdy, night watchman in his brothers’ store who was killed when he discovered a burglary in process
Ida Chadwick, a 9-year-old girl whose depressed father killed them both with illuminating gas
C. Morgan Knight, Chestnut Hill financier and amateur yachtsman who died while attempting to capture a robber at Wanamaker’s. 
There is also a new voice for you.  Volunteer guide Sarah Hamill gives a sketch of a young mother and her two daughters who were shot to death by their disgruntled butler. 
 
Murder Most Foul, Part 1 is the topic of the December 2023 episode of “All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories. 

BBB:LHWS #026   Isidor Schwaner Ravdin...
...was a second-generation American and a fourth-generation physician who combined research with surgery and completely changed the fields of both.  During his 40+ years at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Ravdin rose to become Chief of Surgery and Director of Research. When President Eisenhower was struck with a bowel obstruction in 1956, Ravdin was summoned to Washington to perform the surgery.  He even appeared as a heroic character in a popular cartoon strip of his time. 

ABC:LHS #056-2   Joseph Newton Pew,,,
...was from a large, impoverished family in upstate Pennsylvania, but he started a petroleum firm which blossomed into Sun Oil.  His sons J. Howard Pew and Joseph N. Pew Jr. eventually took over and grew Sun Oil into the international juggernaut it is today.  The Pew family has always been involved in giving back and supporting the community, except that one time when they tried to overthrow the US government.   

ABC:LHS #056-1   Pennsylvania...
...was home to major oil strikes years before Texas got involved. Until recently, a major refinery greeted visitors as they came from the airport.  Only recently has the Point Breeze section of the city been reclaimed; it is undergoing a total makeover.