All Episodes

ABC:LHS #030-2   Louis Antoine Godey...
...had a magazine called the Lady’s Book which struggled until he had the good sense to hire an Episcopalian woman from Boston as his editor. Together they turned his magazine into one of the most widely circulated in the country. 

ABC:LHS #030-1   Joseph Clay Neal... 
...whom many called “the American Dickens,” started his writing career with an evening newspaper The Daily Courier and ended up fostering the career of a teenage girl who became one of the primary woman authors of the 19th century. HIs work is practically forgotten. 

ABC:LHS #030   The Saturday Courier...
...was one of 19th century Philadelphia's most literate magazines.
Joseph Clay Neal, whom many called “the American Dickens,” started his writing career with an evening newspaper “The Daily Courier,” and ended up fostering the career of a teenage girl who became one of the primary woman authors of the 19th century. 
Louis Antoine Godey, whose “Lady’s Book” was struggling until he had the good sense to hire an Episcopalian woman from Boston as his editor and turned his magazine into one of the most widely circulated in the country. 
Morton McMichael, who was not only a writer, editor, and publisher, but Philadelphia County Sheriff and City Mayor, yet is little remembered today. 
The three of them came together for several years in the 1830s and 1840s to produce two moderately successful publications, and inspire another young author named Edgar Allan Poe.

ABC:LHS #029-6 James Juvenal...
...was a member of Vesper Boat Club of the Schuylkill Navy when they took the Gold.  Four years later at Olympiad III in St. Louis, he took Silver in the single scull.  And on a bet he and his girlfriend rode their bicycle from Philadelphia to New York City Hall on a bet they could be married by sundown.  

ABC:LHS #029-5   John Francis Cregan...
...was a Princeton Tiger who specialized in the 800-meter run and took a Silver in Paris. 

ABC:LHS #029-4   Edward Bushnell...
...competed in the 800-meter race but did not place high enough to reach the medal round. He later built a successful business career.

ABC:LHS #029-3    Bascom Johnson...
...was favored to win the pole vault but, as a Sabbatarian, refused to compete on Sunday.  He went on to a life in Public Health who specialized in limiting venereal disease and eliminating sex trafficking.  

ABC:LHS #029-2   Meredith Colket...
...was a gentleman athlete from one of Philadelphia's oldest families who finished second in the pole vault

ABC:LHS #029-1   Olympiad II...
...was in Paris in 1900.  It lasted several months and many participants did not even know they were in the Olympics until years later.  There was no official "Team USA" but a lot of Philly folks showed up.

ABC:LHS #029 Future Laurel Hill and West Laurel Hill residents went to Paris in 1900 to compete in Olympiad II.   
Meredith Colket was a Penn scholar who placed 2nd in the pole vault. 
Bascom Johnson was a Yale pole vaulter who failed to compete, but went on to an amazing career in public health. 
Edward Bushnell was a middle-distance runner whose name eventually became synonymous with sports at the University of Pennsylvania. 
John F. Cregan was another middle-distance man but from Princeton. 
Rower James Benner Juvenal won gold with the Vesper Boat Club three years after he eloped to New York City on a tandem bicycle. 
In perhaps the most disorganized Olympics ever, several of our residents excelled.  And find out why they were "The Zany Games," all in this episode of "All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories."

ABC:LHS #028-3   James Ernst Worrell Keely...
...was either a scientific genius far ahead of his time or, more likely, one of the nineteenth century’s great frauds. I'd put my money on the latter. 

ABC:LHS #028-2   George Robbins Gliddon...
...did more than almost anyone of his era to teach Americans about ancient Egypt, but he later became entangled in Morton’s scientific racism and in grave robbing for skulls and mummified remains. Edgar Allan Poe even wrote a story about him.

ABC:LHS #028-1   Dr. Samuel George Morton...
...was a leading figure in American anthropology and is often called the father of American invertebrate paleontology, but he also collected skulls in ways now seen as pathological, and his measurements and conclusions were later used to justify enslavement and, ultimately, racial cleansing.

ABC:LHS #028: Bad Science 
Dr. Samuel George Morton was a pioneer of American anthropology and the father of American invertebrate paleontology, but he was also a compulsive skull collector whose measurements and conclusions were used to justify enslavement and eventually racial cleansing. 
George Robbins Gliddon taught Americans more about ancient Egypt than anyone up to his time, but he got caught up in Morton’s scientific racism, as well as the thrill of robbing graves for their heads and mummified remains. 
James Ernst Worrell Keely was either a supergenius whom science has not caught up with more than 120 years after his death, or one of the great hucksters of the nineteenth century. 
Morton and Gliddon are interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery, while Keely is a permanent resident at West Laurel Hill.  All three have astonishing stories. 

ABC:LHS #027-3   Dr. Hilary Koprowski...
...was a virologist who discovered an oral polio vaccine before Salk & Sabin, but whose work fell by the wayside.  Later, through his work with monoclonal antibodies, he developed a more convenient vaccine for rabies post-exposure prophylaxis.  
Dr. Irena Koprowska was essentially a self-taught cytopathologist who worked with Dr. Papanicolau on the screening test for cervical cancer that bears his name.